East River Hero: Julien Duret

Hero who helped rescue tot is found

Excerpt:

A French tourist who rescued a toddler who fell into New York's East River says he didn't think twice about diving in to save the girl.

Two-year-old Bridget Sheridan fell off a gangplank at the South Street Seaport museum Saturday. Her father, David Anderson, says she slipped through guardrails when he averted his eyes to adjust his camera.

Julien Duret, of Lyon, France, jumped into the water. Anderson followed closely behind. Duret scooped up the girl and gave her to her father.

Comment: Also consider a post from 3 years ago: Subway Hero

Quiet Heroism

'It was time to help,' says Keith Melton, congregant now labeled as 'heroic'

Excerpts:

While many in the congregation thought the shooting unfolding before them was some sort of production, Melton quickly realized it was real. He jumped up from his seat in the middle of the sanctuary and ran to the Rev. Fred Winters.

"It was just time to go," said Melton, 51. "It was time to help."

Melton was the first to grab the gunman and pull him off Winters. Others joined in the effort to try to stop the attacker, who also had a knife. Melton and another church member, Terry Bullard, 39, were stabbed in the melee.

...

Illinois State Police Director Larry Trent called Bullard and Melton "heroic" for stopping something that could have been worse. Leaders of the First Baptist Church of Maryville called them brave.

"Some people have the first thought of sitting in their seats, shellshocked, but here's two guys who just responded," said Robert Cunningham, the church's minister of administration. "Somebody has to go after the assailant, and that means personal sacrifice, and Terry and Keith were that kind of person."

Melton was sitting along the aisle when the suspect came through the sanctuary doors and walked past him. Melton thought it was odd he was walking toward the front as Winters was reaching the end of his sermon. The man also had on a heavy coat, which seemed strange given the warm weather early Sunday morning.

Melton's wife, Reka Melton, sat next to him. "I thought maybe this guy needed help and he was going to the pastor," she said.

The man walked slowly, but purposefully, all the way to the edge of the stage where Winters was preaching.

The pastor stopped his sermon. "Good morning," Keith Melton recalled Winters saying. "Can I help you?"

The man pulled out a gun and shot, hitting the Bible the pastor had in his hands, sending shredded bits of it into the air. Many in the crowd thought it was confetti, part of some sort of drama often used in the church services.

Melton said he didn't see the gun, but the gravity in Winters' eyes pulled him from his pew. A second shot rang out, and the pastor screamed, "Somebody help me!" But the 6-foot-3, 265-pound Melton said he was already on his way.

Reka Melton didn't even realize. "My husband was up and gone and there before I knew it," she said.

The pastor either jumped or fell off the side of the stage. The gunman attacked him again. "When I got to them, they were struggling," Keith Melton said. "All four of their hands were together."

He wrapped his arms around the man and pulled him off Winters, slamming him face-forward against a wall. Melton isn't sure at what point more shots rang out, one hitting the pastor in the chest and fatally injuring him.

The gunman broke free, turned and lifted his hand. Melton tried to block him, thinking he still had a gun. He tried to run, but Melton grabbed him by the legs, bringing him to the ground.

Others were around now, helping stop the man and coming to Winters' aid, Melton said. He thinks Bullard was next to him after he slammed the assailant against the wall. "I believe that's when he slashed Terry," Melton said.

The attacker pulled himself under a pew. "That's when he stabbed himself in the throat," Melton said. Other church members got the knife and contained him under the pew until police arrived.

Melton said he didn't realize he was stabbed until he felt something cool on his chest. He ripped open his burgundy dress shirt and saw blood. A nurse in the congregation laid him down on a pew and applied pressure to the wound.

Comment: Please pray for Fred Winters' widow and children!

God raised up a defender!

Image By David Zalubowski, Associated Press

Diatribe foretold horror

Excerpt:

"You christians brought this on yourselves," Murray writes in his 452-word harangue. "I'm coming for EVERYONE soon and I WILL be armed to the @#%$ teeth and I WILL shoot to kill.

