Michael hill antoinette tuff biography

Dressed all in black and brandishing an AK, mentally ill gunman Michael Hill walked into an Atlanta, Georgia elementary school determined to kill. But in an amazing act of courage school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff had other ideas.

A school bookkeeper, Antoinette Tuff, convinced Hill to surrender.

Over the course of an hour the year-old mom-of-two calmly and compassionately convinced the troubled year-old to give himself up before he harmed himself or anyone else. Now those tense 60 minutes have inspired the short film, DeKalb Elementary, which has been nominated for an Academy Award on Sunday. The nomination comes amid an intense gun debate in the United States following a school shooting in Parkland, Florida , that killed 17 people last month.

Antoinette Tuff helped talk down gunman Michael Hill walked into an elementary school in Atlanta in Antoinette is thrilled about the film even though, at the time of this exclusive interview with DailyMail. For Antoinette the morning of August 20, started like any other day. She got up at 5am, read her Bible and then cooked breakfast for her then year-old son Derrick, who is partially blind, wheelchair-bound and has Charcot-Marie-Tooth, a neurological disorder.

Juggling three jobs just to pay her bills, she headed off to start her first job as a bookkeeper at Ronald E McNair Discovery Learning Academy.

Antoinette Tuff prevented a mass shooting at an elementary school last year by calming down the mentally ill gunman.

That morning she was asked to do an innocent task that could have cost her life. Antoinette says: 'My principal comes in to ask me if I can relieve the secretary in the front, while she gets her lunch. At What happened next became headline news around the world. Tuff's story is now the inspiration behind the short film Dekalb Elementary, which is nominated for an Academy Award.

As Tuff spoke to the gunman in the school's office, children were evacuated from the school and police surrounded the building. Tuff called after Hill encouraged her to do so - telling her he wanted police and media to know what he was going to do.