How To Stop A School Shooting
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Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey there, you've got to check out season two of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power. It's going to be epic.

To catch you up, Sauron has returned and nobody in Middle-earth is safe. Season 2 is all about the greatest villain of all time. And if you're like, I'm not into that stuff, think again. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. Season 2 of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video. Welcome back to Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.

Today we have something a little different for you. A few weeks ago, I spoke to a woman named Molly Hudgens. You likely don't know Molly or her story, but I think you should. Molly is a recipient of the Citizens Medal of Honor, which was first awarded in 2008 to recognize ordinary Americans whose actions, quote, epitomize the concept of service beyond self, above and beyond their call of duty, whatever it may be.

In Molly's case, her duty was as a guidance counselor at Sycamore Middle School in Tennessee, where in 2016 she came face-to-face with a potential school shooter and managed to talk him out of it. Through the course of the conversation, you'll hear in Molly many of the qualities we've tried to highlight in this series so far. Faith, humility, dedication to service, and an incredible ability to think quickly under pressure. And of course...

I'm Molly. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. You're in your office at school, right? I'm in my office at school. I sure am. And you're in Pleasantville? What's the name of the town? Pleasant View, Tennessee. Pleasant View, Tennessee. That's not where all the country stars live.

No, they do not live in this part of the world. And how long have you been teaching there? I just finished my 25th year. I have spent my entire educational career. I got hired here at 22, and so I've only worked here. Yeah. Now, were you always a guidance counselor?

No, I started out actually as a teacher. I taught seventh and eighth grade language arts for eight years before I moved to the counseling departments. So this will be my, I'll be starting my 19th year in the counseling department. Yeah. And so you, so you, you came to Sycamore straight out of...

I sure did. I was a desperation hire. Our principal had three teachers who were all leaving consecutively on maternity leave. And I was planning to be a high school English teacher. This was a middle school, but I felt like it would be a way to get my foot in the door. And so I agreed to do it. I taught fifth grade, sixth grade, and seventh grade math, language arts, science, social studies, all four subjects over the course of that one semester. And I was a desperation hire.

And by the end of it, I just loved this school so much. I didn't think I could leave. I knew the kids would come and go, but the staff probably wouldn't. And that is so true of the culture here. I mean, our principal has never worked. She's going to be starting her 30th year here at Sycamore. Never works anywhere else.

Our assistant principal has only worked in our county 25 years. I've only been here. So people tend to come here and stay. And that is such an important piece, I think, of our story is the culture that we have. People are very embedded. Why do you think people stay? What's special about the school?

Well, because it's very much a family. And just like a family, we don't always agree. We don't always get along. But people who work here want to be here. We are notorious for hiring our former students. I think we have eight of them on staff right now. People come back. It's a good place to be. You know that you're loved and cared about. And we use the word family a lot to describe Sycamore.

And so it would be hard to leave your family. So for me, it's been impossible to leave here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you'd been there for years and you had, tell me, you had had prior to what happened that day, you had been increasingly engaged with the question of school violence. Tell me a little about how did it come to your attention in that period? Yeah.

So my first year here at Sycamore was the 98-99 school year when we had six mass shootings across our country that culminated with the shooting at Columbine on April 20th of 1999. And I remember that day vividly. I went home, and that was when we had just started having 24-hour news coverage. And you could watch it all day long. And I was...

I was just fascinated, not by, I think, a lot of the details that most of the general public wanted to know about the specific situation. But what I couldn't wrap my mind around is how could two boys create a plan of this magnitude over a year's time and nobody know about it? And so I started researching, literally just Googled anything that I could find about mass shootings that had happened on school campuses. I read every book that

I think I own every book that's been written about a school shooting. All because in my mind, I thought, what if we had a kid like that here at school? What if he was in my class? Would I be able to recognize that child was in trouble? In my mind, I thought, is there a way to interrupt this process, to find them when they're young enough that you could then intervene and change that pathway, change that direction? Yeah.

And I even, I spent so much time doing research, I ended up on the Homeland Security watch list at one point. And I understand now why. Yeah. I mean, I was contacted by someone and just stated, why are you looking into so much of this?

And I think in hindsight, I mean, I even tried to find specifically writings that were taken from, at the time, those two particular attackers at Columbine because I felt like if I want to find a kid like this, I'm going to have to understand them. And I'm an English teacher. Most of what is going to come out would possibly come through writings that they would do in class and

And so that started the path. I spent 10 years doing that, recording, writing down, taking notes on everything that I knew. And I went to our director of schools and said, listen, there's only 18 school counselors in our county, but we don't really have many trainings that are geared toward what we do. You know, is it possible that I could, because by that point I'd moved to the counseling department, you know, is it possible for me to do a training? I've written one. It's called Recognizing Red Flags Training.

educator's role in preventing school violence. And it was an in-depth psychological analysis of about 30 school shooters. So I think that God was preparing me in a mighty way. He gave me 18 years of talking to kids, both in classroom settings and individually. And He gave me all this content knowledge that I had learned about psychopathy. I'd learned about psychosis. I'd learned about

even hostage negotiations and things that most people wouldn't just know in their average lives. I'd spend a great deal of time fully enmeshed in this topic for reasons I didn't understand. And to be quite honest, my family was concerned about that. You know, why would I be so focused on this? And I would just always say, I'm not sure, but I just feel like I have to know as much as I can. Yeah, I know. The whole thing is kind of crazy. It is. Yeah.

Give me a sense of what you learned from that immersion in all of that. What did you learn that prepared you for what happened that day? One of the biggest things I learned is that as adults, we spend a lot of time talking to kids, and I don't know that we listen as much as we should. And when I use the word listen, I don't just mean verbally. I mean through their writings. And I had...

an open window to some of them just based on topics we researched or we talked about or they chose to write about when they could do free writing. And I looked at writings taken from the attackers at Columbine. Several of those things were things they wrote for class assignments.

