Guard’s actions saved lives, cost his own, witnesses say

BEMIDJI, Minn. – A novice security guard who survived a student’s shooting rampage at a high school described a frenzied scramble to warn students out of harm’s way – and credited a fellow guard with saving lives by sacrificing his own.

In an interview Wednesday with the Associated Press, LeeAnn Grant said Derrick Brun, 28, ignored her pleas to run, and rose from his desk to confront shooter Jeff Weise, 16.

“Derrick saved my life,” the 20-year-old Grant said. “I know he bought me time by confronting Jeff, for me to even get that much farther away with the students. Derrick’s my hero,” she said. “He didn’t even look scared. He didn’t look worried. He knew what he was going to do.”

Grant said she and Brun were working at the doors of Red Lake High School as usual on Monday. Three of the four doors were locked; the open door funneled students through a metal detector.

She described Weise stepping out of his grandfather’s police truck and sending two shotgun blasts into the air.

Just four years older than Weise, she had known him for years and recognized the 6-foot, 250-pound student at once. His black trench coat billowed open and Grant saw more guns on the boy’s belt.

She had no gun, no bulletproof vest and a little girl and a little boy at home. She had just begun working as a security guard in August.

Outside, the gunman tried one door, then another.

“He looked right at me. I made eye contact with him,” Grant said. The boy quickly found the open door.

“He walked in and fired another shot and I was telling Derrick, ‘Come on, let’s go. Let’s go, Derrick. Run. We need to save these kids, we need to do something.’ And I radioed in … ‘There’s a guy coming in the school and he’s shooting and he has a gun.’ “

“Derrick just sat there at his desk. … He just kept staring at Jeff. I kept hollering for him to come with me. He wouldn’t come, he just stayed there.”

The noise drew students toward the front doors. Some thought maybe there was a fight, and they wanted to see, Grant said.

“I start yelling at them, ‘Run! There’s a guy with a gun here! Just run!’ And then I took off to try to protect them,” she said. “I turned back a little bit, and you could see Derrick kind of getting up, going right toward Jeff. And then I heard two shots again.”

Other witness accounts indicate that’s when Brun was killed.

“I just ran,” Grant said.