Amish Community Mourns Trooper Who Comforted Them During And After Schoolhouse Massacre

Amish Mourn Trooper Who Comforted Them After Schoolhouse Massacre
NICKEL MINES, PA - OCTOBER 04: (L-R) Katie Weaver mother of Veronica Weaver and Amelia Yoder who are members of an Amish community in Michigan and were in town for a wedding, stop at the one room Amish school house where the shooting took place two days prior, October 4, 2006 in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Officials have said a milk truck driver identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV entered the schoolhouse, let the boys and adults go free, tied up the girls and shot them execution style before committing suicide. Five girls are dead and at least seven others injured. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
NICKEL MINES, PA - OCTOBER 04: (L-R) Katie Weaver mother of Veronica Weaver and Amelia Yoder who are members of an Amish community in Michigan and were in town for a wedding, stop at the one room Amish school house where the shooting took place two days prior, October 4, 2006 in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Officials have said a milk truck driver identified as Charles Carl Roberts IV entered the schoolhouse, let the boys and adults go free, tied up the girls and shot them execution style before committing suicide. Five girls are dead and at least seven others injured. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Several months after the horror of the Nickel Mines shootings in 2006, Pennsylvania State Trooper Jonathan A. Smith would stop by on what would become repeated visits to the girls who survived.

“I was just kind of amazed,” recalls Amos Fisher, who was a great uncle to one of the slain girls. “The young girls that were mauled in the school, Jon would get down on his knees and they would hug him.”

Fisher and others in the tiny Nickel Mines community are mourning the loss of Smith, who acted heroically during the shootings, and then became a hero to survivors and parents for years afterward.

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