All the following is to be heavily documented for CYA:
- “When necessary, communicate your suspicions to the safety team as quickly as possible.
- “Never hesitate to contact law enforcement if you have suspicions.
- “Part of your training should focus on individuals capable of identifying the signs of any potential threat and suspicious behavior such as:
- Nervousness
- Anti-social tendencies
- Strange attire
- Body language
- Confused look
- “During Mass or large gatherings at your parish, conduct a minimum of one walk-around of the parking areas and exterior of building(s). Look for people inside vehicles as you may need to approach them to inquire their purpose on the property. If uncomfortable in doing so, never place yourself in harm’s way and never hesitate to contact law enforcement to be on the safe side of your decision making.”
MY COMMENT: It is this kind of fear, an unreasonable paranoia really, which risks getting you killed, for two reasons:
- You’ll be pegged as the boy who cried wolf and no one will help when there’s a real emergency:
- If you communicate suspicions to a security team such as “there’s a guy who’s got a confused look” they’re going to get tired of you right quick and will quit being on on the security team.
- If you communicate suspicions to law enforcement, you know, calling 911, stating the location of the emergency, at a church, it is already at that point that all law available law enforcement in the region are going to risk their lives in speeding crazily to the church even before they hear the rest of the story, that it’s just a guy with a confused look, but even when they hear that, someone is still going to be dispatched, but everyone else will show up because of that. Really. But do that a couple more times and you’ll be fined and/or put in jail for wasting resources. And then no one’s going to come after that.
- If you bother someone in a car in a parking lot around in WNC, you might be asking for trouble that you don’t want, someone who didn’t want someone accosting them in their car when they were just checking their phone, whatever. This is extremely imprudent, dangerous. Don’t do this.
This is PART 3 of a series.
Here’s Part 1: Church-security gun-policies that want us to throw Molotov cocktails at active shooters
Here’s Part 2: Bishops’ CRT church “security” creates mass shooters: good for risk-retention business!
ARISE! LET US BE GOING! 
Thank you, Father. Providing the right education is very important. I was introduced and educated at an early age to firearms and am quite comfortable around armed people who display proper safety and knowledge. But my point is not the firearm, but the knowledge itself.
I am always disappointed whenever I see a display of irrational fear, because this fear often leads to the “rookie mistakes,” that Father outlined, which can lead to counterproductive behavior. Irrational fear is usually the outcome of “a little information is dangerous.”
It is clear to me that the Bishops security plan is too concerned with fulfilling their CYA needs to the detriment of a good situational awareness/plan of action guideline. I do not pretend to know what the hallmarks of such a plan would be, much less a guideline to foster its development, but Father’s critique persuades me that “this ain’t it.”
Not sure what to think about all this…I guess CYA is the worldly way…just like Adam and Eve covered theirs after their sin.
On another note, I think every young person that is able should join a branch of military to learn discipline that most don’t know.
That third bullet point – Half my parish, including Beloved Husband and myself, would be labeled a POI right there…We’re quite the bunch of older, bewildered, partially deaf, strangely garbed weirdos, we are!