Aaron Ybarra, 26, allegedly opened fire Thursday at Seattle Pacific University, killing one person and wounding three others. The rampage only stopped when 22-year-old student Jon Meis tackled Ybarra.
Meis also pepper sprayed Ybarra and, along with other students, confined him until the police caught up. Investigators called Meis a hero and said they were in awe of his selflessness.
The shooting happened just two weeks before Meis' wedding. As people learned of his heroism, they wanted to thank him and began buying the gifts on his wedding registry.
Random strangers shared the link to Meis' registry online.
Here is the wedding registry of the guy who stopped the SPU shooter yesterday. You know what to do. http://t.co/EZtwIzWOUr
So Jon Meis, the hero of the #SPUshooting is getting married in 15 days, here is his registry: http://t.co/pFWRnoGvM1 #prayforSPU
This is the wedding registry for the man who subdued the SPU gunman. You know what http://t.co/Qk6ErcUHQW [http://t.co/kPeYWVhrTs] #Seattle
Want to give back to the brave soul that helped take the gunman down at SPU? Here's his wedding registry! Show love! http://t.co/ZrDQTEp2Hu
Meis and his fiancé registered at Target and Crate & Barrel. By Friday, people had purchased every single item on Meis' registry that they could buy online.
But even after all the gifts were purchased, people still wanted to thank Meis. Jessamyn McIntyre — who tweeted that she doesn't know Meis — was one of those people and started a crowdfunding campaign for Meis' honeymoon.
People asked why I started the fund page for Jon Meis. I don't know him, and nobody asked me to do it. People found his registry (cont)
(cont) online for his wedding and bought all the presents they could. Then started to wonder what else they could do. The page was (cont)
(cont) is where they could do so. The community support for Jon has been so strong, and I wanted to give it a place to continue.
The campaign quickly spread online and in local media. It reached its goal of $5,000 within hours.
Seven hours...and already over $5K has been raised for Jon Meis. I've said it over and over...Seattle is awesome http://t.co/2VrHY9taNy
