Shetamia Taylor, mother who shielded sons from bullets, hailed as hero

Shetamia Taylor went into straight mother mode when a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas last Thursday night became fatal. She was shot in her leg trying to escape gunfire while protecting her children. The 37-year-old mother of four sons said she completely covered the body of her young son.

Taylor survived and said she heard two gunshots before seeing an officer fall to the ground.

“He said, ‘He has a gun, run,’ ” Taylor recalled on Good Morning America before choking up with tears.

“I was running behind them, and I felt the bullet in the back of my leg,” she said. “My son went to grab me, but I was already shot so I grabbed him and lay on top of him. Police asked was anybody hit, because he didn’t know I was shot. I said, yes, but not loud enough because I didn’t want my son to hear. The officer got on top of me and covered me and my son. Another cop [was] at my feet and another [stood] by us and they protected us. I saw another officer get shot in front of me.”

According to officials, Micah Xavier Johnson killed five police officers and wounded seven others during the last Thursday’s shooting. Johnson was eventually killed when police sent a bomb-carrying robot into the building where he was holed up, after negotiations to get him to surrender failed, police said.

“Why would he do that?” Taylor said, fighting tears.

Read more from ABC News.