And so I think I started realizing if kids are writing about violence, especially if it's connected to prior events or prior people in history who committed atrocities, then I needed to pay attention. Those all became red flags. Did you, all these years when you're immersing yourself in this subject, do you imagine that one day you would

face-to-face with a potential shooter? You know, I've never been asked that and never really thought about it. So I'll tell you the first thing that came into my head when you asked that was I had ironically had a dream a couple of times. Now, the scenario that played out here was nothing at all like the dream I had had, but it did involve a kid bringing a gun to school and me somehow being involved in a peaceful resolution.

And I assumed at the time that that was just because I was reading so much about this and

I really thought that the intention, I really thought that God's plan was just for me to have a passion that I could go and talk to other people about to try to convince them of the importance of not just school safety, but of mental health and brain health. And I wanted people to pay attention to kids who were struggling. I felt like there were a lot that had flown under the radar that I had probably missed, you know, as a teacher. And becoming a counselor could see more of...

just in their faces and their words that they were struggling so that I could bring them in then, you know, and have those conversations. So I don't, I never really thought that that would happen here. But in the moment when I realized what was going on,

I did have a flash before my eyes. It was, you know, people talk sometimes about if you're going to pass away, sometimes your life will flash before your eyes. But for me, it was not that. It was a flash of all these things I had read and researched. And I remember thinking, you know,

You know, I was kind of like Noah. I was trying to build an ark and nobody had ever seen it rain. So people didn't really want to talk about school violence. It was kind of the head in the sand mentality that if we just pretend that it's not going to happen or we don't talk about it, we're not going to invite it in. And so I sat there in those moments when I realized how serious this was and thought, for such a time as this. And, you know, Esther is one of my favorite characters in the Bible. And I remember thinking, wow, Lord, you know,

Of all the hundreds, you know, of thousands of schools and probably as many kids or more, you know, you brought that kid to Sycamore Middle School and you brought him to me. And it's like all of a sudden I had this moment of clarity, like, this is why. And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. I still can't, as you can tell, obviously. I still stand in awe of that. Let's talk about that morning. So this is 2016. Do you remember? What's the exact date?

September 28th. And I remember that because it was the day before my 40th birthday. So it's the beginning of the school year. You're three weeks in or so. And...

And is there anything unusual about that? Is it a day unfolding like any other at the beginning? It's a day unfolding. I was training to run my first marathon, and I had run 9.69 miles that morning before the treadmill overheated and went outside to finish that last little, you know, part running around our pool just so I could say I had my 10 miles in. Yeah, Molly, I'm a runner too, but I know I recognize the signs. You're serious. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So I knew, you know, I got dressed for school. I wore clothes that later I would look down at my lap and think, you know, if I were going to die in this, if this was going to be my crime scene photo, I would have dressed better. I would have not had on this $8 skirt that I don't even like. You know, I think God gave me some moments of humor in the midst of this. But yeah, it dropped my— Wait, wait, wait. Describe it. What was the skirt you were wearing? You were wearing an $8 skirt? It was a black— You were wearing $8 skirts to work? I was.

What's going on over there? Well, because the previous day I had been in classroom guidance all day and I knew that I was going to be back in my office trying to unearth all the paperwork emails I'd gotten the day before. So I probably wouldn't be leaving it. Not many people would see me. You know, when you're about to experience the best and the worst day of your life, the biggest crisis you'll ever face, not only are you not going to be prepared for it, you most likely will not be dressed for it. So I wasn't.

you know, and I thought I was just going to be here. I knew the kids wouldn't care what I had on. You know, I'd be sitting behind my desk all day. It was a comfortable skirt, but it was a black and white palm tree printed skirts. And like I said, I didn't even really like it, but it was $8. So I bought it. I have three of them now. So,

Well, it's your lucky skirt. It's your lucky skirt, yeah. It's your lucky skirt. But yeah, I dropped my oldest son off at his coach's house because kids, if your parent's a teacher, you have to be at school first thing in the morning, way before everybody else. So he would ride to school later with his coach. I dropped our youngest son off at daycare and I came to school.

And I pulled in the parking lot, and I saw all these kids starting to gather outside. And I remember thinking, oh, my goodness, there's a kitchen on fire. What's going on? So I jumped out of the car, kind of started moving toward the kids, and realized that September 28th of 2016 was National See You at the Poll Day, the one day a year students so choose they can gather at the base of their school's flagpole for prayer.

And so my intention was to run in here, throw my things down behind my desk and run back out to supervise because you leave very many middle school kids alone for very long and something's going to happen that's going to require a lot of paperwork on the part of an adult. And so I just thought I'd run out and supervise. And that was just never meant to be because while I was here, standing here, had thrown my things down, glanced at my calendar, this young man came in.

And, um, and I had met, I recognized him immediately because I just met with him the Friday before. I remember when he came in, um, I realized his defenses were way up, but I also realized pretty quickly, I'd never seen that kid before.

And that bothered me. And I said, hey, you know, I don't think we've met. And so I kind of introduced myself. And I said, you know, I understand you're kind of new to our school. And he said, you know, yes, ma'am, I came in last year. And I said, oh, okay, well, that kind of explains it. You know, and we're newly into this eighth grade year, so just hadn't met him. And so I just told him, I just thought maybe we could kind of check in, see how things are going. And

He sat down right across from my desk here. I had two brown chairs. I've learned that some kids, if they talk to you, they want a barrier between you and them for comfort purposes. Other kids, I have a chair that sits right beside my desk because some of them, they want their knees to be touching yours. They're fine with being close to you. And so he had sat down across from me, and we had just kind of started talking. And then all of a sudden, it was kind of like the dam broke in.

And there were all these things in his life that I felt like he'd been holding onto that he just let pour out. And I kind of just scooted back in my chair and let him talk. And he did. But one of the things that inside of me in hindsight was another red flag that was raised was the fact that

he was telling me this story that I knew aspects of it were most likely not possible, that there was just enough of it that some of it could have been probable. And I remember writing some notes on the sticky note because this was a Friday and I thought, I'm going to look these things up over the weekend and see if this is even possible. But what really struck me was that

I think this kid believes this story. You know, he's weaving this together, and I think he believes himself. I know you don't want to tell me the story, but what sort of a story is he telling you? Can you give me just a sense of? Just a story about some things that he was involved in that were very adult-like stories.

