Terrorist Attack at Church?

[PegLeg45]

My GrandPappy was a 'Pistol Packin' Preacher'.

[Rastus]

My great-grandfather was too.

[cjwise5]

Good for you CJl, Every community needs more people to step up when they see a need as you have done.
I may disagree with you on some things, (Don't know of any yet but there will probably be SOMETHING  )
But after only 15 posts you show yourself to be one of the "Good guys ".

Thanks man. 

[v1rot8]

If memory serves me correctly, much of the damage from the bad guy was inflicted in the parking lot before the BG even got inside the church.

[Solus]

If memory serves me correctly, much of the damage from the bad guy was inflicted in the parking lot before the BG even got inside the church.

If you are referring to the incident where Jeanne Assam stopped the shooter at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, you are correct.

At that location, he was only able to shoot innocents outside in the parking lot.  Once inside, he was so overwhelming engaged by Assam that he turned his weapon upon himself rather than try to take her, even thought he had her "out gunned". 

[Sponsor]

[ms1212]

I am the Team Leader of our Church Safety Team, called that for a reason, not Security Team. I am an Usher and we have this as a subdivision of the the Usher Staff. Not all our ushers are in the Safety Team. It is more PC to have it called a Safety Team which we do deal with other safety concerns.

My pastor knew I trained LE in Martial Arts more specifically for LE I use the I.S.R. Matrix by Luis Gutierrez and knows I work with them on shooting as well. I knew many on the board would not see the need for armed security so I asked one of my students a LEO that teaches school, church, business and home security to give us a reality check. He circled the church 4 times in a bright red truck had 2 longs guns in plain view had our church layout on the dash along with a back pack and other nefarious items. He parked the truck in plain view got out with a full size 1911 bulging from his left pocket plus a fanny pack. He then walked in and was greeted by the ushers and even the head usher and neither one knew him, he then went downstairs talked to two young children walked in our utility room. Walked back up stairs on the opposite side and went behind the baptismal & choir area. He went back down and outside and walked around the church twice and then came back in all the while no one asked him anything or thought his behavior was odd. I told him that Sunday I would be isolated in the Nursery. He then asked the head usher for me and told me how bad it was. I knew this but we needed a reality check. When he and I went before the pastor and the board with the info you could see there attitudes change in an instant. The LEO said our small town could have had a very bad Sunday had I been a psycho. Our pastor said I am so proud you are not a psycho. Every board member was 100% behind having a Safety Team. One thing  I wanted to point out to them was it is not just protection from a shooter but a child molester, kidnapper or a hostage situation. Also, it is much more likely that if we need to act it would be for an unruly or crazed person that would be unarmed and would need to be escorted out. That has happen before at our church.

We know have our team in place and have a monthly training and extra weekend training. In our training the biggest problem with a shooter is getting our team to where they need to be during the chaos and being able to take a shot in the chaos with people running every which way. We do lots of scenario training and this is not easy. This might seem extreme but in the sound loft, BTW all the Sound Room guys are on the team, we keep a Wilson's UT-15 TACTICAL CARBINE with laser and aim point. If there is a shooter in the sanctuary it would be much better for them to take the shot with the carbine than with one of our team members in the midst of the crowd with a pistol we have found. The margin of error is not much and we only use frangible ammo in the carbine.

We are a church of @ 300 so not that big, but in our size town pretty big. We have 10 team members. They all are wonderful, I could not ask for a better group of guys. They all love to train and are dedicated to protecting our flock. When the members were asking why the extra people were milling around and in the parking lot we just said we had a safety audit and were training to improve on it and make sure no cars are broken into or any people that shouldn't be around the kids are not and to make sure people can get out safely in case of an emergency. We are also going to have the pastor speak to the congregation about various safety concerns and what they should do in the event of a tornado, fire, power outage and to not scare the folks too much but in the case someone starts shooting we need to do x,y and z.

Many churches do not see the need for armed security or think it is wrong to be in a church. I think that is nuts. We will see more and more attacks on churches and as mentioned earlier we will see Islamic Terrorist attacks on Christians. Before each meeting we pray for safety. We do know we have became a much harder target.

Sorry for such a long post.

[tombogan03884]

From ms1212
We are also going to have the pastor speak to the congregation about various safety concerns and what they should do in the event of a tornado, fire, power outage and to not scare the folks too much but in the case someone starts shooting we need to do x,y and z.

