Oklahoma principal tackles gunman, stops school shooting, protects students

Kirk Moore said the gunshot outside his office turned an ordinary afternoon at Pauls Valley High School into a fight for students’ lives, and that his response came from nowhere but instinct. In a CBS News interview, the Oklahoma principal said, “It was a typical day until the gunshot outside of my office,” then added that after 37 years in education, “you go through trainings and drills and what you should do. That all goes out the window.”

Moore tackled the gunman on April 7, 2026, just after 2 p.m. local time, when investigators said 20-year-old former student Victor Hawkins entered the school armed with two pistols. Court documents said Hawkins told investigators he wanted to carry out a school shooting like Columbine and wanted to kill Moore. Officials said Moore was shot in the lower right leg during the struggle, but he kept Hawkins pinned until law enforcement arrived. No students or staff were injured.

Moore said he did not initially realize he had been shot and only understood it after feeling blood. He was airlifted to a hospital and later returned home to recover. In the same interview, Moore said, “I think God’s hand was on all of us,” a reflection on how narrowly the school avoided a wider tragedy. Pauls Valley High School students returned to class on April 10 with extra security available.

The episode has turned Moore into a symbol of split-second intervention and the limits of school safety measures when violence breaks through the front door. His own account shows both sides of that reality: training matters, but in a fast-moving attack it can collapse into instinct, movement and proximity. Moore’s decision to close the distance on Hawkins prevented him from reaching students, even as the principal paid for that choice with a gunshot wound.

The support that followed has been as broad as the fear that preceded it. Students later crowned Moore prom king, and more than $20,000 was donated to a GoFundMe set up for him before he redirected the money into a Principal Kirk Moore Fund at the school to support graduates. Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores, OERB, The People of Oklahoma Oil and Natural Gas and Hobby Lobby also announced a combined $50,000 donation to that fund. The National Association of School Resource Officers plans to honor Moore with its National Award of Valor, giving national recognition to a principal whose actions left no doubt about how close Pauls Valley came to catastrophe.