Area church holds intruder response training

A local church has decided to take proactive measures to ensure the safety of its members by hosting intruder response training on Friday that is also available to other congregations.

Lake Valley Community Church has teamed up with Strategos International, a company specializing in security training, to host a church security planning and intruder response training certification at the church, 910 Shady Grove Road, on Friday from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.

“The church feels like we’re a family, and we need to take care of our family. We are not really

doing this for a terroristic-type threat,” said Marie Greer, safety team member at Lake Valley.

“Our main focus it to just be on any situation that might occur. We’re just here to be proactive and protect our families,” she said.

The course is open to anyone interested in learning more about church security planning and how to respond to intruder situations. There is a one-time fee of $99 to participate in the training program, and everyone must register online prior to Friday.

A news release about the training says that violent incidents within churches have increased by “590 percent” since 2005.

“Behind the statistics are real people who have been killed or injured, with many more experiencing the trauma of having their house of worship turned into a zone of violence,” Vaughn Baker, president of Strategos International, said in the release.

Strategos International, based out of Kansas City, Mo., began in 2002. Its primary focus is active shooter and intruder response training.

“The things that we teach are very applicable to any situation that the person may be in. So, regardless of whether you’re at church, or a movie theater, or even a sporting event, you can take the training anywhere regardless of the situations someone may encounter,” said Cody Ashley, director of sales and marketing for Strategos International.

According to the news release, participants will learn how to identify suspicious people, diffuse a potentially violent situation before it starts, lockdown procedures and help compile a written plan that works uniquely for a given church.

The company offers several different levels of training that focus on tactical training for various groups including police, health care workers and a specially designed course for churches.

The training program covers security planning on both the technical and tactical side. The instructor will walk participants through details involving insurance, how to plan and assemble an efficient and effective security team, and administrative duties, as well as hands-on training for active shooter and intruder situations.

The hands-on training will guide participants through a series of steps used to determine if someone poses a threat, including how to pick up on body language and social cues of someone that potentially poses a threat.

“We teach everybody to be very friendly when their coming up to potentially confront a person that might be angry or aggressive towards others. We teach general observation and things like personal awareness,” Ashley said.

Members of the church’s safety team have been working for some time to bring this type of training to Lake Valley, but say they hope to inspire other churches with safety teams to attend the training program, and take preventive measures before a tragedy occurs.

“We’re hoping to train our people on our safety team what to look for and how to spot things that are suspicious before it becomes a conflict. If you can spot things on the front end, sometimes it doesn’t escalate as much,” said Greer.

Those interested in attending must preregister online at http://intruderresponse.com/schedule.