In light of several church shootings in the past few years, including one in Vestavia Hills in June, many Alabama church leaders are evaluating the security measures they have in place.
Why might a church be targeted? Churches are welcoming to strangers and trusting of those who enter. Many have few safety precautions in place, and a church worship service provides a shooter with a large number of potential victims.
Shooters are hard to predict and can cause devastation in seconds, said Curt Carpenter, a retired police officer and team leader for Overwatch Security Advisors, a consulting firm based in Birmingham that works with businesses, nonprofits and churches.
“Your actions will play a large part in the effects that the shooter has on your facility,” he said during a security workshop held in recent years.
To know how to respond, churches and church security teams need to prepare, Carpenter said.
Some may choose to arm the church security team and others may choose to hire off-duty police officers to assist as a first line of defense, but other preventative actions also are important, experts say.
Preventative tips from various sources include:
- Train volunteer church greeters to be watchful for those who are suspicious and may cause violence. Provide them with two-way radios to report possible danger to an appointed church person.
Enlist local officials
- Meet with local law enforcement officials and learn their strategy for responding to an active shooter. Give them a detailed blueprint of every room in the church to be used if they need to secure the building. Ask officers for up-to-date contact information in case of a church crisis and distribute it to church leadership/staff. Ask them about a lockdown policy for your church to avoid the chaos of an unexpected evacuation.
- Train your deacons to be watchful before, during and after church worship services and events. Teach them to be actively aware of people/things that seem out of the ordinary. During worship services, place deacons throughout the sanctuary, balcony and building. Most church shootings take place after the worship service begins.
- Consider locking some back entrances after services begin, but ensure members are able to leave the building if necessary. Put trained greeters at outside entrance doors left unlocked to meet latecomers.
- Establish an emergency plan in the event of an act of violence, and practice it regularly. Equip church leaders and staff with information on how to respond to emergencies, as well as how to get police and medical assistance. Create a list of counselors in your area who can be contacted in case of an emergency.
- Hold a disaster leadership workshop. Ask a local law enforcement official to train appointed key leadership/people in your church to deal with active shooters.
- Make the congregation aware of all emergency exits in the building. Ask members to report any concerns and/or anything out of the ordinary to an appointed central person. Teach them what to do in case of an emergency. This can be done with the congregation as a whole or through newsletters and brochures. Practice emergency procedures together as a church on a selected day.
Establish communication
- In case of an emergency, alert your members to places they can take cover and hide, as well as a designated rally point inside or outside the church.
- Establish a good method to communicate among church leaders, staff and security teams.
- Plan for a post-incident course of action: evacuation and assembly points, witnesses speaking with law enforcement, prayer and counseling, etc.
While church shootings are rare, shooting violence is escalating. Taking preventive measures can help churches avoid the tragic results of active shooters and other acts of violence.
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