When the shooting began Thursday night in Knoxville, Tenn., Zaevion Dobson faced a split-second choice: run away and save himself or use his body as a shield to protect those around him.

Nobody would’ve have blamed the 15-year-old Fulton High School football player for doing the former. But Dobson, survivors would later recall, sacrificed himself, jumping on top of three teenage girls who were sitting on a porch with a few other friends when two men approached and began shooting randomly into the group, according to the Associated Press.

Read the article “Heroic High School Football Player Killed Shielding Teenage Girls from Gunmen” on washingtonpost.com.