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An Army staff sergeant with local ties is being credited as a hero after providing first aid to a victim of a mall shooting in San Bruno, Calif., on Tuesday.
Staff Sgt. Isaiah Locklear was working inside a recruiting office in The Shops at Tanforan. As he was talking to a future soldier who was about to undergo training, two shooters opened fire at each other, he said in a telephone interview with the Times Leader on Wednesday. Hearing gunshots, Locklear ran toward the source.
“Everyone was like running,” Locklear said, calmly describing the chaotic scene.
“I didn’t know what was going on. Was it a mass shooting or terrorist attack?. My first thought was, ‘Who was shot? ‘Who was hurt?”
Locklear, 28, is a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and was raised in Hazleton from 2006 to 2011. He has been in the Army for seven years and is a part of the U.S. Army Recruitment Command. He just started his first week at the recruiting office in San Bruno, outside San Francisco.
Outside the office Tuesday, two people fired guns at each other, injuring two boys. Locklear attended to an injured 16-year-old while another soldier, Staff Sgt. Michael Marl, helped a 12-year-old. The 16-year-old was shot in the stomach, and the bullet exited through his back, Locklear said Wednesday.
“He was laying on the floor, waving his arms. ‘I’ve been shot.’ He’s like, ‘Please. Don’t let me die. I don’t want to die. That really hit me.’ He didn’t want to die. I was telling him he wasn’t going to die. I was going to stick with [him] through it,” Locklear said to Oakland, Calif.-based KTVU on Tuesday.
In images released by the San Bruno Police Department on Wednesday, Locklear is seen removing his shirt and using it to stop the boy’s bleeding.
“I consider myself a soldier. A soldier that has to do what he has to do,” he told KTVU.
Locklear stayed with the teen, helping emergency personnel take him to the ambulance, he said Wednesday. He held the boy’s hand as he rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital.
San Bruno police posted on Twitter on Wednesday both boys have serious injuries but they are expected to survive. Upon hearing about the boys’ conditions, Locklear told the Times Leader, “I’m happy for them.”
Police also released video footage in hopes to identify the shooters, who were still at large as of Wednesday afternoon.
Locklear’s sister, Annie Mendez, applauded his heroics Wednesday with a Facebook post with a link KTVU’s coverage.
“My baby brother is a HERO!!! Hazleton raised and proud!!!” Mendez posted.
In a Facebook message to the Times Leader, Mendez, owner of Papaya Queen and House of Envy in Hazleton, praised her younger brother and the path he has taken.
“Always doing the right thing, being a good husband, father and son for his love of God and country. I’m super proud of him!! We should celebrate every story that can inspire another black, brown young men to be and do better. At the same time, it’s sad that our country is seeing more violence and crimes involving gun violence all over the country.” she wrote. “I’m so thankful nothing happened to him. He came out running without [a] weapon or life vest ready to give his life and use his body to [stop] the shooter.”
“I’m thankful he’s [OK] and that he was able to use his knowledge to help this young man,” Mendez continued in her message. “He’s such a good kid! … We need to celebrate our local young man that are doing the right thing and that have [beaten] all the odds.”
While Locklear has worked to strengthen the Army in numbers with his duties in the recruiting command, he also has a message for those in his former hometown of Hazleton and Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“I want them to see that anybody can make a change. Everybody can stop the violence and be the change,” Locklear said.
