Guard who shot Colo. gunman had been fired from Minneapolis force
The security guard credited with bravery for shooting a gunman at a Colorado church was fired from her job as a Minneapolis police officer in the 1990s for lying, Minneapolis police officials said Tuesday.
Investigators in Colorado said Jeanne Assam, a volunteer security guard at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, shot 24-year-old Matthew Murray when he entered the church on Sunday and began firing. Murray killed two sisters - Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16 - before he was stopped.
Authorities said Murray may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, but police and church leaders credited Assam for her bravery and say she averted a greater tragedy.
Assam, 42, said her faith allowed her to remain steady under pressure.
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"It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," she said, her hands trembling as she recounted the shooting during a news conference Monday.
On Tuesday, authorities in Minneapolis revealed more about Assam's past.
Sgt. Jesse Garcia, a Minneapolis police spokesman, said Assam worked at the department from March 1993 to November 1997, when she was fired for lying during an internal investigation.
Sgt. John Delmonico, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, said police were investigating a complaint that Assam swore at a bus driver while she was handling an incident on a city bus.
Delmonico said Assam was dealing with an incident on the bus and for some reason she swore at the bus driver as she exited the bus.
The bus driver became angry and filed a complaint.
"In giving a statement about the incident, she was untruthful and she was fired," Delmonico said. The swearing was caught on tape, he said. "The union arbitrated the case and the arbitrator upheld the termination."
Assam's home phone number is unlisted and she couldn't be reached for comment.
Other personnel records, such as commendations or disciplinary actions, on Assam have been destroyed because she worked at the Minneapolis Police Department so long ago, Garcia said. Such records are destroyed after seven years.
Before killing the sisters at the church on Sunday, Murray also opened fire at a missionary training school about 65 miles away in the Denver suburb of Arvada. There, he killed Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24.
Johnson grew up in Chisholm, Minn.