Guard walks police through heroic gunbattle at church

By Hector Gutierrez, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Evan Semon / The Rocky

Jeanne Assam, 42, stands in a hallway at New Life Church, where she shot gunman Matthew Murray.

Jeanne Assam returned Tuesday to the long corridor at New Life Church where on Sunday she had shot a gunman advancing on the crowded church with an assault rifle. She likely prevented a massacre.

Assam, 42, stood alongside Colorado Springs police homicide Detective Mike Happ and staff Pastor Mike Steczo to piece together the moments leading to the confrontation with Matthew Murray.

At one point, Assam walked to the entrance of the church's theater, which primarily is used for children's events, and positioned herself behind a wall. Assam then peered out from behind the wall in her re-enactment and maneuvered her hand like a gun.

Sunday afternoon, Assam, armed with a handgun, had engaged Murray, armed with an assault rifle, in a brief gunbattle.

Assam met with Colorado Springs detectives for most of Tuesday, going over her movements inside the church. She declined to speak with reporters.

The likelihood that Assam saved the lives of scores of people Sunday has reverberated around the country, with many hailing her as a hero.

Assam's hero status has put her image on national television news shows, and that was after she was introduced during a news conference at the Colorado Springs Police Department as a volunteer guard who rendered the crazed gunman helpless.

"She has been with the police since early this morning," Pastor Rob Brendle said Tuesday. "Her stance is that she unequivocally won't do interviews today."

Brendle said that after a series of interviews on national television Monday night, "she nearly passed out" because she was able to sleep only a couple of hours. Assam also was traumatized by the confrontation with the gunman, who killed four people and wounded five others at the New Life Church and at the Youth With A Mission Training Center in Arvada.

Her national celebrity brought a piece of her past to public attention.

Assam was fired by the Minneapolis Police Department in 1997, after four years on the force, for lying during an internal investigation, according to Sgt. Jesse Garcia, a Minneapolis police spokesman.

New Life Church Senior Pastor Brady Boyd said Tuesday that church officials were aware of Assam's firing when she was added to the volunteer security detail.

He said that church officials were influenced by the fact that Assam still had a license to carry a gun and was licensed to work at other police departments.

"If you go back in any of our pasts, you can dig up something on any of us," Boyd said. "She admittedly made lots of bad decisions but only in the past few months did she become a devoted follower of Christ. Her life has changed. She was let go, but that happens every day to good people."

Boyd said that Assam should not be "convicted or crucified for being a heroine."

"That's why a lot of people don't get involved - for the scrutiny after the fact," he said. "She did the right thing at the right time."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

• December 12, 2007

  11:30 a.m.

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  davehughes writes:

  Yep, just as I said the evening I watched Jeanne Assam's explanation at the press conference when the media was clamoring to find out who the 'security guard' who stopped Murray, that we had a modern 'Joan of Arc' in our midst. Totally committed to her religious faith, an attractive woman, who calmly did what nobobody else (including two OTHER armed guards) did confronting heavily armed Murray, and succeeding.

  And I also said, just like Joan of Arc after her heroic deeds was burned at the stake, that Jeanne - Joan of Arc - Assam would be burned at the MEDIA STAKE. And she sure has, as the bottom feeding scavanger press dragged up everything she did wrong in her past (what does the fact that she was fired in Minnesota have to do with what she did in Colorado? Why is THAT 'news?)

  I'm surprised that the press INCLUDING the Rocky Mountain News, to wring every rating-ounce out of the story, hasn't started reporting on her sex life and why she isn't married.

  You disgust me, Rocky Mountain News!! As I am disgusted with the rest of Media of which you are a part.