45-year-old survivor Lisa Louis courageously opens up about surviving a horrific shooting inside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. She bravely shares her own trauma experience while the attack was ongoing. Louis recounted the terrifying experience in a post on Facebook. She described how Thomas “Jake” Sanford opened fire on the still-assembled congregation after crashing his pickup truck through the front of the church.
On the day of the crash, seven-year-old Louis crawled next to her fatally injured 72-year-old father Craig Hayden. That’s when Sanford came up and asked his question. She never broke eye contact with the gunman during the nearly seven-minute encounter, which she credits as key to her survival.
“I never took my eyes off his eyes. Something happened, I saw pain, he felt lost,” Louis wrote in her statement. She talked about the deeply spiritual bond she experienced at that time, and how she knows that, “He allowed me to survive.” Though such a view would make Louis a critical witness to the tragedy which unfolded, Louis refused to speak with the Associated Press.
The shooting left two people dead, including Louis’s own father, Hayden. Fellow officers William “Pat” Howard and John Bond were murdered, and eight more were wounded during the massacre. One victim remains publicly unidentified. Sanford intentionally targeted the congregation, according to police reports. Afterward, he burnt the church to its foundation, destroying irreplaceable records.
Louis’s brother-in-law Terry Green said he wished her encounter with Sanford had given “valuable time for others to get away.” He emphasized what a huge testament that was to her training that she was able to do that during such a tumultuous, terrifying situation.
In her short statement, Louis did something remarkable in the face of this kind of violence and hatred. “Fear breeds anger, anger breeds hate, hate breeds suffering,” she said. She pleaded with the audience to unite and work together to stand up to hate. “Stopping the hate requires all of us,” she said.
Sanford’s disposition was reported by witnesses to the attack as one of an agitated. Caleb Combs said, “You could feel his agitation.” To communicate the urgency and intensity of the situation, he made sure to mention that caveat, “He wanted it done.”
Sanford, 40, started an art auction on the River Church in Goodrich a decade ago. His advocacy went on to help pay for a young boy’s out-of-home medical expenses. His apparently contradictory history makes it harder to understand the motivations behind his violent actions.