A Florida State University student who survived a campus shooting Thursday owes his life to a Nebraska professor who had a lot to say about a 14th century English theologian.
Jason Derfuss had just checked out a thick volume entitled “John Wyclif” by Stephen Lahey to write a paper for a religion class when an unhinged lawyer stormed the school library and started shooting.
“The shot I heard behind me I did not feel, nor did it hit me at all,” the 21-year-old senior posted on Facebook. “He was about 5 feet from me, but he hit my books. Books one minute earlier I had checked out of the library, books that should not have stopped the bullet.”
But Lahey’s book — 304 pages published by the Oxford University Press as part of its Great Medieval Thinkers series — did just that.
Myron D’Shawn May’s shot pierced Derfuss’s backpack and another book before it lodged in the pages of the Lahey’s tome.
Derfuss said he didn’t realize it until three hours later.
“I never thought to check my bag,” he wrote. “I assumed I wasn’t a target.”
Lahey, who teaches classics at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, said he was horrified by the FSU shooting and “absolutely floored” to learn that his book helped save a young man’s life.
“That’s what happens when you write impenetrable prose,” he told The Daily News.
May, 31, was later killed by cops, but not before wounding two students — one of them critically — and a school employee.
“We have not found any info at this time why (he) chose this morning to act (or) why he chose to attack our library,” said Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo.
But May “was in a state of crisis,” DeLeo said, citing the cellphone, journal and videos they confiscated from May’s car.
“He referred to government targeting,” the police chief said. “He was searching for something.”
May invaded the Strozier Library at 12:30 a.m. while hundreds of students were cramming for exams. But he didn’t get past the security desk before he started shooting with a .380 semi-automatic pistol, DeLeo said.
“I ran for my life,” said freshman Allison Kope, who was on the library’s first floor. “I ran right out the backdoor. My laptop and everything is still in there.”
Senior Sarah Evans said she froze when she found a man lying on the ground, bleeding from the leg.
“I’ll never forget the look on his face,” she said. “He yelled, ‘I’ve been shot. There’s a gun’.”
Meanwhile, May retreated back outside where he was confronted by FSU campus cops who told him to put down his gun. He refused.
“The gunman fired a shot at the officers and they returned fire, killing the suspect,” Tallahassee Police spokesman David Northway said.
Freshman Nikolai Hernandez, who was in his dorm room across from the library, said he heard five or six rapid gunshots.
“It was a consecutive bop, bop, bop, bop, bop,” he said.
Police did not release the name of the wounded, all of whom are male. Two are still being treated at Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare and the third, who suffered a graze wound, was treated and released.
May was a 2005 FSU graduate and a Bible-quoting Christian who had been working as a lawyer in Texas and New Mexico.
While at FSU, he had two minor brushes with the law. He was stopped on suspicion of smoking marijuana and the victim of a car burglary, police said.
At Texas Tech University’s law school, May was a stellar student who worked on the law review, was a leader with the National Black Law Students Association, and a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.
After graduating in 2009, May went west and his life started falling apart.
Last month, May was hit with a harassment complaint by former girlfriend Danielle Nixon, who told cops the lawyer had recently developed “a severe mental disorder” and believed police were bugging his house and car.
Three weeks ago, May returned to the Tallahassee area.
“He was having some financial issues and moved back home and decided he’d come back to Florida to work,” said Abigail Taunton, who had known May since he was 13 and who runs the foster home where the gunman spent his teen years.
“He’s just a boy our kids grew up with that we let stay in one of our guest houses for a while,” she said. “We were trying to help him get on his feet.”
Taunton said she was “astounded” that May would attack his old school.
“Obviously, he was not in his right mind,” she said.
With Nina Golgowski and News Wire Services.
