A mother in New Jersey is being hailed as a hero today as she has been credited with helping to stop a potential school shooting 600 miles away.
Koeberle Bull, from Lumberton, NJ, was surprised to receive a Facebook messenger message from a man who was a stranger to her. The account belonged to Dylan Jarrell from Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. He could be seen holding a gun in his profile image. The message was filled with racist and offense remarks regarding Bull’s three children, each of whom were pictured in her Facebook profile.
A screenshot of the man’s message was highly offensive, saying things such as ‘There’s no such thing as white privileged you XXXXXX autistic XXXX. I hope your black children get hung for you being so stupid…Act your race retard,’ the shocking message read in part.
Bull posted a screenshot of the racist messages on Facebook. She wrote that anyone who thinks racism does not exist, ‘look what I woke up to in my inbox this morning.’ She said she wanted her friends to share the messages and ‘make this guy famous, please.’ Bull tried to message the man but he had already blocked her. With the help of some Facebook friends, she was able to locate him and call authorities.
Bull told the media she was angry that a person could even think such a thing about three beautiful children.
Bull told the police she was unsure how the man found her online. She took action and called the Kentucky State Police to file a complaint. The Kentucky State Police said they were able to contact Jarrell last week just as he was leaving his driveway in his car, which had several guns inside.
The police said his weapons included 200 rounds of ammo, a Kevlar vest, a 100 round high capacity magazine and a detailed attack plan on his person.
The police said they thought he intended to carry out a shooting at a school nearby before he was stopped by law enforcement. Police got a search warrant and it was executed on his home. Police checked the Internet history on his computer and found an Internet history that had a search for how to do a school shooting.
According to Commissioner Rick Sanders, there was no doubt in his mind that the investigation saved lives. The young man had it in mind to go to schools and start shooting. He had the tools to do the deed and showed the intent with a written plan. The only thing that stood between him and doing this evil was law enforcement.
Jarrell, 21, has pleaded not guilty to making terroristic threats. He also has been charged with making harassing communications and is being held in the Shelby County Detention Center.
Jarrell lived in a small one story house near the athletic fields of Anderson County High School in Kentucky. He attended school in Shelby County but did not graduate; he later obtained a GED in Anderson County.
Trooper Satterly, who took the woman’s call from New Jersey, graduated from Anderson County High School and worked with the Lawrenceburg Police Department before he started with the state police, according to the Anderson County News.
Someone told Bull in New Jersey that Lawrenceburg, Kentucky may need to organize a parade for her if she ever decided to visit. Bull noted that she has hundreds of new friends on Facebook from Kentucky, but she has never been to the state. Bull said that she was angry at first about the messages, but today she has hope. The people from Kentucky who reached out to her said that Dylan Jarrell does not represent their community. These people told her that her children are beautiful and amazing, and none of them think anything bad about the children.
For her part, Bull denied that she was a hero, saying only that she was being a mom.
In Kentucky where the man lives, Anderson County Schools were closed October 19, and Shelby County Public Schools suspended activities for the day at the high school. On the Anderson County Schools website, school officials thanked police and security officials as well as first responders who were able to eliminate the threat to students and staff, and worked countless hours to ensure everyone’s safety.
At a press conference, officials in the school district also thanked Kentucky State Troopers who took Bull’s report and followed up with other law enforcement agencies to investigate the threat.
Bull said she was grateful that Kentucky state troopers had validated her concerns, even though she thought here call would lead nowhere. She thought that Kentucky law enforcement would not care about three black kids from New Jersey, but they showed they really did care.
American Problem With School Shootings
Many school shootings have made national news in recent years. According to CNN in May 2018, there were 23 school shootings in the US where someone was killed or hurt. While some of the shootings were accidental discharges of firearms or suicides on school grounds, there are certainly more school shootings than there should be. The problem is to determine how to stop them. Some say schools should have armed guards and hardened entrances into school buildings. Others say teachers should be armed, while still others want to limit the supply of deadly weapons in the country. It is a problem with no easy answers, especially with the strong history of the Second Amendment in the United States.