'I wouldn't be here': Cadets pay tribute to officer who died stopping Old Dominion shooter - BERITAJA

The ROTC cadets getting fresh to time off their people astatine Old Dominion University past period had ne'er seen the alien who entered the room, but thought possibly he was personification early for the adjacent class.

But he seemed tense erstwhile he asked whether it was an ROTC class.

“I wasn’t reasoning about what that mobility really meant,” Louis Ancheta said.

Then the man reached into his waist, pulled retired a Glock handgun, and shouted thing — immoderate heard it arsenic Allahu Akbar — and began firing, the cadets said successful a video shared online Thursday by the Army ROTC.

“My first thought was, ‘is this a drill?’ Because we conscionable talked about unit protection,” different cadet, Oshea Bego, said successful a video recounting the events of March 12, erstwhile a gunman opened occurrence connected the people astatine the Virginia university.

“And then, like, erstwhile it really started to happen, I was like, ‘Oh, this is real,’” cadet Samora Robinson said. “Everybody had dropped down to the ground.”

Mohamed Bailor Jalloh, who had antecedently been convicted of supporting ISIS, fatally changeable the instructor, Army Lt. Col. Brandon A. Shah and wounded 2 others astatine the Norfolk university, officials said. Authorities said the onslaught was an enactment of terrorism.

A makeshift memorial connected the Old Dominion University field past month.Kendall Warner / The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images file

Jalloh, 36, was besides killed. Cadets successful the video described stabbing him pinch their pocketknives during a hopeless struggle for the gun.

Shah lunged astatine Jalloh and started wrestling pinch him arsenic some men were upright and standing, Ancheta said.

Ancheta said he opened his pocketknife arsenic Jalloh fired 2 shots, and 1 of the stray shots struck him, leaving a graze wound.

“Col. Shah yet turns him around. So past aft that, I’m like, I’m ready, truthful I conscionable spell successful there,” Ancheta said. “Just commencement stabbing him. As I’m stabbing him, different cadets jump in.”

A mates of group stabbed astatine Jalloh during the struggle, and others punched astatine him earlier everyone fell to the ground, cadets said successful the video.

When they sewage the handgun distant from Jalloh, the gun’s mag was quiet and 1 information was near successful the chamber, cadet Wesley Myers said.

Shah had been changeable successful the precocious thigh. The students said they utilized a loop arsenic a tourniquet.

They called constabulary but didn’t cognize if this was the only gunman, the students said. One cadet met constabulary and led them to the segment of the shooting and the wounded.

They later learned that Shah had died.

Cadet Jah-Ire Urtarte said that Shah was almost for illustration a 2nd father. “He saw the champion successful us,” he said.

The students said that Shah had a saying: “Be bold, beryllium quick, beryllium gone.”

“If he didn’t lunge astatine him, you know, I wouldn’t beryllium present correct now,” Urtarte said.