Looking for a recommendation regarding armed church security

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ms6852 said:
Not trying to be coy but what difference does it make that you are "partially blocking" the hall when the doors are locked? One thing I've learned in my life time is that if one has committed himself or herself to kill and die, no one can be protected for certain, not even potus, and he has an army. But what can be done is minimize the carnage.
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As I stated before the doors aren’t locked.
 
TomJ said:
Locking the doors is not an option. Our stance is that we're first and foremost a church with the goal of ministering to people. It's common for people to show up late and we don't want to turn them away. It's a balancing act between ministering to people and keeping the congregation safe. I do practice shooting 25+ yards out with my handguns for this reason.
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Our church faced a similar issue. We announced it to the congregation that for security we were going to start locking all but the main entrance 15 minutes after service starts for 2 weeks before implementing it. All the entrance doors have signs on them and there's usually someone at the locked door to let known people in for a little bit after the 15 minutes.

No one really objected.
 
Our church has about 6 exterior exits to cover, there are welcomers posted at each, some may CCW but I doubt very many. Roving security volunteers with radios are making the rounds, I am unsure of whether any are armed or not. I guarantee there are a significant number of members that carry each week.
 
Trunk Monkey said:
Fire Code.

Even if the doors are locked they're required to have panic bars on them
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Forgot about the panic bars. In that case It would be nice to lock all side entrance doors and use just the main entrance door to enter the church. With forcing people to come through one door several security personnel can be greeting at the door while visually scanning for any potential threats. If any threat happens it can be stopped at the door immediately since the security personnel will already be vigilant and present to react immediately . It just sickens me that this type of conversation takes place about a place of worship. What has happened to our society?
 
It’s just anecdotal, but I paid attention to where the 2 security guys for Idaho’s Governor positioned themselves in our little church when the Governor visited one Sunday morning. One of them sat in the back, beside the main entrance, and the other stood in the back corner on the other side of the main entrance.

Our church is pretty small – 60 people on a good day. Nevertheless, the Idaho Governor’s daughter and her husband used to be members, and one Sunday a few years back they decided to have their baby “dedicated.” Naturally, the new mom wanted her “mom and dad” there for the dedication. But nobody, especially not the new mom and her parents, wanted the news media showing up. So it was all very “hush-hush” that the Governor and his wife were in town. My wife and I, being the official church “greeters” were told the Sunday before, but we were asked to keep it quiet.

We were also told that the Governor would have “security,” and I think I was more interested in that than I was in shaking hands with the Governor – even though I’ve voted for him every time. By the way, one of the two security guys was also the Governor’s driver that day. I know, because I was still outside walking our dog when the Governor and his entourage arrived at the church. I watched as one of the security guys walked ahead of the Governor and his wife on their way into the church, while the other sat in the driver’s seat and watched. Once the Governor, his wife and the other security guy got inside, the driver got out of the car, went into the church himself, and took up his position on one side of the door. I’m not sure which one he was. They were both big guys, and they were both wearing slacks and nice jackets, which no doubt concealed handguns in shoulder holsters.

It all went very well. And except for the 50 or so people attending our church that Sunday, nobody in Pocatello, Idaho even knew the Governor had been in town.
 
TomJ said:
Their suggestion was to sit in the front and face the congregation. We’re trying to be more subtle as we want the focus to be on the message being taught, not on us.
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We have visited a few different churches since deciding we needed to change. The first church we visited since our decision had a gentleman that sat in the front facing the congregation but he was off to the side & lower than where the Preacher was (still elevated a bit higher than the congregation. He had a good view of the sanctuary but he was not the center of attention. Not 100% sure but I believe he is either a current or retired LEO. That church also employs off duty sheriff's deputies outside. Large church.
 
I am an advising member on the security team for my congregation. Many of the measures I have suggested have been implemented. All of the doors to the building are locked with only a handful of leaders having the key. All the doors can be opened from the inside. 1-2 off duty police officers are stationed at the 2 main entrances. Typically 3-4 armed members in attendance, maybe more that don't attend the meetings.

I primarily walk between the chapel and the children's day care on the lower floor. To avoid disrupting service, I sit in the back which also allows me to see both doors into the chapel. And have good field of fire to both if the need arises.
 
One of the worst church security plans I have heard of was that some designated men of the church would have their weapons in their vehicles and when the need arose, they would retrieve their weapons from their vehicles! What are they thinking!! Obviously not at all.

The shooting at the church in Texas was done in FIVE seconds, after which there were three individuals fatally wounded. Five seconds, three shots, three dead individuals. We must let that sink-in and do better. My heart and prayers go out to the families and members of the congregation in Texas from this past Sunday’s shooting.
 
USCCA has an excellent write up on establishing church security.teams. There should be a link on their website or do a search
 
Pretend you are a criminal, doing criminal things that are illegal. Now think what would criminals do?
One thing you can't really do is hold your gatherings in secret like criminals, that just looks bad and cult like. Really cult like and weird.
One thing you can do that the criminals almost always do is post a look out.
The look out sees someone suspicious out side they call, text or radio their counterparts inside tell them which group the lookyloo is from and how many there are if more than 1 and the guys inside can decide to run if its the law if they're smart or be ready to fight if it's other competing criminals.
 
RWMC said:
Five seconds, three shots, three dead individuals. We must let that sink-in and do better.
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This link has already been posted a couple times in this thread but it's worth posting again. This is John Correia's analysis of that shooting. It's worth noting that, had the first guy who tried to draw a pistol not taken over 3 seconds to do so, there likely would have only been one dead individual, the bad guy.
 
bearcreek said:
It's worth noting that, had the first guy who tried to draw a pistol not taken over 3 seconds to do so,
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Having watched the video several times, it appears the first security team member was drawing from middle of the back, the slowest of three possible waist holster positions (back, side, kidney), and had not practiced that draw enough to do it quickly and smoothly.
 