Kind of like if I told you a story about me owning a Fortune 500 company. I'm sitting here. I'm an adult. I can tell you this story. I can probably create a pretty good one. But the whole time you're going to be thinking, well, I've never heard of Molly Hudgens before. So there were pieces of it that just did not seem possible. But what fascinated me was I thought,

I think this kid believes what he's telling me. And I think he believes that I believe him. And so obviously I was concerned. So, and of course I learned a lot about psychology that I would not have known otherwise. I read the works of Dr. Peter Langman, who is considered to be one of the world's leading experts on mass shootings that happen with teenagers, especially in school environments. And

Dr. Langman's work was crucial to me in the moments that this was happening because I was able to recognize, based on all of these other case studies, what I believed was a psychosis or psychoses in process and began to learn a very valuable lesson that day that reality is

is really about perspective. It doesn't really matter what's real. It only matters what people perceive to be real. And so in these moments with this child, it became crucial for me to accept his reality. And I do remember praying, you know, Lord, help me to not get lost in this.

But I had to try to meet him where he was. We use those words a lot, meet the child where they are. And that was very important. I don't think that that piece would have occurred had I not had all this background research. So he talked for 45 minutes. And I remember thinking, he's missed an entire class period. I've got to get him back to class. And so I said to him, I said, listen, you've really unburdened a lot today. You've shared a lot.

Would you like to come back maybe one day next week? And then we can meet again and talk. And he said yes, he would like to do that. And so I wrote his name on my list. That's the crucial moment. The crucial moment. Oh, sure. In this whole, I mean, I know there's much more to the story, but at that moment, you've established a connection with him and you're the safe place he can go. And that's why he comes back.

I think so. I think there were several things. The biggest one, I was willing to listen. I didn't interrupt him. I didn't challenge what he said. I didn't point out anything that I thought was a falsehood. I just listened and gave him a place to share that and then offered to listen more. And so I think you're right. It was a safe place, and that's most likely why he did come back. So you're looking at this boy. He's a boy. Mm-hmm.

And he's telling you a story that is in part, maybe part real or part fantasy. And what sort of other signs is he giving you? Is he agitated? Is he hostile to you? Is he... No. No.

Quite the opposite, actually. When I look back on that, I think about how he was very articulate. He was very bright. We made good eye contact. There was good conversation. You know, he... I did realize that I had perceived him just...

in hindsight, is a quieter student. His grades were solid. He did not have a massive disciplinary record. When we talk about a lot of these kids who commit these atrocities, one of the things that people fail to recognize is that a lot of times they are the outliers. They are not on the radar of anyone. Sometimes they are.

But a lot of the times they're not. And that is because if someone is suffering from a psychosis, they can be psychotic in one way and function perfectly normally in many other ways. They can hold jobs. They can come to school. They can do work. They can participate in class discussion. They can have friends. A lot of them become very good, especially the older they get, at covering up what they perceive to be taboo behavior.

And I think that some of the things that he was experiencing, he was testing the waters with me to see how I would react that Friday, to see if I would react strongly or if I would say, you know, well, that's not possible or if I would question what he was saying and I didn't.

And that to me was another crucial piece because, you know, you fast forward to the next week, we come back on Monday. I had this running list of kids to see. We try to see them in the order that they request to see them, kind of like they've taken a ticket, unless obviously it's a crisis situation that then involves us to bump them, you know, to the front of the line. But, um,

I never got to him on Monday. And then on Tuesday, I was in classroom guidance with eighth graders all day long. And so Wednesday morning, I just hadn't gotten to him yet. But that's OK, because he came back. We'll be back in a minute. These powerful stories of those who helped protect our country are brought to you by LifeLock, the pioneer and leader in identity theft protection.

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Is he in your office when you arrive, or are you in your office and he comes in through the door? No, I had just put my things down to go back out for the prayer at the pole to kind of supervise, and he came in.

And he said, hey, Ms. Hudgens, would it be okay if I came back to talk to you during related arts, which is the time where kids have PE or art or health? I looked at my calendar. I knew it was eighth grade. I had that at 1030. I didn't have anything scheduled for that time. So I said, hey, no problem. You just come back then. If you need a note from your teacher, you let me know. And he said, okay. And he left. And I just thought, well, I hadn't gotten to him yet. But when they come back again, you usually bump them up higher on the list. And so I thought, I'll see him first thing this morning at 1030.

And so then I went about my morning duty. I mean, it's eerie in some ways to watch myself on surveillance video. I'm walking through the hallways of the school. I stop and straighten the lanyard of one of our eighth grade teachers I'd worked with for...

you know, 20 years, never thinking at all that anything's wrong. I mean, I'm coming back to the counseling department and I'm almost skipping because I know that Glenn, my co-counselor, has prepared breakfast and we're going to eat and talk about our day. And I was in Glenn's office, which is adjacent to mine, with my back to the door when the young man came in.

And I noticed he was there because Glenn looked up from his plate. He said, well, hey, son, you know, what can we do for you? And I heard the kid say, I was supposed to meet with Ms. Hudgens at 1030, but I don't think I can wait until then.

And I remember looking at Glenn and almost like rolling my eyes. I was thinking, oh, my goodness, my breakfast is going to be cold. And then thinking that that was kind of selfish and just turning and smiling and saying, well, hey, honey, that's OK. You just head on over to my office and I'll be over there in a second. And so I remember like wolfing down, you know, the rest of breakfast and dropping the dishes in the sink and coming in and closing the door and just walking around and sitting down right here.

and just saying, well, hey, babe, what's going on? Which is how I usually start all of their conversations. And then pretty quickly, I realized something was different.

