An armed private citizen and member of a volunteer security team at the CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne, Mich., is credited with fatally shooting a would-be mass killer Sunday, telling a local television reporter, “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.”
In an interview with WXYZ News, church member Jay Trombley reflected on the events of Sunday morning. He is on a safety team consisting of “average citizens with no police or military experience, have undergone extensive training in the event they encounter an active shooter,” according to the report.
The gunman was first deliberately struck by another church member, using his truck to knock down the suspect. This apparently gave Trombley time to engage.
Trombley’s intervention saved lives, and is reminiscent of the Dec. 29, 2019 shooting at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas. In that incident, a lone gunman opened fire during a service which was being live-streamed, fatally shooting Anton Wallace, 64, and Richard White, 67, before another legally-armed citizen, Jack Wilson, who headed that church’s security team, fired a shot across the church sanctuary, striking 43-year-old Keith Thomas Kinnunen, killing him.
Armed volunteer security teams are not new to American places of worship. While they are seldom discussed in proverbial “polite company,” such teams are apparently becoming something of a necessity in response to violent criminal acts which might qualify as domestic terrorism.
As far back as 2007, armed private citizens have intervened when seconds count and police are minutes away, as the saying goes. On Dec. 9, 2007, in Colorado Springs, a lone gunman identified as Matthew John Murray was shot by Jeanne Assam, a member of the New Life Church and, coincidentally, a former police officer from Minneapolis. Murray was being sought after gunning down two people and wounding two others at the Youth With A Mission training center in Arvada, just northwest from Denver.
Twelve hours later, at about 1 p.m., according to published accounts, Murray showed up at the church in Colorado Springs, a distance of about 80 miles. There, he opened fire in the church parking lot, killing two teenage sisters and wounding their father. He then moved into the church where he encountered Assam, who promptly shot him twice. Murray then took his own life with a pistol.
In February 2024, the Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, was the scene of another shooting. This time, according to Wikipedia, the perpetrator—36-year-old Genesse Moreno—reportedly claimed to have a bomb in her backpack, though it was later discovered no such device existed. She did have a gun, however, with which she shot one man in the leg, and then fired multiple rounds.
Moreno, who had brought her 7-year-old son to the rampage, then made the fatal mistake of aiming her gun at two other people who happened to be off-duty police officers, also serving as church security. They shot her dead, and the child was wounded in the exchange.
People attending the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., on Oct. 27, 2018, were not so lucky. A gunman identified as Robert Gregory Bowers entered the synagogue during morning Shabbat services and opened fire. He killed 11 people and wounded six others. Nobody was there to stop Bowers, but he was apprehended and later convicted in 2023 on 63 different federal counts and sentenced to death by lethal injection.
There apparently were no armed security people at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas on Nov. 5, 2017, which allowed a man identified as Devin Kelley, using guns he was able to buy despite his military conviction of domestic violence while serving in the U.S. Air Force. The USAF didn’t report the conviction so it could be logged with the National Instant Check System (NICS).
Kelley entered the Texas church with a semi-auto rifle and opened fire, “methodically shooting the victims, pausing only to reload,” according to the Wikipedia account. He killed 26 people and wounded 22 others.
Had there been an armed citizen inside the church, it might have turned out differently. It was not until Kelley went outside that he was confronted and shot twice by a neighbor, Stephen Willeford, who used an AR15 in the exchange.
Kelley was hit twice, once in the leg and once in the upper chest. He fled with Willeford and another man in pursuit, crashing his vehicle into a field, where he committed suicide.
Not surprisingly, although Willeford was hailed for his actions, the media seemed to bury the fact he used a modern semi-auto rifle to engage the killer.
Having an armed volunteer team that trains regularly and has a plan to follow in then event of a shooting is a phenomenon many churches seem to avoid while others, as is the case in Michigan, have reluctantly embraced the notion. Churches which form such teams do not make a habit of making it public knowledge for any number of reasons.
But as the incident in Wayne, Michigan demonstrated, legally-armed citizens can provide a first line of defense against an attack, whether the perpetrator(s) happen to be deranged or domestic terrorists, or a little of both.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
