Strangers purchase wedding gifts, honeymoon for Seattle shooting hero

Strangers purchase wedding gifts, honeymoon for Seattle shooting hero

Fans began sharing the link and purchasing gifts from his registries at Target and Crate & Barrel as a show of their appreciation and support.

Jon Meis and his future wife are receiving a flood of wedding gifts thanks to his recent heroic efforts to stop a shooter at Seattle Pacific University.

Meis, a 22-year-old student and building monitor at the university, tackled a gunman on Thursday, according to eyewitness accounts. The Associated Press reports that Meis tackled the gunman while he was reloading and subdued him with the assistance of other students.

The shooter, identified as Aaron Ybarra, allegedly killed a 19-year-old student and wounded two others during his attack on Otto Miller Hall.  As terrified students panicked and the building went into lockdown mode, Meis used pepper spray to subdue the shooter and placed him in a choke hold. Faculty and students who were in the immediate area came to Meis’ assistance and helped contain the suspect until police were able to arrive at the scene.

According to The Seattle Times, Ybarra had planned to shoot as many people as possible and then take his own life. Meis’ heroic actions potentially saved hundreds of lives. No motive for the attack has been identified or reported yet.  Ybarra was not a student at Seattle Pacific University.

Meis’ actions last week went viral on both Twitter and Facebook. A user on Twitter shared the online registry link for Meis’ upcoming wedding on June 21 and strangers began to take action immediately.

Fans began sharing the link and purchasing gifts from his registries at Target and Crate & Barrel as a show of their appreciation and support. Local news agencies also promoted the website links.

According to Fox News, a crowdfunding campaign was started to support the couple’s honeymoon expenses as yet another way to say thanks to Meis. So far, the campaign has raised nearly $15,000 and is still climbing.

“I’m proud of the selfless actions that my roommate, Jon Meis, showed today taking down the shooter,” fellow student Matt Garcia wrote on Twitter Thursday. “He is a hero.”

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