An Oklahoma principal has been praised for preventing a tragedy at his high school by charging and disarming a former student armed with two semi-automatic handguns, an episode captured on dramatic surveillance video.

Kirk Moore, principal of Pauls Valley high school, was shot in the leg as he wrestled the attacker, a 20-year-old said by court documents to be obsessed with the 1999 shooting at Colorado’s Columbine high school in which 12 students and one teacher were killed.

Authorities in Garvin county, about 60 miles south of Oklahoma City, said Moore’s action of racing from his office in the school’s lobby, and throwing himself on top of the suspect, undoubtedly prevented a tragedy.

“It doesn’t surprise me the actions that he took, but it is amazing, the actions that he took,” Don May, chief of the Pauls Valley police department, told NBC News.

“There’s not a doubt in my mind that he saved kids’ lives.”

Investigators said the alleged attacker, Victor Lee Hawkins, fired several shots before he was disarmed by Moore and another staff member who arrived to help. Nobody was hurt other than the principal, who needed hospital treatment for a wound to his lower right leg.

Hawkins remained at the Garvin county detention center on Tuesday on $1m bail, NBC reported, awaiting a court appearance on 8 May. He faces charges of shooting with intent to kill, feloniously pointing a firearm and carrying a weapon to a public assembly.

The incident occurred shortly before 2.20pm on 7 April, according to an arrest affidavit signed by special agent Meric Mussett of the Oklahoma state bureau of investigation.

About 20 minutes earlier, Mussett wrote, Hawkins, a 2025 graduate of the high school, took two of his father’s weapons from a closet in their home and drove to the campus “with the intent of killing students, facility [sic], and finally himself”.

Hawkins “entered the school, pointed his pistol, and yelled for everyone to get on the ground”, Mussett said, adding that he pointed the gun at a female student in the lobby and pulled the trigger, but the weapon malfunctioned.

“Hawkins then stepped out from behind the vending machine and pointed his gun at a male student in the foyer. Principal Moore then came out of his office and charged at Hawkins.”

Mussett said Hawkins told him he wanted to “conduct his own school shooting like the Columbine shooters did”, referring to the 1999 Colorado tragedy in which two teenage assailants took their own lives after murdering students and staff.

“Hawkins did not like Moore, therefore Hawkins went to the school to kill Moore,” Mussett wrote.

A statement on its website under the heading “safe school” details Pauls Valley’s preparations for such an incident.

“Throughout the past decade… the high school has also developed and practiced safety measures to be taken should there be an intruder or dangerous individual on campus,” it said. “It is our foremost concern that our students feel and are safe at school.”

Several former students told Oklahoma City’s ABC News affiliate KOCO they were not surprised by Moore’s action.

“If some student was to get harmed, he would definitely take a bullet for him. I believe that,” Spencer Flinn said.

In a statement reported by NBC, Moore said he was grateful for “an outpouring of love and support” that followed the incident.

“Like so many educators around the country, we prepare for these events through training and careful assessment of the threats,” he said. “I am grateful that my instincts and training, as well as God’s hand, were available to me.”

Moore said he was “healthy and recovering”, and looking forward to returning to work.