You are absolutely right, the other Hero
Larry Bourbonnais, a combat-tested Vietnam veteran, said it was the bravest thing he's ever seen.
Bourbonnais, who was among those shot by a gunman Sunday at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, watched as a security guard, later identified as Jeanne Assam, calmly returned fire and killed the shooter.
Bourbonnais, 59, had just finished a hamburger in the cafeteria on the sprawling church campus when he heard gunfire, he recalled.
He headed in the direction of the shots as frightened people ran past him looking to escape to safety.
“Where’s the shooter? Where’s the shooter?” Bourbonnais kept yelling, he recalled.
Near an entryway in the church, Bourbonnais came upon the gunman and an armed male church security guard, who was there with his gun drawn but not firing, he said.
Bourbonnais said he pleaded with the armed guard to give him his weapon. “Give me your handgun. I’ve been in combat, and I’m going to take this guy out,” Bourbonnais recalled telling the guard.
“He kept yelling, ‘Get behind me! Get behind me!’ He wouldn’t hand me his weapon, but he wouldn’t do anything.”
There was an additional armed security guard there, another man, who also didn’t fire, Bourbonnais said.
Bourbonnais yelled at the gunman to draw his attention, he said.
“First, I called him ‘Coward,’ then I called him ‘S—head’ “ Bourbonnais said. “I probably shouldn’t have been saying that in church.”
That’s when the shooter pointed one of his guns at Bourbonnais and fired, he said. Bourbonnais ducked behind a hollow, decorative pillar and was hit in the arm by a bullet and fragments of the pillar.
At about that moment, Assam, 42, turned a corner with a drawn handgun, walked toward the gunman and yelled “Surrender!” Bourbonnais said.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_7686933?source=rss