Many churches do not see the need for armed security or think it is wrong to be in a church. I think that is nuts. We will see more and more attacks on churches and as mentioned earlier we will see Islamic Terrorist attacks on Christians. Before each meeting we pray for safety. We do know we have became a much harder target.

Sorry for such a long post.


Some comments on your post.
First, No need to apologize for a long post when it makes for interesting reading.
Having the Pastor talk to the Congregation seems like a great idea for 2 reasons, first off every one is in the loop if some type of emergency should occur, you don't wind up with 10 people trying to handle the situation, (Medical or Meteorological as well as Maniac ) while 290 others run around like headless chickens. Everyone will know there is a plan in place, I don't know exactly what it is, and have no active part in it, so I will just get the heck out of the way of the people who DO.
Secondly, Every Church has Fire extinguishers, Every member of the Congregation has a spare tire (if they drive ) It is foolish to not prepare for other possibilities as well.
And to those who say defensive fire arms have no place in a house of worship I will point out that the crenelations around the roof line of Catholic Churches may simply be a design feature today, but originally they were meant as fighting positions for archers defending the Sanctuary.
Also in the Colonial period men were required to bring their rifles to church since that was where the they were checked for militia duty . (Not to mention that up here any way, we still had an Indian problem that could make the journey to church quite dangerous )

But then, there are still people who believe the earth is flat 

[ms1212]

Some comments on your post.
First, No need to apologize for a long post when it makes for interesting reading.
Having the Pastor talk to the Congregation seems like a great idea for 2 reasons, first off every one is in the loop if some type of emergency should occur, you don't wind up with 10 people trying to handle the situation, (Medical or Meteorological as well as Maniac ) while 290 others run around like headless chickens. Everyone will know there is a plan in place, I don't know exactly what it is, and have no active part in it, so I will just get the heck out of the way of the people who DO.
Secondly, Every Church has Fire extinguishers, Every member of the Congregation has a spare tire (if they drive ) It is foolish to not prepare for other possibilities as well.
And to those who say defensive fire arms have no place in a house of worship I will point out that the crenelations around the roof line of Catholic Churches may simply be a design feature today, but originally they were meant as fighting positions for archers defending the Sanctuary.
Also in the Colonial period men were required to bring their rifles to church since that was where the they were checked for militia duty . (Not to mention that up here any way, we still had an Indian problem that could make the journey to church quite dangerous )

But then, there are still people who believe the earth is flat 


[/quote]

Thanks for that. We had many long discussions on how to impart the needed info to the congregation without causing too much alarm or letting everyone know we have armed security. You are exactly right we had lots of concern with people that were not in the safety team that may try to "help" and cause more harm than good. Some other concerns is if in the basement we have an active shooter and our assigned team makes entry to the basement we have to secure the entry/exit points to the basement by our team members assigned to each point to not only keep the shooter from coming up, but keeping church members from going down to get there kids. That could be a nightmare. Also, we have to keep control of the members exiting in an orderly way and kept them out of the way of the responding LEO. The congregation knows we have team members with the youth at all times.

That is so true of the crenellation and the Colonial period. How soon we forget.

[Solus]

Very good post, MS1212.

Give a good view of what needs to be done and some of the problems that will be encountered.

It would seem that one of the recent or next church shootings might be a good way to introduce that aspect of your Team's responsibility to the congregation....maybe that you are considering how to incorporate that type of threat into your plan...

In any case, it is very good work you are doing and it sounds like you have found some true Sheep Dogs there.

Good luck and take care.

[ms1212]

Very good post, MS1212.

Give a good view of what needs to be done and some of the problems that will be encountered.

It would seem that one of the recent or next church shootings might be a good way to introduce that aspect of your Team's responsibility to the congregation....maybe that you are considering how to incorporate that type of threat into your plan...

In any case, it is very good work you are doing and it sounds like you have found some true Sheep Dogs there.

Good luck and take care.

That is one thing we try to do is get the police reports on church violence and other events that would be similar and then we scenario train it as closely as we can in our "lab". I also, and this could seem morbid, e-mail them any shooting incident info that is current or relative to our situation. You have a fine line that you want each member to be at...you do not ever want the "I can't wait to get to plug someone today!!!" or the "I didn't feel like wearing my gun today because it is uncomfortable and besides we have done this forever and I have never needed it before." I have the best team members I ever could have wished for that all have super personalities and great skills. I have known all of them well for over 15+ years. However, you want them to be aware that though unlikely we have to prepare as if it will happen today.
Thanks for the comments and I appreciate any suggestions that any one may have it could help us all in the future.