An armed civilian helped prevent what undoubtedly would have turned into one of the worst mass shootings in American history.
On Sunday in Wayne, Michigan, 31-year-old Brian Anthony Browning approached the CrossPointe Community Church heavily armed and apparently determined to inflict mass casualties inside the church — filled at that time with children gathered for a special Vacation Bible School service — only to encounter a heroic church safety team, including Jay Trombley, who engaged Browning, inflicting fatal wounds that neutralized the threat.
Then, in a Tuesday interview with WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Trombley delivered a hard truth for people who frequent soft targets.
“You are your own first responder,” Trombley said in a clip posted to the social media platform X.
Earlier in that same clip, the hero praised God for saving many lives.
“Evil came to our door,” Trombley said. “But God’s hand for protection was right over us.”
“So many things happened that can only be God-driven,” he continued. “The parishioner shows up late to engage him with his pickup truck to slow him down. A double-pane window stopped five rounds that I’m fairly certain where I was standing, to look at the wall behind me, to see the impacts, to see where rounds from his rifle traveled and impacted, I’m, I’m — God’s hand was protecting me.”
Jay Trombley is an armed civilian
Jay pulled out his gun and was able to stop a man who came to gun down a church full of families Sunday in MI pic.twitter.com/6zgW6Mgei4
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 24, 2025
Meanwhile, in another clip from the same interview — also posted to X — Trombley described at length how the incident unfolded.
Does your church have security guards?
The hero was inside the church when he thought he heard something “mechanical” outside. But a young woman, fleeing the threat, said, “AR-15.”
Trombley then went to the lobby doors and “started evaluating the situation, trying to make sense of a person on the ground, a pickup truck there, looked like it had some damage, had heard several bursts of [what] sounded like automatic rifle fire.”
In other words, by the time Trombley reached the scene, the heroic pickup truck driver had already knocked Browning to the ground.
Still, the danger remained.
“He fired some more into our building,” Trombley said moments later. “By the grace of God he missed me. He hit another person in the calf. And after that I engaged him and took care of the threat to the church.”
This man is a real live hero!!
God puts people where they’re supposed to be sometimes!
Jay Trombley was in the exact spot he was supposed to be! pic.twitter.com/56LuR5luH5
— Papageorgio (@gecffmn) June 24, 2025
According to WXYZ-TV, the man shot in the calf was Ron Amann, who has attended the church since the 1960s. One of the bullets shattered Amann’s tibia.
Incredibly, Amann and two other safety team members had attended training only three days before the shooting.
“When we formed this team, I just knew it was my calling to protect my family and this church family,” Amann said of the decision he and several other church members made to form the safety team roughly ten years ago.
In short, when danger appears, ordinary citizens like Trombley and Amann must act as their own first responders.
And act they did. In fact, one could scarcely imagine a more compelling example of heroism — and of God’s divine providence — than what unfolded Sunday at CrossPointe Community Church.
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