His mannerisms, his facial expressions seemed different than the week before. And I think the reason that I really recognized this was my body reacted first. My heart rate started to pound. I remember thinking that I could hear my pulse in my ears. I thought, I don't think my heart sounds like this when I'm running, you know?

And then I felt like somebody took a cup of something warm and poured it on top of my head like it was running down my body. And I remember even kind of steadying myself at the desk and saying to myself, Molly, don't faint. He was looking around the room, eyes kind of darting in different places. He seemed very nervous, which was nothing like the way he had appeared the week before.

And then he started to ask me a series of questions that obviously spiked my level of concern. He started asking if-then questions. If I do this, what are you going to do? They were terrifying. And I remember thinking, play dumb. And so I remember saying, well,

Well, honey, I don't know what I would do, but why would you do that? And frantically, I start thinking about what my options are because in that moment, I just had this thought, and I think the Lord gave it to me. It was, He's got a gun.

And then I start, I remember praying. I remember saying, Lord, if there's anything separating you from me, take it away. Because if this is it, if I'm going to die today in my office, you know, in this dress skirt I don't like, the day before I turn 40, I want to know where I'm going. I want to know I'm okay. I remember saying, take care of my boys and help me be brave. I mean, it was a 30-second prayer probably. Yeah.

And then I start trying to focus on what he is saying to me. And all the while, I'm thinking about the teachers who are right across the hall. I remember thinking about the number of students they had. I knew their backs would be to the door. And for some reason in my mind, I thought that's where he'll go first. They'll be his first victims. And it dawns on me, the only thing standing between him and them is me. And

I remember thinking, you got to do everything you can. Like, you got to do everything you can. So I start really listening to what he's saying. He would go back to rehash some of the things that he had been so concerned about the week before. All the while, I am frantically trying to think about what I will do if I can get this gun back.

Can I just pull the trigger and unload it into the ceiling? I remember, you know, but I remember looking up here and thinking we have a drop ceiling. It's a steel roof. This building was built in 1978. And I had read a lot. I knew what the trajectory of bullets would do inside of a cinder block room. And I remember thinking that that's not going to work. And I had this thought, you're going to have to talk your way out of this.

And I remember thinking, you know, for a kid who spent a whole lot of time in trouble in elementary school because I just couldn't seem to stop talking, but yet had gotten a job where I talked all day. It worked out great for me, right? And so I just remember thinking, you don't have to talk your way out of this. At one point in the conversation, he unzips his jacket and he stuck his hand inside of it. And I knew what it was. And he started tapping on something.

And I say this all the time when I tell our story. Something rose up in me. And I remember thinking, not my school. Not my school. This will not happen here. This will not. I will kill you or you will kill me, but you're not leaving that room.

And I'll tell you, I had never thought about harming anybody. I mean, I'm a counselor. But we want to help people. That's not ingrained in our DNA. But in that moment, if it was going to be him or those kids or him or one of those staff members or him or me,

It was going to be him. There was no way he was going to leave this room. I didn't know what I would have to do. I remember thinking at one point, thank you, Lord. You know, you've had me training all these months for a marathon, and I'm supposed to run in three weeks. I'm in the best physical shape of my life. If this becomes physical, I think I have a chance. But when you started to tap on that box, I remember thinking I had to take the bait. And for some reason, that made me furious. And so I looked at him, and I just said,

slightly sarcastically, I said, what are you tapping on? And I remember he kind of cocked his head to one side and he was like a pencil box. And I thought, no, it's not. I've never seen an eighth grader with a pencil box. But something again in me said, don't push, Molly. And so we just kept talking. And then at one point he looks at me and he says, Ms. Hudgens, I've got something to tell you that I bet nobody's ever told you before.

And I knew what he was going to say, but I said, well, honey, I don't know. I've been doing this job for a long time. I doubt there's anything you can tell me I haven't heard before. And he said, I bet nobody's ever told you they had a loaded gun. And again, I said the first thing that came into my head, and I think the Lord gave me this. I said, well, no, honey, they haven't, but you probably wouldn't be the first person to have one here.

And he unzipped his jacket the rest of the way and he pulled out the gun. He laid it right here on the desk in front of me with the base of the gun facing away from me. I remember reading the word millennium upside down and backwards and frantically trying to figure out. I thought it was a nine millimeter. Later, we would learn that it was a 45. That only matters in terms of the number of bullets the gun can hold. And I knew that.

Then he unzipped his jacket and he reached into the outside pocket and he pulled out an additional magazine of ammunition and he stood it up right beside the gun on my desk. And I start frantically trying to count the bullets that you can vaguely see through the side of the magazine. And then he pulls out a holster that we would later learn he had used to attach the additional magazine to his ankle.

And so he lays all these things on the desk in front of me, and it strikes me. You know, I'm like a three-foot target. And so I remember standing up and leaning out, and I put my hands on the gun, and I said, honey, why don't we talk about what's going on? Or why don't you let me take these, and then we can talk about what's going on? And he yanked it all away. He shoved the magazine and the holster back into his outer pocket where they had been to begin with, and he held a gun in his left hand, pointed down at the floor.

And so I am already like sort of halfway standing here because I'd leaned over to touch the gun. So I just stood up the rest of the way and I put my hands up and I start being flooded in my mind with all these things I've learned.

Is this a hostage or a non-hostage situation? You know, if it's a hostage situation, the goal is to lower their expectations until eventually the hostage taker realizes they're not probably going to get what they want and their best option is to leave that situation. If it's a non-hostage situation, the person already has what they want and you're not trying to lower expectations, you're trying to lower their emotions.

So I remember thinking to myself, you've got to lower his emotions, stay calm, let him feel as if he has power. So I walk around the chair that sits at the end of my desk, and I got down on my knees. And I think I heard that, get on your knees. And I realize now, you know, I was trying to put myself in a subservient position because now I'm physically lower than him, even in height.

