New Life Church Member and Security Guard Shoots Murray

Jeanne Assam, a church member who volunteers as a security guard, shot Murray, who was found with a rifle and two handguns, police said.

Assam, a former police officer and a member of New Life Church, said she was inside the church when she heard gunfire from the parking lot.

“The shots were so loud I thought he was inside and he wasn't even inside yet,” KUSA reported Assam said on Monday afternoon. “There was chaos. There were a lot of people in the church.”

“I saw him coming through the doors and I took cover. And I waited for him to get closer and came out of cover, and identified myself and engaged him and took him down,” she said.

Assam repeatedly gave credit to God during her news conference on Monday, saying God was with her.

“I was given the assignment to end this before it got too much worse,” KUSA reported she said. “I said, ‘Holy Spirit, please be with me.’ I did not run away and I didn't think to run away. My hands weren't even shaking.”

KUSA said she added, “God was with me, and I asked Him to be with me and he never left my side,” she said. “I was very focused and it was chaotic. It was so loud. I'll never forget the gunshots. It was just so loud.”

Assam sent her condolences out to all the families who were affected by the shooting, including Murray's.

She appeared along side New Life Church Pastor Brady Boyd at the news conference on Monday.

“If we had not had an armed person on our campus, 50 to 100 people could have lost their lives yesterday,” the AP reported Boyd said.

The AP reported Boyd said the gunman had a lot of ammunition and estimated that 40 rounds had been fired inside the church, leaving what looked like a “war scene.”

About 7,000 people were in and around the church the time of the shooting, the AP reported Boyd said. Security had been beefed up after the shootings hours earlier in Arvada, he said. The church had a total of 15 to 20 volunteer security officers inside at the time of the attack, he said.

Missionary Center Victims

The two people killed at the missionary center were Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24.

Johnson, who grew up in Chisholm, Minn., loved working with children and wanted to see the world, said family friend Carla Macynski.

"Tiffany was a well-liked, easygoing 26-year-old. She was friendly, adventurous and a definite leader," the AP reported Macynski said as she choked back tears. Johnson had traveled to Egypt, Libya and South Africa with the missionary group.

The AP said that Crouse, of Alaska, was a former skinhead who went through a dramatic spiritual conversion at 18. He had helped build a foster home at a Crow Indian reservation in Montana, said Ronny Morris, who works with a Denver chapter of the mission.

The AP reported that pastor Zach Chandler in Anchorage, Alaska said about Crouse. “Whenever somebody asks me to give a specific situation where a kid's life has been changed or transformed, I always think of Phil, because he had such a radical transformation of life.”

Youth With A Mission was started in 1960 and has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, said Darv Smith, director of the YWAM center in Boulder.

© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.