Enhancing Church Security: Steve Moses on Defensive Training, Team Formation, and Emergency Preparedness Strategies

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Hi, welcome to the Armguardian Podcast, season 2, episode 17.

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Today I'll be talking with Steve Moses from Palisade Training Groups out of Texas.

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He's going to talk to us today about church security, why you should have one and things that you can do if you're looking to implement one or two, enhance your current team.

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So sit back and listen to today's episode.

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Our sponsors for today are Right to Bear Legal Protection Plan and Blueberry Tactical and Training.

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Hi, welcome to the Armed Guardian Podcast.

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I'm Brian, your host.

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I'm here today with Steve Moses from Palisade Training Group in Texas and we're going to talk about church security and some things that you might want to consider if you have a church security team or you're looking to begin a church security team, and look forward to hearing what Steve's got.

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And Steve, how are you doing today, sir?

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I'm doing very well, Brian.

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What about yourself, brother?

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I'm doing well, doing well.

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Worked last night and got a few hours sleep and up to record this episode and go to work this evening.

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Well, you look surprisingly bushy-tailed and bright-eyed then yeah.

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As I've gotten older I find I don't need as much sleep as I used to.

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I tend to 4 to maybe 6 hours and I'm good to go.

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Usually for a while Now I've had the time where it We'll catch up with me later and I just take that you know that one day to just catch up on whatever no sleep deficiency that I have, and but typically four hours and I'm I'm recharged and ready to go again.

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So well, in my world you're an anomaly, so that's not a bad thing?

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No, it's not so.

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For anybody that doesn't know who Steve Moses is, why don't you give us an intro or bio about yourself and let people know who you are?

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Well, my name is Steve Moses.

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I'm based out of Bluffdale, texas, about 75 miles west-southwest of Fort Worth, so a lot of the training we do takes place in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

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I've been a defensive farms trainer since 1994, so I'm on my 30th year.

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I've pretty heavily invested in the Rangemaster instructor program so I have, you know, pretty much all of the instructor certificates basic, advanced master and professional pistol craft instructor, as well as defensive shotgun instructor.

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I've got a number of other certifications in, you know, firearms and weapons such as OC, less lethal force on force, empty hand knife defense, there's quite a few more small impact weapons, et cetera.

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Doesn't make me necessarily an expert in any one of those, but it did kind of give us a little bit more to work with and we work some of that stuff into our programs.

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And the cool thing is is when you go and you get those instructor certifications, uh, you become familiar with people that are absolute masters in their field uh, in which we can recommend other people seek out.

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So been pretty uh, pretty blessed in that regard.

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Uh, have a fairly extensive martial arts background.

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Probably my proudest accomplishment is that I'm a Helson Gracie Jiu-Jitsu brown belt, which is no small thing because I started that actually in my 50s.

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I was a member of a special response team multi-precinct special response team for about 10 years and I was a reserve deputy constable for 18 years.

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I had the rank of sergeant and I was responsible for providing site security for various events that we covered there in the Tarrant County area.

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Tarrant County includes Fort Worth, so I've got a fairly extensive background.

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One of the things that I did, and still do to some extent, was private security.

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I have my level four personal protection officer.

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I've done private security and close protection for the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, several international and national politicians and my partner, my business partner Alan McBee and I.

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We were both members of a mega church security team for approximately eight years.

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We were both in leadership positions.

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He was agent in charge, which means he was in charge of the team.

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Both in leadership positions.

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He was agent in charge, which means he was in charge of the team, and when he wasn't, if I was there, then I was the shift lead, so we actually were the ones that managed the team.

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We went into that position as firearm trainers and so we kind of got some insight, you know, as we were going on to.

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Okay, what do we need to do in order to, you know, train up new team members?

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We then started doing church security classes.

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We've been doing those now for about 10 years.

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The last couple of years we primarily focused on what we call force multiplier classes, which is, church security team leader instructor development classes.

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So we have a level one class, which is a 16 hour class, has a lot of instruction in there, a lot of emphasis on firearms, and then we have a level two class, which is an eight hour class.

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We're teaching one on August 10th in the Granbury, Texas, in which we kind of take okay, we've gotten into that position where we're actually having to engage another person, and one of the things I think a lot of church security teams focus on is that they think everything is active shooter.

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Active shooter is a very small percentage of it, although a very, very important one that many of these active shooter situations kind of start out with, maybe something not so obvious.

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That that's what it is.

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You know, the shooting we had in White Settlement was very much White Settlement, texas, in which a homeless person visited a church.

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He became agitated for some reason.

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He went to the service.

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He became agitated for some reason.

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He went to the service.

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He was wearing a trench coat, a wig, a beard, and he had a you know what we refer to as a you know.

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I guess you would call it.

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It wasn't a short barreled shotgun, but it was basically a shotgun.

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It was a pistol type shotgun.

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And so what he did was he then shot one of the security officers or the team members?

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He shot an usher and he turned on the audience before Jack Wilson just performed a heroic feat of marksmanship and cool headness and shot him before he was able to do anything else.

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So we need to understand that a lot of those situations that maybe become pretty how should I say that a really critical event sometimes start off with being able to interact with those people, and the majority of the interactions we're going to have with people in a house of worship or church they're not active shooters, they're people in various states of worship or church.

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They're not active shooters, they're people in various states of distress, or sometimes we really don't know what's going on.

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You know, maybe they have some health going on.