And I remember hearing, he's right-handed. I knew he had taken the gun out with his right hand, but he now had it in his left. So I put my left hand on his right shoulder, just like to comfort him. And then I just reached over with my right hand. I interlaced the fingers of my right hand with his right hand. And I remember thinking, well, if you're going to shoot me, you're going to have to do it with your non-dominant hand. And I just started talking. I couldn't believe this was happening.

You know, you asked earlier about that. Did you ever think something like this would happen? No. But at the same time, I remember thinking a couple times, you're better prepared for this than anybody else in this building. You know, I work with some amazing educators who are very intellectual people, but I knew that none of them had researched this, studied this. So in my mind, I thought this was the perfect place if he was going to come here.

I tried to start fully engaging him in conversation and not too far into that conversation, the worst case scenario happens when I start to hear noises in the hallway and I realize the kids are changing classes. I can hear the toilet start to flush in the girl's restroom right here behind me. You can hear out in the hallway, the locker doors are slamming, the kids are talking, they're yelling to each other. And then I thought,

Get ready, because here come the teachers. I could see them out of my peripheral vision, passing the glass pane in my door. At one point, Glenn would come and stand there and look in. I

And I wouldn't make eye contact with him because I was afraid if I did, he would realize something was not right and he would come in. He stood there for probably, I don't know, 20 seconds maybe. And then he left. And later I asked him, I said, listen, I'm so glad you didn't come in. You weren't supposed to. But what kept you from that? And he said, well, Molly, I looked in there and you were down on your knees. And I thought, well, Lord, she's praying with him. She's going to be in trouble, but whatever. It's not.

He went back to his office. You're not getting in trouble in Tennessee for praying with a kid. No, I hope not. But I knew I had seven minutes. Seven minutes they were going to be in the hallways. And I tried to engage him as much in conversation as I could. I did not want him to realize how close in proximity he now was to victims or potential victims. And so as the sound started to diminish in the hallway, I remember feeling this sense of like, they're back in, they're back in, you know, they're back in classes.

And we talked some more. He realized that what he had done was already a felony. You know, bringing a loaded firearm or any firearm on a school campus is obviously against the law. He knew that. He had all these concerns about things, but...

It dawned on me that this was an even more critical situation than I first realized when he explained to me that if he did not kill people here at school, that someone was going to kill his family. And in that moment, I remember almost inhaling sharply and thinking, this is a psychosis situation.

what you were seeing on Friday that was concerning to you, probably delusions, what you're seeing right now, hallucinations, like all of that began to piece itself together. And that's when I remember saying the prayer, Lord, help me to not get lost in this. And so I started thinking, okay, Molly, what would you actually do if you really thought that there was...

Truly, there was a kid on campus whose family was in danger. What would you do? And I thought, you'd reach out to law enforcement. And so I remember telling him, you know, we've got to get someone to your home to protect your family. And I remember this look on his face that was like, she believes me. She believes me.

So I decided to work from that approach. I would love to say that I had this beautiful strategy. In hindsight, I think it was a beautiful strategy, but it was not of my creation. I know that for sure. It was like I played the best mental chess match of my life, and I don't even know how to play chess.

But I was working through everything that he would present. We talked for a long time. It starts to dawn on me that I cannot believe somebody has not come into this office. Our teachers were fairly accustomed to understanding that if the door to this office is closed, they know not to come in. I'm either meeting with a student, I'm on the phone, or there's something going on that I need a private setting.

But I still was worried. Kids were supposed to turn in junior beta fees that day. It was the last day. And I kept thinking somebody's going to come in. And so I looked at him and I said, honey, listen, I don't know what it is, but I know that God's got a plan for your life. And he stiffened in his seat and he looked down at me. And I remember he said, Ms. Hudgens, do you believe in God?

And I thought, oh, Molly, why did you say that? It's like my heart just dropped into my stomach. And then I just thought, well, if this is it, you know, I thought about Peter and I thought that this is it. I'm not going to die denying the Lord. And I was terrified. And I said, again, first thing that came to me, I said, well, honey, I do. I do believe in God, but I feel like you don't. You know, is there a reason that you don't?

And he said, Ms. Hudgens, do you know how many times I've asked for help and nobody's ever helped me? And I said, well, what do you think this is? I said, you know, maybe God wasn't telling you no. Maybe He was just telling you to wait for today. And I said, listen, I don't know what we're going to do, but I promise you two things. One, I will not leave you. And two, we're going to figure it out. And he started asking me all these questions about God.

And I remember thinking how unusual that was. Because of separation of church and state, my faith is not something I can go about and prophesy here at work. But if kids ask you questions about anything in a private setting, you can certainly tell them what you believe or what you feel. And so I did my best to answer all of his questions.

feeling inept because I didn't know the answers to some of them. But I remember in that moment, just having this thought, pray with him. What else do I have? It was like the first time in my whole life that I really, really had to put my faith where my fear was.

And so I just looked at him and I said, listen, I've got an idea. And I don't know what you think about this, but how would you feel if maybe we prayed about it? You know, you've asked me a lot of questions about God. You know, maybe we could just pray about it and ask for some direction as to what we should do. And I really thought that he would say, you know, I don't really want to do that or I'm not comfortable doing that. But he didn't. He said, I think that would be okay.

And there on my knees, holding the hand of this child. You've been on your knees holding his hand this entire time? Yeah, this is probably, I would say, maybe 45, 50 minutes in. This would last 90 minutes before it would end. And so holding his hand, I prayed the most heartfelt prayer of my life.

