THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 10, 2008Posted on 13 March 2008 @ 15:18 GMTAs the tragic events of Thursday began to become more clear, it became increasingly obvious that the hero of the evening was Paratroopers Capt. David Shapira, a father of two young children who proved to be the right man in the right place during the bloody attack.
Shapira was supposed to have been at his base, but he left to perform errands for his battalion, trading places with another officer for the weekend.
The 29-year-old operations officer in the 890th Battalion had just bathed his children, and had put one of them to sleep when he heard explosions coming from the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva across the street.
Although he first thought the noise was from pre-Purim firecrackers, he quickly realized that the explosions were gunshots. Grabbing his service weapon, he ran out of the house toward the yeshiva where he himself had studied.
At the entrance to the yeshiva in the capital's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, Shapira ran into a group of police officers who were standing outside the building, listening to the gunshots from inside. They warned him not to go in, but Shapira pushed them aside and entered.
The officer tracked the terrorist to the library, and, according to his own account, got within two to three meters of his target. Shapira shot 16 bullets at the terrorist, immediately neutralizing him.