Most of the media reporting on the attempted mass shooting at Cross Pointe Communiuty Church in Wayne, Michigan have described the church members who shot and killed the would-be attacker as “security guards” or “church staff.”
In reality, though, the church’s safety team is comprised of volunteers, not paid armed guards, so kudos to Scripps News Service for actually reporting that armed citizens were the ones who stopped the attack.
A volunteer security team member stopped an attempted mass shooting at a Michigan church on Sunday. No parishioners were killed, thanks in part to Jay Trombley.
… Trombley and other safety team members, all average citizens with no police or military experience, have undergone extensive training in the event they encounter an active shooter. He says Sunday’s nightmare underscores a harsh reality.
“You are your own first responder. You are the first person on scene. It doesn’t matter if it’s someone trying to hurt you, an injury, something, you are your first responder,” Trombley said.
Naturally, gun control groups like Giffords have refused to acknowledge the actions of Trombley and the other members of the church safety team at all. They can’t praise him and the other members of the church safety team for saving so many lives. What if that led other churches to adopt similar safety teams, or inspired someone to start exercising their own Second Amendment rights?
For his part, Trombley gives credit to his fellow parishioners and the Almighty for keeping the Cross Pointe faith community safe last Sunday.
“I heard a noise, thought it was mechanical at first, turned to see people running, asked them through a door what had happened. I thought it was in the cry room and a young woman said, ‘AR-15,’ and I said, ‘Where?’ She pointed and I headed in that direction,” Trombley said.
“We found out that evil came to our door, but God’s hand of protection was right over us,” he added. “So many things happened that can only be God driven: that the parishioner shows up late to engage him with this pick-up truck to slow him down; that double pane window stopped five rounds that I fairly certain where I was standing to look at the wall behind me to see the impact to see that where rounds from his rifle traveled and impacted, I’m, I’m…God’s hand was protecting me.”
Authorities still haven’t said what might have motivated the attacker to target the church, though they’ve disclosed that his mother is a member and he attended services there two or three times over the past year. According to the Wayne PD the suspect had no prior criminal history, but authorities say “he may have been suffering a mental health crisis” of some kind.
Regardless of what led him to target the church, we know what caused him to fail: the quick thinking, fast action, heroism, and bravery shown by individuals like Trombley, other members of the volunteer security team, and the parishioner behind the wheel of their truck who used his vehicle to strike the attacker as he was headed for the church entrance. Last Sunday’s nightmarish experience is a sobering reminder that when seconds count police are minutes away. As Trombley says, we are our own first responder, and it’s up to us to ensure that we have both the mindset and the means to defend ourselves and others if necessary.
Read the full article here
