They say a mother’s intuition is never wrong. Nothing could be more true of a mom from Lumberton, N.J., who trusted her instincts last week and helped prevent a mass school shooting before the suspected gunman left his driveway.
Koeberle Bull woke up on Wednesday morning to a racist Facebook message from a man in Kentucky. The vulgar message targeted her and her three biracial children, calling them horrible names and wishing unspeakable things on them.
Bull says it was the most hateful message she’d ever received, and it left her fearing for her 16, 11, and 8-year-old kids. She was especially fearful of the man’s profile picture in which he proudly showed off a gun.
Being that he had just made death threats against her children, Bull didn’t take the photo or message lightly, and she called local New Jersey police to file a report.
“But I felt like it wouldn’t really go anywhere, so I posted a screenshot of the message on Facebook,” she says.
With the help of some friends, Bull found out that the man was located in Central Kentucky.
Most people would take a deep breath and feel relieved, as the danger was not an imminent threat to her or her children now. But Bull’s gut was telling her otherwise.
“Something in the back of my head was like this isn’t right, like something’s not sitting well.”
Acting on her instincts, she called state police in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.
“I spoke to Officer Josh Satterly, who told me, ‘There’s no room for this kind of hate in my world,” she says. “He took me seriously.”
Local and state police followed the mom’s tip. On Thursday, officers arrived at the home of a 20-year-old man named Dylan Jarrell just as he was leaving his house with more than 200 rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest, a firearm, a 100-round high capacity magazine, and a “detailed plan of attack.”
In a press conference on Friday, Kentucky State Police revealed the suspect was headed toward two school districts in Anderson County and Shelby County.
