“Heroic” officer thwarts mass shooting at Illinois school

“I could not be more proud of the police officer and the way he responded to the situation. With shots ringing out through the hallways of the school, he charged toward the suspect and confronted him head on. Because of his heroic action, countless lives were saved.”

This is how Steve Howell Jr., police chief of Dixon, Illinois, described the actions of Mark Dallas, a school resource officer who stopped a shooting yesterday. The suspect, a nineteen-year-old former student named Matthew Milby, opened fire inside Dixon High School. The officer then confronted him near the school gym, where seniors were gathering for a graduation rehearsal.

The gunman ran out of the building after Dallas approached him. When the officer gave chase, the suspect fired several rounds at him. The officer returned fire at the gunman, who suffered non-life-threatening injuries and is now in custody.

Mark Dallas is truly a hero. However, real heroes don’t generally see themselves that way. They say they were just doing their job or doing what anyone would do. The fact that they believe they’re not heroes is one of the reasons they are.

Here’s another example: a truck driver in Oklahoma bought a cheeseburger and left his waitress a $1,000 tip. He returned an hour later to order pie and left her another $1,000 tip.

His explanation: “We talked about the Lord and about her life and her children. I got the impression that she was having a hard time of it, so I thought I’d just help her out a little bit.”

Rats in the cellar

In our culture, fame is often confused with heroism.

It’s not that athletes, movie stars, and politicians cannot be heroic. It’s that they’re not heroes simply for being athletes, movie stars, or politicians.

Heroism happens in the moment. We can train and prepare, but when the challenge comes, we must decide. In that moment, what we do defines who we are.

C. S. Lewis noted: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of…