Church Security

[hudson69]

In the past year or so I have been asked about churches putting together safety teams. Being in Colorado with the shooting at New Life Church there are several churches that are putting armed persons in their churches to protect the masses from the disgruntled and the insane. The biggest question that arises is "What should a church (armed) security team know?"

Anybody have anything like this come up?

[readyornot]

I'm in Knoxville, TN where we also had a church shooting incident about a year ago.
I work for the local Sheriff's office and also attend a rather large church. We (Sheriff's office) have developed a worship center incident plan and conduct regular training sessions for churches who are interested in implementing it. Currently we have approximately 20-30 of the larger churches in the area utilizing the plan. Send me your contact info and I would be glad to send you a copy of what we do.

Just a note, we emphasize that the security team be made up of uniformed officers (armed), plain clothes officers (armed), and church member volunteers (UNARMED!). All have radios and the church member volunteers are assigned to certain areas and are trained to be observant of their surroundings and report any suspcious activity to the certified officers. On a Sunday we will have 1 uniformed and 1 plain clothes officer inside the church and 1 uniformed officer outside to monitor the parking lots and assist with traffic control between services and approximately 6-10 church member volunteers (we have attendance of about 3000+ each Sunday). On a Wednesday, we will have 1 uniformed officer and 1 plain clothes officer along with 2-3 church member volunteers. By the way, the certified officers are paid by the church for their service.
Hope this helped.

[The Fed]

Im actually involved in a company contract to protect a church with plain clothes concealed weapon armed security officers. Its mainly to protect the money that is gathered during services and to ensure it gets transported to the bank safely afterwards.

The security of the church and its members is 2nd in priority for some odd reason.....

[SirLancelot]

Just a thought, but identifying officers/deputies/feds attending your church and encouraging them to carry off-duty EVERY time they are at church is a good start as well. I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've gone to church and not carried. We have no formal "security" plan at my church that I'm aware of, but myself and other off-duty coppers that carry are about all we've got.

[dme]

I used to attend a large church in NW Indiana. Things are little different now but for the most part the same. There are nine armed plain clothed security officers in the auditorium. At least five uniformed outside with three or four off-duty officers on the property. They have anywhere from 10,000 - 20,000 people on a normal Sunday morning.

All the armed officers are trained by a certified NRA police officer trainer and go through better training than I did as a reserve officer.

[Ilikechocolate]

I've been asked to develop a church emergency and security plan since we have nothing in place. It wasn't a high priority because we were fairly small but we grew from about 75 to 400+ within 1 year so it came up as a topic this year.

Does anyone have any experience or recommendation on where I can gain additional information? Thanks

[Fuerza]

Just a thought, but identifying officers/deputies/feds attending your church and encouraging them to carry off-duty EVERY time they are at church is a good start as well. I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've gone to church and not carried. We have no formal "security" plan at my church that I'm aware of, but myself and other off-duty coppers that carry are about all we've got.

I've begun carrying concealed at Mass for this very reason. Having sworn officers who happen to be members of the parish/congregation ready to act is probably the best informal "security plan" available.