Texas church shooting 'protector' Jack Wilson receives first-ever Governor’s Medal of Courage

AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott honored Monday the man who stopped a gunman at the West Freeway Church of Christ near Fort Worth last month.

Three people died at the church in White Settlement, a town of about 17,000 people near Fort Worth, but the shooting lasted only seconds. The gunman mortally wounded two people before he was shot and killed by Jack Wilson, the head of the church’s volunteer security team.

Wilson, a former reserve sheriff's deputy and firearms instructor, fired a single shot.

Abbott bestowed for the first time an award he created called the Governor’s Medal of Courage, described by his office as the highest honor given to civilians by the governor for those “who display great acts of heroism by risking their own safety to save another’s life.”