RED ALERT

 

The United States is at war on its own soil. In the past few days, Iranian leaders issued orders for sleeper cells and individual actors worldwide to take revenge for their losses in the war in the Middle East. Since then, the US has experienced almost daily Muslim terrorist related events.

In NYC, their newly elected radical Muslim mayor celebrated Ramadan in City Hall. The NYC mayor has openly supported terrorist causes. Some headlines read, “NYC Has Fallen.” Opinion writers observed that NYC, another of the world's major cities, has fallen to Islam and become yet another Muslim dominated Londonistan. 

Earlier in the week, the administration was taking steps to suppress a confidential internal security memo warning law enforcement agencies of the high probability of terrorist attacks. Since then, a mass drone attack against California was apparently foiled. Some units of the US Navy and Marine Corps are advising their troops not to wear uniforms in public places because of the danger of targeted terrorist attacks against servicemen on US soil. Christian Warrior Training, the best known source of church threat intelligence in the US, has increased its threat level to Red, the maximum, meaning that attacks are imminent.

There have been individual terrorist events in Texas, Virginia, Michigan and California within the past few days. In Austin, three victims and the attacker were killed when a Muslim identifying man opened fire in a public place. The shooter was a Senegalese immigrant who obtained citizenship by marrying a US citizen. He had a history of domestic violence.

In the Houston area, a Muslim identifying man has been arrested for attempting to enter an elementary school armed. The shooter was a naturalized Iraqi immigrant. He was wearing a tactical uniform and gear allegedly bearing Houston Police Department patches. Muslim terrorists impersonating security or law enforcement is a common tactic. Supposedly friendly local police and military attacking US forces in the Middle East is a common occurrence in so called “blue on blue” events. The key takeaway here is to not trust uniforms and identifying items alone. Learn to spot anomalous, inconsistent behavior and appearance.

In the Old Dominion University event, ROTC students subdued and killed the attacker with a knife after he shot a US Army Lt. Col. in the classroom and wounded two other students. The attacker was an immigrant from Sierra Leone who had served in the US Army National Guard. In her public statement the Democratic governor of Virginia, a former CIA employee, refused to even acknowledge that there had been a terrorist attack, much less the religion of the attacker. The attacker had a history of supporting Muslim terrorist causes, was convicted of aiding ISIS and imprisoned but granted early release by the courts. The takeaway here is that military style training saves lives even if the odds are in the attackers favor. Another key takeaway is to respect edged weapons. In this case, an edged weapon saved lives but never forget that America’s deadliest terrorist attack was carried out using cheap, ubiquitous box cutters.

In the Michigan event, armed security killed the attacker after he rammed a vehicle through the doors of a synagogue. The attacker was an immigrant from Lebanon who recently lost family in an Israeli airstrike there. His vehicle contained large quantities of flammable liquids and commercial level fireworks. The takeaway here is that armed, professional level security saves lives. Another key takeaway is to expect explosives and incendiary materials as part of the attack.

While “profiling” has fallen out of favor, a couple of key facts stand out. All of the attackers were immigrants from Muslim countries and all identified by names containing the word Mohamed. And, all came from cultures where personal violence to avenge perceived personal, religious, political or national affronts is encouraged.

There were also multiple, non-terrorist related “normal” church attacks last week.

Churches fall into four groups concerning volunteer church security. The first group are pure sheep. The very thought of protecting themselves is simply not in their DNA. They can’t get past the mental hurdle that the safety of their families and flocks is first and foremost their own responsibility and that they may be required to do some hard things to ensure that safety. If it were just the sheep risking their own lives that would be one thing but they are also risking the lives of the innocent families and children they are responsible for and setting up situations where others will have to risk their lives to save them in situations that could have been prevented or mitigated.

The second group pays lip service to their church’s security needs. They treat church security the same way they treat most other aspects of church life. It has to be convenient, fit everybody’s social calendar and not require much commitment beyond showing up when you feel like it. These “programs” are likely to come apart like a house of cards when required to respond. As anyone with experience will tell you, eighty percent of your training disappears in a crisis and what happens next will depend entirely on the remaining twenty percent that is performed from the gut level.

The third group are self deluded. They think because a few of their people are armed and fired fifty rounds last year in a cow pasture or at a civilian gun range that doesn’t even allow tactical training they have this thing covered. The White Settlement, Texas church shooting proved the fallacy of this delusion when two of their deacons died needlessly while fumbling to get their weapons out of their holsters and then other male congregation members endangered the rest of the congregation by waving their weapons around after the fact.

The fourth very small group takes the safety of their families and flocks seriously. They dedicate time and resources toward maintaining a professional volunteer security team. These churches usually have veterans or LEO’s in influential positions in the church who know what is required and have the strength of character to make it happen. May their tribe increase.

I would urge you to take a serious look at your own church and make an objective assessment of your church’s security condition. If you don’t know how, the OCSA provides free security assessment and advice. But, there are three things all churches in all of the groups above can do immediately, THIS SUNDAY, to improve their situation.

First, HARDEN YOUR ENTRANCES. Vehicle attacks are becoming commonplace. In the long term heavy planters and architectural barriers need to be erected but THIS SUNDAY you can ask your staff, deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers and regular attenders to park their cars in such a way that a speeding vehicle could not ram the doors. This includes approaches across grassy areas and over curbs.

Second, ASSIGN COMMUNICATORS. Make sure that at least two people who are seated in protected areas are trained to make a coherent 911 call. They need to have the actual church address memorized not just how to get there. They need to be able to calmly report what is happening while staying out of the line of fire..

Third, INSPECT YOUR PREMISES CONSTANTLY. There was an IED attack last week in NYC. IED’s are a favorite tool of terrorists. Before every service have trusted men walk the perimeter of the building and the entire interior looking for suspicious bags, packages or items. Report anything suspicious and BE SUSPICIOUS.

Effective church security takes months of training and organization, sometimes years. Security experts have been warning that this day would come for over a decade. It has come. Unfortunately, history teaches us that what we are experiencing may be the “new normal” for the rest of our lives. The conflict between Muslims and Judeao/Christian culture has lasted thousands of years. It is literally baked into the culture in the Middle East and Africa and now even in Europe. Violence is a part of daily life. America is now part of that conflict and we have allowed the problem to take seed on our soil through incredibly unwise immigration policies. Any Israeli can tell you about this “new normal” where bomb shelters are part of every community, military service is mandatory for all young men and women, all military members and veterans have an assault weapon in their home and children are not allowed to leave their schools without an armed escort.

The Oklahoma Church Security Association provides professional security assessment, advice and training at no charge. The second session of this years Tulsa area training cycle, Situational Awareness for Churches, will be held Saturday morning March 28 starting at 08:30 AM at Covenant Baptist Church, 500 West College, Broken Arrow, OK.

For further information respond to this email or call Bill Kumpe at 918-381-9792.