THE St. Louis high school teacher killed by teenage gunman Orlando Harris on Monday died after heroically protecting her students, her family said.
Jean Kuczka, who taught Health and Physical Education, stepped between Harris and her students when he burst into her Central Visual and Performing Arts High School classroom and opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle, said her daughter, Abby Kuczka, citing a police account of the horror.
“My mom loved kids,” Abbey Kuczka told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “She loved her students. I know her students looked at her like she was their mom.”
Harris, 19, also fatally shot tenth-grader Alexandria Bell before he was killed in a shootout with police. Survivors of the attack claim Harris tried to target more students, but his gun jammed.
The teenage gunmen left behind a note in which he called his lonely life a “perfect storm for a mass shooter.”
Kuczka, 61, had mentioned security concerns at the school in the months leading up to the shooter after a student at nearby school brought a gun into the building, her daughter said.
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