The whole time I prayed, his eyes were closed. I kept mine open because I was afraid not to. I was crying. He was too. I remember thanking God for everything I knew about him that I had learned, you know, the Friday before when I'd been listening. And during the prayer, I remember feeling like this pressure at my back. I thought it's just because I had been in this position on my knees for so long that

But at that moment, I just remember praying, Lord, if there is anything, if there is any negative entity affecting this situation, remove it from the equation. I felt like I was in a battle, a spiritual battle, something I had never experienced before. And I was scared, but I was going to fight, not just for the kids, not just for the staff, not even just for me, but for him as

See, what I knew this whole time is that most people who commit mass murder, before they are homicidal, they are suicidal. Their intention in most cases is to not survive their incident. Many of them are hoping their lives will be taken by law enforcement and they won't have to do it themselves. But I did not want to lose him either. And so at one point in the prayer,

He raises the gun up, and I'm thinking that he's going to shoot himself. And I remember being terrified and just thinking, what are you going to do? And then thinking, are you just going to sit here, Molly? You're just going to watch this happen? You know, can you live with that? And I knew I couldn't. And so I let go of his shoulder, and I reached out with my left hand. And I still don't know what I was going to do. I guess I maybe was just going to try to push the gun down. I don't know.

But he raised the gun all the way up over his head. And with his pointer finger still on the trigger, he scratched the top of his head with his middle finger. And I remember thinking, that is not funny. But like at the same time it was, it was like in the middle of this, you know, I teach English, right? The climax, the point of greatest emotion, height, whatever. It's like God gave me this drop of humor just to remind me like you were still in this. You were not alone. This is a good fight and you're in it.

And so he raised, you know, lowered the gun. And I remember when I finished the prayer, he seemed calmer. I had asked him several times through the course of this about giving me the gun. And every time he would say, Ms. Hudgens, I want to give it to you, but I just can't. And so the prayer ended and it was like this moment of just kind of what's next. You know, we are sweating profusely. Still sitting here, if I really think about it, I can smell it.

like I'm just adrenaline and all that that's released in a moment like this. And I had been praying like, Lord, I need some kind of opening. And I remember that he looked up and I had a medal hanging up on the wall right up here that was from a 5k. And he just said, I forgot that you like to run. And we started talking about running and,

And I just thought, here's your opening. And I said, I said, yeah, honey, I said, you know, I told you guys yesterday in classroom guidance, I'm training for that marathon and I had to run 10 miles this morning. I said that, you know, really wreaks havoc on the knees. And he wanted me to go back and sit at my desk. He thought I would be more comfortable. And I just said, I can't do that. I can't leave where I am. I'm going to stay right here no matter how much my knees hurt until you until you give me that gun.

And he said, well, I think maybe I want to give it to you. And then I had this thought, if he gives that weapon to me, then he's going to feel like he's giving up his family. And so I looked at him and I said, well, listen, why don't you let me take it? And then you don't have to give it to me. And he said, okay, I think that'd be okay. And he leaned over and put the safety on.

And I remember leaning over him and taking the gun and, and I just put my arms around him and we just hugged each other, me on my knees and him in his chair. And, and I'm patting him with one hand. And I remember telling him how much I loved him, how proud of him I was. I remember saying, you know, the right thing is never easy, but it's still the right thing. And the whole time I'm holding what I now know is a fully loaded gun just because of the heaviness of it. And, um,

We stayed like that for a long time. I remember watching the clock. I still have it on the wall back there. An elementary teacher told me one time, if a kid ever hugs you, don't let go until they do. And I'll tell you, I do that with everybody. If somebody hugs me, I never let go until they do. They must need it. And so we stayed that way for a long time. I remember during that just thinking, just hold him like he's yours, Molly. Just hold him like he's yours. I had two boys, so I understood that.

And finally, when he let go, I stood up. I remember like the blood from my legs like ate horribly. Like I guess all the circulation, the blood running back through my legs. And I remember thinking, though, you've never seen or read about a school shooter who only has one weapon. And so it was my assumption that there were more. And so I said to him, why don't you give me all of it?

And I was hoping if there were other weapons, he would give me those as well. But he gave me, I already had the gun. And so he gave me the magazine and the holster. I walked back around my desk right here. And in the corner, I had two filing cabinets and I wore one.

the key to one of them around my neck on my lanyard. I still do, actually. I don't have the filing cabinet, but I still have the key. And I remember going up and unlocking the drawer and like pulling it out and making a dent in my purse and thinking, I can't believe I'm making a dent in my purse to put a gun. But then putting it in there and closing the drawer and locking it and like the key falling back around my neck and literally thinking, that's one away.

And so I walked back around and sat beside him because there was another chair adjacent to his. And we just started talking. We probably talked for 15 more minutes. He wanted to know what I was going to do. He wanted to know what was going to happen to him. I couldn't answer any of those questions. So I stayed on the path that I had taken earlier with we have to protect his family. And I said to him, I said, honey, listen, I have got this friend who works in law enforcement and

And I think he can help us. His name is Chris. And I said, would it be okay with you if I called him? And he said, yes, ma'am, I think that would be okay. And so what he didn't know was that Chris was the first name of our student resource officer. At the time, we had one SRO that covered four schools in our county. So we only had three countywide. I knew there was only a 25% chance that Chris would be here.

But I called him, and I'll never forget when he answered the phone because I was so relieved. And I said, you know, hey, it's Molly. Is there any chance that you're at the middle school today? And he said, well, actually, I am, but I'm in the conference room. I'm meeting with some parents. Can I call you back in a few minutes? And I said, well, this is kind of urgent, but...

But, but because the whole time the child is sitting across from me looking at me and I am terrified he is going to jump up and bolt out the door. And so I said, yes, that'll be okay. But if you'll just come down as quickly as you can. And so as soon as we hung up the phone, I realized that nothing in my voice, nothing about the words I'd chosen would have been any indicator to Chris on the other end of the line that this was an emergency. Although I was hoping he would read into something. And so I,

I looked at the child and I said, honey, would it be okay with you if I sent a text message to my husband to let him know that Bradley has baseball practice after school today? That was our oldest child.

And he said, well, yeah. And so I sent a text message to Chris and it said, I've just taken a loaded gun off of a child in my office. He doesn't know that I've contacted you. It's locked in a drawer. Please come down quickly. And I remember watching the screen fade to black and just hoping it went through. You know, old building, still roof allows for terrible cell signal.