Security Guard: 'God Guided Me And Protected Me'

Excerpt:

Assam said she was ending three days of fasting on Sunday when fate put her in the path of the gunman.

"I was praying to God that he direct me" in what to do in life, Assam said. "God made me strong."


Comment: We had a brief discussion at the home front last night about self-defense. I believe that it is Biblical to defend oneself. I see this in Luke 22:36, "Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one". What do you think?

Minneapolis connection (from the Star Tribune today):

Ex-Minneapolis cop hailed as hero in Colorado shootings


The guard -- former Minneapolis police officer Jeanne Assam -- said Monday that she prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide her, and that her hands never shook.

"It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," she said.

New Life Pastor Brady Boyd called Assam, who is normally his personal security guard, a "hero" whose actions averted further bloodshed.

"There could have been a great loss of life ... and she probably saved over 100 lives," he said.

Assam, a church member, said she took cover as Murray opened fire at New Life, a 14,000-member evangelical megachurch, about 1 p.m. Sunday, while hundreds of worshipers were leaving. She said she leaped up and identified herself, and when Murray did not respond, fired.

Assam, who moved to Colorado in 2000 after being fired from the Minneapolis police department in the late 1990s, said she had been on the third day of a three-day fast, praying to God to provide direction for her life. "I knew I was given the assignment to end this," she said. "I give the credit to God."

Though the shooter had more firepower -- Assam had a handgun, while Murray wielded a high-powered rifle -- God kept her safe, she said.

Before she went to church, Assam read on the Internet about the shootings earlier at the Youth With a Mission Center in the Denver suburb of Arvada. There, two people were killed, including Tiffany Johnson of Chisholm, Minn. Two, including Charles Blanch, 22, of Burnsville, were wounded.

She prayed for the safety of her own church family. Hours later, she confronted Murray.

Cool heroism

Vietnam vet among Springs wounded

Excerpts:

A Vietnam veteran is among the survivors, hit by gunfire at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Larry Bourbannais, 59, was eating a hamburger in the cafeteria on the church campus when he heard gunfire, said his daughter, Sherry Smith. Bourbannais 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," my dad kept yelling, Smith said.

....

Bourbannais came upon the gunman near an entry way in a building and yelled at him to draw his attention, Smith said. That's when the shooter pointed a handgun at Bourbannais and fired, she said. Bourbannais had ducked behind a hollow, decorative pillar and was hit in the arm by the bullet and fragments of the pillar.

At about that moment, a woman with a drawn handgun turned a corner and walked toward the gunman and yelled "Surrender," Smith said. When the gunman pointed his weapon at the woman, she fired at him and kept walking toward him as she continued firing, Smith said.

"My dad said it was the bravest thing he had ever seen," Smith said.

The woman fired off about 10 to 12 shots as she kept walking toward the shooter.

Comment: The Pastor of New Life Church claims that this heroism "probably saved over 100 lives"!

Updated with more below:

Guard's hands "didn't even shake" as she shot gunman

Excerpts:


The guard who saved untold lives at New Life Church gives credit to God for giving her cover, and boosting her firepower as she shot a heavily-armed gunman.

"I give credit to God. I say that very humbly," said Jeanne Assam. "God was with me, the whole time I was behind cover. Based on the firepower he had, compared to mine."

"It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," Assam said.
....
"I heard shots fired, there was chaos," she said. "There was a lot of people in the church. People were running away from shots fired.

"I saw him coming through the doors, and I took cover, and I waited for him to get closer...I identified myself, engaged him, and took him down."

She spoke unemotionally, but the first words she said were in tribute to the victims.

"I just want you to know it's an honor to be here and I want to extend my sympathy to the families of the victims and of the gunman. And I mean that very sincerely," she said.

"I just prayed for the Holy Spirit to guide me my hands weren't even shaking."

Comment: The shooter had multiple weapons and 1,000 rounds of ammunition: Details on the shooter

6 seconds to spare

Teen helps free woman from car seconds before 2 trains hit

Excerpt:

Thomas Foust was driving behind the woman Saturday night in the northern Chicago suburb of Glenview, Illinois, when her car turned onto the tracks and stopped.