Craig_VA said:
Having watched the video several times, it appears the first security team member was drawing from middle of the back, the slowest of three possible waist holster positions (back, side, kidney), and had not practiced that draw enough to do it quickly and smoothly.
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We don't even know for sure that he was reaching for a gun do we?
 
This poor guy should be wake up call, that a 'security team', if serious, cannot be a bunch of old farts talking about stopping power and only shooting at static square range targets. A friend of mine and I have been trying to get one of these passed the stage of a few dudes with LCPs in their pockets. The reluctance to train is well discussed among serious gun folks. We will see if the team takes it seriously. I do know some serious teams that I saw at matches and discussed their training.

A quick and dirty diagnostic would be: Do team members compete in one of the shooting sports?
 
FL-NC said:
Generally speaking, the more you can see, the better.
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(ETA: Yes, even though I outline this is pretty minimal cost etc, there's some permission involved, herding cats, scariness, etc so this may be impossible to even propose to the leadership at your place of worship.)

I am not sure I'd want to be in the main meeting room at all if I was the only armed response, or the leader. Be in a room (that no one knows about, with a locked door so no one can come mess with you... and never, never visitors) and cameras. Cameras anymore are cheap. Stream Wyze cams to a series of pawn shop tablets and you have a security camera system.

From here out, assuming what I picked up from the OP's stuff: The only armed person is in the building. I'd stay in my room. With a holstered handgun, and a rifle in an opened discrete case (or locked up so it never leaves the room). You could even go so far as to take off your suit jacket, put on a PC an and extra mags. Have a large placard on the front and back that says SECURITY to help the police not shoot you when responding, to freak out the congregants a little less if you have to come out.

Audio and video to outside, entrances, and ALL off the main meeting room. No blind spots. Avoid pan/zoom cameras; you will get tunnel vision as you focus on one and drive it around. Need to scan the whole area and keep scanning until reacting.

Reaction is RARELY going to be getting out of your chair. Use radios. The ushers (I assume) stay at doors, respond to people wandering in late, etc, and are your first contact. You need to be in contact with them to get eyes on, to initiate contact, and to give you feedback. The goal is to never leave the room, to use your resources to avoid issues.

Have the phone number of all ushers. Make sure their phones are on vibrate, but so they will feel it and can answer. If f it's you, they know to perk up their ears, and pick it up immediately.

Oh, and and talk to local PD. See if they are happy with 911 if there's an issue, and if there's a way to shortcut the usual script in the event you have an AS/AK and need to just press a "panic button" as you have to react immediately. Make sure the ushers know to call also, and how. Laminated cards with this info are reasonable.


Do not fall for taking the White Settlement event as the way to go. The short engagement time is being touted I think too much as needing instant reaction. But think harder about it:
  • No one usefully made contact with the shooter before he pulled the shotgun out. It is likely that he could have been kept to the side, maybe out of the room.
  • That, among other things, means no one was close enough or of contact mindset to go hands on, to avoid him completing the draw, etc.
  • The first guy to draw a gun was shot and killed. If that is the only armed good guy in the building, how does the rest of this event unfold? Badly.
 
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shoobe01 said:
  • The first guy to draw a gun was shot and killed. If that is the only armed good guy in the building, how does the rest of this event unfold? Badly.
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You have some good points, although I think they're somewhat unrealistic for the vast majority of "places of worship". This last bit though, would very possibly have ended quite a bit differently had that first guy to draw a gun did so in a more proficient manner.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. It's helpful, so keep it coming. We're meeting Monday evening to discuss additional changes, one of which is a second armed person at one of our services. As of now he's the only other person I know who's qualified to do so, but the operations director of our church who runs this is looking into this and screening additional people. In a congregation our size I'm sure there are more members with law enforcement of military backgrounds. Again, we won't have unqualified people who are armed just to increase that number. They put me through a pretty thorough process, with interviews, background checks and references, and I was glad to see they did so even though I'd been a member of the church for over 4 years at the time and knew the staff pretty well.
 
TomJ said:
Thanks for all the feedback. It's helpful, so keep it coming. We're meeting Monday evening to discuss additional changes, one of which is a second armed person at one of our services. As of now he's the only other person I know who's qualified to do so, but the operations director of our church who runs this is looking into this and screening additional people. In a congregation our size I'm sure there are more members with law enforcement of military backgrounds. Again, we won't have unqualified people who are armed just to increase that number. They put me through a pretty thorough process, with interviews, background checks and references, and I was glad to see they did so even though I'd been a member of the church for over 4 years at the time and knew the staff pretty well.
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Does your church have signs prohibiting concealed carry? Just skimmed the Illinois regs and I didn't see anything about church carry being prohibited by law. You may already have people carrying there, which is something you should consider when determining what your SOP's are going to be.
 
bearcreek said:
Does your church have signs prohibiting concealed carry? Just skimmed the Illinois regs and I didn't see anything about church carry being prohibited by law. You may already have people carrying there, which is something you should consider when determining what your SOP's are going to be.
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We 're renting space from a school for now (a permanent location is in the works) and the buildings are posted. We did look into this and based on the way to law is written are allowed to carry while we control the property on Sunday. I don't know that members of the congregation are aware of this as it hasn't been announced to us (that would be an awkward announcement), so I'm assuming many if not most people with carry permits aren't aware they can carry and don't do so.
 
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