This is Aaron Feis, a Football coach at Parkland High School who stepped in front of students when the shooting began taking several bullets. He's currently in critical condition. Make him more famous than the shooter.
Aaron Feis had several titles at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School: Football coach. Security guard. Proud alumnus.
Now, after the mass shooting at the Parkland, Florida, school, a grieving community is calling him something else: a hero.
"It is with Great sadness that our Football Family has learned about the death of Aaron Feis. He was our Assistant Football Coach and security guard," Marjory Stoneman football said on Twitter. "He selflessly shielded students from the shooter when he was shot. He died a hero and he will forever be in our hearts and memories."
Feis was one of the 17 people killed at the school on Wednesday, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters on Thursday.
By late Thursday afternoon, authorities released the names of all 17 dead.
They are: Feis, 37; Peter Wang, 15; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Luke Hoyer, 15; Alaina Petty, 14; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Alexander Schachter, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Helena Ramsay, 17; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Cara Loughran, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; Meadow Pollack, 18; Gina Montalto, 14; Scott Beigel, 35; and Christopher Hixon, 49, the school’s athletic director.
The death toll, witnesses said, would have been even higher had it not been for Feis. They said that when the gunfire broke out, Feis quickly draped himself over students, acting as a human shield.
"He shielded two kids from being shot. He took the bullets himself," Julien Decoste, a student who survived by hiding in a closet with classmates, told NBC News. "As I was being escorted out of the building, I had to step over him. Right then and there ... I knew: He had to have been dead or injured."
The sheriff could not confirm those details, but said: "When he was killed tragically, inhumanely, he died protecting others, because that's who Aaron Feis was."
"I know Aaron personally," Israel added at a news conference Thursday. "I coached with him, my two boys played for him. I don't know when Aaron's funeral is, I don't know how many adults will go, but you'll get 2,000 kids there. The kids in this community loved him. They adored him. He was one of the greatest people I knew. He was a phenomenal man."
On Wednesday evening, Feis' sister, Johanna Mahaffey, said that she had learned from another coach that Feis jumped in front of students and took a bullet for them — which she said was indicative of his personality.
"He is a protector, a coach and an educator" who will do anything to protect kids, Mahaffey said.
Feis was rushed to the hospital, but did not survive.
His sister said he had been a football coach at Stoneman Douglas for more than 10 years and had played football there himself as a student.
Details from stunned relatives emerged about others who died. Fred Guttenberg, a father of two Stoneman Douglas students, described his heartache via Facebook over the death of his daughter, Jaime.
"My heart is broken," Guttenberg's post began. "Yesterday, Jennifer Bloom Guttenberg and I lost our baby girl to a violent shooting at her school. We lost our daughter and my son Jesse Guttenberg lost his sister. I am broken as I write this trying to figure out how my family gets through this."
His post ended with: "Hugs to all and hold your children tight."
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