"I saw the train lights coming and I said, 'This is a big problem,' " Foust told CNN's Kiran Chetry on "American Morning."

Foust, a trained lifeguard, put the car he was driving in park and jumped out, saying little to his friends, who got out and followed.

"Me and two of my friends, Tyler and Zach, we ran up to the car and started yelling and pounding on the window, and finally we got the door open, and we're like, 'Ma'am you need to get out of this car right now because there's a train coming toward it,' " Foust said.

"We unclipped her seat belt and basically just pulled her to safety and my friend, Tyler, ran and called the police, and ... we got maybe 10 feet away from the train, and it hit like six seconds after we got her out."

Comment: Teen hero! Good read. Video available!

Olympic security guard - R.I.P.

Richard Jewell found dead in home

Excerpt:

Richard Jewell, the Centennial Olympic Park security guard once suspected — but later cleared — in the bombing of the park during the 1996 Summer Games, was found dead Wednesday in his home in Meriwether County. He was 44.
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A year ago this month, Jewell was commended by Gov. Sonny Perdue at an event marking the 10th anniversary of the bombing. "The bottom line is this: His actions saved lives that day," said Perdue. "Mr. Jewell, on behalf of Georgia, we want to thank you for keeping Georgians safe and doing your job during the course of those Games." Jewell, his voice choked with emotion, responded: "I never sought to be a hero. I have always viewed myself as just one of the many trained professionals who simply did his or her job that tragic night. I wish I could have done more."


Richard Jewell

Excerpt:

In early news reports, Jewell was lauded as a hero for helping to evacuate the area after he spotted the suspicious package. Three days later, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution revealed that the FBI was treating him as a possible suspect, based largely on a "lone bomber" criminal profile. For the next several weeks, the news media focused aggressively on him as the presumed culprit, sifting through his life to match a leaked "lone bomber" profile that the FBI had used. Two of the bombing victims filed lawsuits against Jewell on the basis of this reporting. In a reference to the unabomber, Jay Leno called him the "Una-doofus". Though he was never officially charged, the FBI aggressively investigated him in spite of a continuing lack of evidence. They publicly searched his home, questioned his associates, investigated his background, and maintained twenty-four hour surveillance of Jewell. The pressure only began to ease after Jewell's attorneys hired an ex-FBI agent to administer a polygraph, which Jewell reportedly passed. Despite this, in the searches of Jewell's residence, which he shared with his mother, the FBI confiscated his mother's tupperware collection and family photographs. When these items were returned, many pieces of the tupperware had been broken, and the photographs were ripped apart.

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Jewell sued the New York Post for libel for $15 million over a series of stories and a photograph caption. The newspaper reportedly called Jewell "a Village Rambo" and "a fat, failed former sheriff’s deputy."


One-time Olympic park bombing suspect Richard Jewell dies

Excerpt:

After 12 weeks of scrutiny following the bombing, Jewell was cleared by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Kent Alexander in an unprecedented government acknowledgment of wrongful accusation.

"I am not the Olympic park bomber," Jewell told reporters after being cleared. "I am a man who has lived 88 days afraid of being arrested for a crime I did not commit."

The FBI, Jewell said, trampled on his rights "in its rush to show the world it could get its man," while the news media "cared nothing about my feelings as a human being" in its rush to get a story on the bombing.

Jewell was working as a private security guard in Centennial Olympic Park about 1 a.m. on July 27 when he identified a suspicious unidentified package and began moving people away from it. The package turned out to contain the bomb, which went off, killing one person and wounding more than 100.

He was originally hailed as a hero for moving people away, but he was later thrust into a different light when the FBI suspected that he had set off the bomb to give himself an opportunity to be a hero.

For weeks, reporters and camera crews camped outside Jewell's Atlanta apartment, capturing every move that he -- and the FBI -- made.





Comment: Here's a man who was a true hero and saved lives by his actions. He was pilloried and vilified by the media! I cannot imagine what this man and his family must have suffered emotionally! May he rest in peace!