And so I remember I even got on our student management system and said, honey, do you have any missing assignments? And he looked at me like I'd lost my mind. And I did. I printed them off, went through everything the kid was missing in language arts, math, science, and social studies, just trying to buy some time. And at the end of that, he said, Ms. Edgings, I think I'm just going to go back to class. And I said, no, let me try one more time. So this time I made the decision to call our assistant principal.

I knew that I could have a conversation on my end that would make absolutely no sense on her end and that she would get somebody, she would know something was not right. And so when I called her office, Chris, the SRO, answered her phone. And I said, hey, it's Molly. I said, you know, I know you're working on something earlier. Can you

come on down now? And he said, well, we've actually had to move into the vice principal's office in order to review some bus footage from the incident. And I can tell he's a little frustrated because, you know, he is hard at work here trying to investigate a situation and I continue to interrupt. So I said, well, listen, can you check your messages? Because I sent you an email or a text or something. Can you see if you got that? I'm having trouble getting those out today.

And he looks at his phone and he says, Molly, I don't have anything from you. And then he said, well, actually, I just got a text message. And he read the first line of it. And he said, I want you to stay on the phone as if we're still having a conversation and I'm on my way. And I remember seeing him up here, his face coming through that glass pane and just thinking, you're not alone. Wish I hadn't been alone, you know. But now it's like I had a person with me.

And Chris came in and conducted the most gracious and kind interview. The child told him the same story he told me. And then he looked at Chris and he said, I went to Ms. Hudgens because I thought she was the only person that could talk me out of this. And I remember thinking, if I live to be 100 years old, I will never get a compliment any greater than that one.

So I was allowed to stay with him the whole time. I wanted to leave school with him. But Chris said to me, Molly, your job is done. And so I stayed.

I wrote a statement for the police. Central office came. They wanted me to go home. They felt like I should be able to take the day off or take a couple days. And I remember saying, well, who's going to do bus duty if I'm not here? Like, just stay in the course, right? And I did. I stayed all day. I did bus duty. I went to baseball practice. It was Wednesday night and I went to church. And I came back the next morning, got up and ran eight miles, slept like a baby.

Got here the next morning and remember thinking, I'm so glad the flag is not at half staff. And it wasn't until I got to my door and I was kind of shaky, like trying to put the key in that I remember saying, oh, good grief, Molly, it's an office. Go on in. It would take me a while to realize that most people who experience a traumatic event don't normally return to the city of the crime and, you know, work for seven or eight hours. And then I wouldn't see him again for a month.

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On that Friday after this happened, one of our eighth graders came to me and said, Ms. Hudgens, are y'all going to talk to us about this? Are we just going to like sweep it under the rug and act like nothing happened?

And I went to the principal and said, I want to talk to all the eighth graders. So I put them all in our cafeteria. There were about 200 of them. And I remember standing on something. I think it was a chair just so they could all see me. And I remember saying, nobody knows what happened in my office this week except for me and this other student. And so I want to answer any questions you all have because I want you to know the truth. They ask questions for almost an hour.

I would not tell them who he was. I knew that over the course of time, they would probably figure out who he was based on just who did not return to school from an extended absence.

But I remember saying to them, "Do you guys remember the guidance lesson that we talked about on Tuesday before this happened?" And it was a lesson on September 11th. Our kids were not alive on September 11th, so there's a lesson called "One Life Can Make a Difference," and it's about Wells Crowther, who lost his life in the World Trade Center rescuing people.

And so it was a lesson on how anybody can do something to help someone else. You just have to be willing and available and recognize that need. And so I talked to them about that. And I reminded them that one of the takeaways they were supposed to get is that sometimes

there may be somebody who's struggling and they may not know how to ask for help or they may be afraid or embarrassed or ashamed to do that. And I remember saying, that's where you have to stand in the gap for them. You come and tell me and we'll figure out what to do.

And then I remember telling them, sometimes that person may be you. You may be the person who's struggling and you may think nobody can help you. But if you come to me, we'll figure out something. So I told them all, I said, you know, he did on Wednesday exactly what I told you guys to do. He was struggling. He was going through something. He did not know what to do. And he came to me for help. And I said, so here's what we're going to do.

We are going to protect him. And I remember telling them they could talk to anybody at school, their family, me, anybody on our staff about what had happened. But I remember saying, we're not going to talk about this outside of our school family. And you want to talk about miracles. Those two eighth graders never told his name. So it was never published. The media never descended on his home. His family never had to move.

But I only got to see him one more time. I got subpoenaed and I had prayed that I wouldn't. I did not want any consequence he received to be connected to me. And I got there for court and the judge saw me and he said, I need to talk to you in my chambers. And we went in and he said, Ms. Hudgens, I just went to a training in Memphis a month ago.

And you presented. And I said, yes, sir, I did. And he said, on school shooters. And I said, I know. And he said, I can't believe this. And I said, I can't either. And he said, well, we're going to do something different. You're not going to testify. He said, I'm going to bring in the prosecutor and the defense attorney. And I just very simply want you to tell them what happened in your office that day. And I guess I needed to tell it because I reenacted it. I got down on my knees and held hands with the prosecutor.

And at the end of it, I remember everything had changed. You know, she had come in like ready to prosecute and he had come in ready to defend. And all of a sudden it was different. And I remember one of them said to me, what do you think we should do? I said, I think we should get help for him. He came to me and he asked for help. And I promised him I would see this through to the end. And I remember saying,

Whatever we do is going to set a precedent. And I would really love for our little town in the middle of nowhere to get it right. And I knew that if he went to jail, the course of his life would be changed forever. And I wanted more than anything for him to have a second chance. And I believed if we could protect his identity, he could have that. And they listened. And they made the decision that he would go to an inpatient mental health facility. I remember asking them,

The one ask I had that day is if it was okay with him, if I could see him or speak to him again. And he still had on the same clothes he'd had on that day. Obviously, when he left here, he had worn other clothing at the facility where he was kept. So it was very real. Same shirt, same pants. And he was handcuffed and he was shackled around his waist.

