Church security awareness training in London teaches proactive responding

LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) — It is a situation that people pray to avoid: facing a shooter inside a church.

“Traditionally, churches are viewed as a soft target,” London Chief of Police Bobby Day, said.

That is why Day said people must know how to protect themselves in a place where they can be most vulnerable. This was made apparent in July when a man shot four people at a Lexington church, killing two of them.

“You want a church to be warm and inviting, but also, you know, people need to know that they’re secure whenever they go there,” Day said.

He said he has been putting on free church security awareness trainings for nearly a decade. The sessions cover defenses for active shooters, kidnappings, domestic violence, severe drug threats, and more; “the proactive approach to it just puts us ahead of the game on the front end of it.”

Charlie Johnson attended the training with others in his church family and said as a man in law enforcement, he knows how important it is for his team to learn these safety tips.

“I do do a lot of training as far as active shooters, but some of our guys have never been involved in that, so I wanted to be here with them and support them in their endeavor to find out more about an active shooter situation,” Johnson said.

Johnson said over time, he has been shocked by how common mass shootings have become.

“Who would have thought someone would walk into a school and shoot a grade school child? You just thought that there’s no evil like that in the world, but now that you can see that there is evil like that in the world, you have to train accordingly.”

Security experts believe more and more churches will adopt safety plans and go through training like this, even though they hope what they preach never has to be put into practice.