SIOUX FALLS - A Sioux Falls native is being hailed as a hero for shooting a gunman who opened fire at a Colorado Springs church on Sunday.

Authorities said Jeanne Assam, 42, shot the gunman after he killed two people.

The Sioux Falls native volunteers as a security guard at the New Life Church.

Assam said she saw the gunman coming and took cover until he got close - when she identified herself and shot him.

"God was with me," Assam said. "He never left my side."

Investigators said the gunman may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, although police and church leaders credited Assam's bravery with preventing more killings.

Assam is a former police officer who worked in Minneapolis during the 1990s. She grew up in Sioux Falls, went to Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., and graduated with a criminal justice degree, her twin sister, Jennifer, of Sioux Falls told the Rocky Mountain News.

Assam works full time for Messenger International, a local Christian ministry.

Minneapolis police officials said Tuesday that Assam was fired from her job as a Minneapolis police officer in the 1990s for lying.

Sgt. Jesse Garcia, a Minneapolis police spokesman, said Assam worked at the department from March 1993 to November 1997, when she was fired for lying during an internal investigation.

Sgt. John Delmonico, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, said police were investigating a complaint that Assam swore at a bus driver while she was handling an incident on a city bus.

Delmonico said Assam was dealing with an incident on the bus and for some reason she swore at the bus driver as she exited the bus. The bus driver became angry and filed a complaint.

"In giving a statement about the incident, she was untruthful and she was fired," Delmonico said. The swearing was caught on tape, he said. "The union arbitrated the case, and the arbitrator upheld the termination."

Assam's home phone number is unlisted and she couldn't be reached for comment.

The gunman, Matthew Murray, also wounded three people at the church. It is believed that Murray had earlier killed two people at a missionary training center in Arvada, Colo., on Sunday.

A former Rapid City man, Dan Griebenow, was wounded in the Arvada shooting. Griebenow, 24, was shot in the neck. His condition was upgraded from critical to serious Monday night.