And he had shackles around his ankles. So I remember like whispering to one of the deputies, is all of that necessary? And he looked at me and he said, Molly, do you know what he did? And I said, I guess I'll always be a little too close to it. So he was seated on my bench. Our courthouse is very old and it even has some benches that probably came from a church. They look like a church pew. And I'm

I remember he was seated and because of his hands, he couldn't stand up on this without help. And so before I even thought about it, I just got down on my knees right in front of him. And I remember holding his hands and he never spoke. I don't, I honestly don't think he could. But I looked at him and I told him all the things I said in my office, that I loved him, that I was proud of him. And I reminded him.

that I was going to be there until the end. I would see this through the end, and I remember saying, I said, listen, I don't know what that's going to look like. I don't know how much I will be able to be involved, but I promise you, I will be here. And I got up, and I left, and I've never seen him again. On the fourth anniversary, a lady called me from our community. She had worked at our school, so she knew who the child was, but she and her family owned a small business.

And she had no idea this was the fourth anniversary of this incident. And she said to me, Ms. Hudgens, she said, the young man who was involved in the incident at school has applied for a job at our business.

And she said, we really try to hire people who struggle. Maybe they don't have family or they just don't feel like they fit in. And she said, I really feel like this would be a good place for him. But we won't hire him if you don't want me to. And I cried and I said, do you know what today is? It's the fourth anniversary. And I said, and you're calling to ask me to give him a job reference? Yes, hire him. Please hire him. And she did. She did. Um...

I thought many times about going to the business, you know, just like showing up. I wanted to see him so much. I just wanted to know that he was okay. I just wanted him to know somebody still cared about him. But something in me just said, don't push Molly. And so...

When our book came out about our story, he found out from someone about the book. And a person came to me and said he would really like a copy of that. I think I can get that to him. And I said, well, I will give him one. And so I remember I wrote in the cover everything I ever wanted to say to him. And I remember I wrote in there, listen, I don't know if you ever want to talk about this again. So I'm not going to try to find you. I promise.

But I also want you to know that if you ever want to talk about this for the rest of your life, I will be here and you know where to find me. And I really thought, I think I really hoped that he would read that book because the last chapter is all for him. And I thought he would read it and then like send me an email or reach out or something. But I had to realize that

The way I experienced his incident was not the same way that he did. And I don't know how he feels about it. And that's okay. I wanted him to have a second chance, whatever that might look like. And he got that. And there is a great joy for me in knowing that. This September will have been eight years. And even though he has lived so closely to me, I've...

I've never seen him again. And I figure that one day, if it's God's will and in His timing, that I'll run into him somewhere. It'll probably be, you know, pumping gas or at a grocery store. And I hope that when I do, that he'll know how happy I am to see him, how grateful I am that he's okay. I want to hug him. There's so many things I want to say to him. And I want to hear still. I've

I still want to listen to what he experienced and what he went through as he healed. But if that is not meant to be, if that is not the case, then I have accepted that I did my part. I played the role I was supposed to in his life, and I'm content with that. Well, this has been extraordinary. I have only one last question for you.

For what you did, you were awarded the Citizens Medal of Honor, and I'm just the nation's highest award for courage. Can you just tell me what you think? What's your definition of courage? Wow. Courage is rising up and doing something when you don't think that you can. It's standing in the gap when you think that you're probably not enough. It's knowing that you might lose everything, but hoping everything.

that you won't. And it's depending on a higher power to give you what you need to finish the job you were prepared to do. You see, the Medal of Honor recipients, I believe they were all chosen. I think God chose each one of them, particularly for their incident. I don't think anybody else in history could have performed the acts of heroism and bravery that they did on the day that they did and the way that they did.

Many of them are great men of faith, and their stories are what led me to start to feel as if I could share my story. And with the Citizens Honors, we have a multitude of recipients who are posthumous recipients who lost their lives in schools. And I wear a bracelet every single day that has all their names on it.

Just to remind me that they were not gifted a 90-minute intervention. They went directly towards an attacker in their schools, and they lost their lives doing it. And so when I share our story, I feel as if I represent them differently.

I know that I will never feel like I fit in a category with any of the citizen or the military recipients. But I know that as long as I'm alive, I can tell their stories and I can remind people of their heroism. And when you look at the Medal of Honor recipients and you look at the faith that they shared, I can't help but think about Gary Beikirk, who

Went back to school after Vietnam, after he received a medal and got a master's degree in counseling and became a school counselor in Greece, New York for 34 years. You know, they prepared me for how to go forward in this life, knowing that while some people would perceive what I did as heroism, other people would think I just got lucky. I always say, I didn't get lucky. I got rescued. Yeah.

And there's a big difference. Molly, where's the medal? It's right here.

I knew you might want to see it. So with the military recipients, with the citations that are written for the Medal of Honor, they all say that they have gone above and beyond the call of duty, which is why that's here. But the engraving that is on this is the same engraving that's on the sarcophagus of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. And the reason they did that was to marry the idea that heroism is not just a military concept. It's something that happens every day to people across the country.

Yeah, and of course, if I tilt the computer just slightly, you all can see there's, you know, I've been given more accolades and things than I could ever, you know, have in a lifetime. But they're nothing compared to just the opportunity to still be here, you know, and get to tell the story and share it with people. And so thank you for this opportunity. Not at all. I appreciate it. Well, this has been fantastic. Have a lovely day. Hug those boys for me. I will. I will.

Original music by Eric Phillips.

If you want to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be sharing photos and videos of the heroes featured on the show. We'd also love to hear from you. DM us with a story about a courageous veteran in your life. If you don't know a veteran, we would love to hear a story of how courage was contagious in your own life.

You can find us at Pushkin Pods. I'm your host, Malcolm Gladwell. The powerful story you heard today was brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection. Your personal info is in a lot of places that can accidentally expose you to identity theft.

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This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey there, you've got to check out season two of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power. It's going to be epic.

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