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There's a lot to it that more than just you know active shooter, but you know active shooter is very important.

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Right, okay, all right.

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Well, thank you for that.

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Our first question is we'll kind of start from the very basics why is church security and our teams important to the house of worship overview?

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Well, there's a couple of primary reasons.

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First and foremost is that, yeah, there is a small possibility that an active shooter may show up.

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However, most church violence in which people are harmed, they're not what you would call an active shooter.

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It's an event where maybe only one person or two persons are shot.

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Well, that's, one or two persons being shot is still way too many.

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And so we need to be able to deal with those.

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A lot of this happens to be, in many instances, personal conflict or, you know, could be domestic violence related.

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These are things that can occur.

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We need to be prepared to deal with it.

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It's not uncommon for a couple to have some, you know, marital problems We'll call them marital problems and one of them is abusive and typically it's a female, but not always.

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In that particular instance, they decide to get back into the church family and then they go ahead.

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They start creating distance between themselves and the.

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You know, the former partner and the partner will come and either seek them out at the church or, in the event that perhaps they're getting counseling, or, in some instances, they meet people.

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They start dating people at church.

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Okay, we need to be prepared to deal with that.

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It's not uncommon to see domestic violence.

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It's not uncommon to see a breach of peace and unfortunately, we saw this starting to develop in 2020.

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We're seeing some violence or threats of violence come from a crowd that basically has a problem, if you will, with maybe the political leanings or the religious leanings of the church members themselves.

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By the same token, what we're doing for the church itself is very important.

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We're giving people a sense of confidence that they can go and they can worship and you know safety, without great fear that they are going to, you know perhaps be injured, killed or have one of their loved ones in the same way you know that take place to them.

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So I think all of those are very good reasons why we need church security or house of worship security teams.

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Okay, and I see I'm an ordained minister myself and we don't want to turn people away that are seeking help.

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Sometimes it's all silent, but we allow people to come in.

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Maybe they're trying to turn their lives around, maybe they have a shady or a past that has been tarnished for some reason, and if they come in and start becoming active in the church and maybe something triggers them, we need to protect the people in the church, like our children, with some sort of screening for the workers or for anybody that we may know that has an issue to prevent them from having access to alone, access to children or anything like that.

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And then you've got robberies people wanting to whenever money's transitioned from the sanctuary during an offering and maybe it goes to an exterior building, exterior room on the church property and somebody is lying in wait or realizes this and maybe they plan a robbery or something.

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And it's not only just with that, it's just basic security of the church.

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I know whenever I've worked in law enforcement in Florida we had a lot of rural churches that had sound equipment.

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Sound equipment is a big item for thefts whenever people break into churches and we had seen a lot of rash in those.

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So it's just the security of the building and a lot of those churches didn't have alarm systems or anything and it wasn't found until days later or the next service that they had that something would happen.

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So just being aware of safety things that you can do, alarms and stuff like that, I think bringing that light to the churches to help with their overall security.

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Yeah, the other thing too is that the church that we worked at it was a high-profile minister.

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He had a televised program.

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At the time some of the messages were considered very controversial.

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You'd get people that would come out there and show up and stuff like that.

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If you do that same thing today, the likelihood that's going to happen is greatly increased, and especially in certain states or certain cities.

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So that's something to consider.

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The other thing to consider is that the majority of violence does not take place inside the church facility.

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It takes place outside, in the parking lot area, and one of the major triggers for church violence is robbery.

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And so you know, you think about that.

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Somebody drives up to that church.

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There's people all around relatively easy to just, you know, walk up to them.

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Most robberies are not what we see on television.

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A person gets up very close.

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They're trying to, you know, kind of disguise the fact that a robbery is even in effect and just people knowing that A that could happen.

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And also they have a propensity for turning violent.

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And so by having a church security team, especially with, you know, coverage on the outside, you know one of the things about almost every single active shooter he had to come from the outside to get to the inside.

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This is a great opportunity, you know, to pick up on that.

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We saw in one instances I believe not instances one instance in which the person would actually opened up on the church from the outside.

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And you know some of the little churches I've been in, you know especially these small churches with all the stained glass windows, super, super susceptible you know, to doing that.

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You know you go out there, put a bunch of rounds through the windows, people take cover and then guess what?

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They're not running.

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It makes it easier pray.

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These church shooters and active shooters of all kinds.

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Some of them plan these events for months or years, do lots of research and everything, and you know the deal is.

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You know we have to be right every time.

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They only have to be, you know, correct one time to do a lot of damage.

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Yeah, okay.

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So when we talk about church security teams, it's not just about armed or unarmed, is it?

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I think each church is unique.

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There's not a cookie cutter approach to okay, this is what every church security team needs.

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This right here.

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You may only be serving in a church of 20 or 40 people and their needs are going to be different from a church of 200 plus people for their security needs.

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What is your recommendation for a church that's looking to start a security team?

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What are some things that you kind of guide them to plan on getting that started?

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Well, with your permission, I'm going to actually refer to an article I wrote nearly 10 years ago that appeared in SWAT magazine called the God Squad.

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It was about an 1800 word article.

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I you know a little bit of it's dated.

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There's stuff I would probably, you know, maybe reword, but most of the principles in it, I think, are relatively sound.

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So I'm going to go ahead, just because I don't want to miss anything.

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I don't want to miss the opportunity to get this information out correctly is refer to that.

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First thing you need to do is have a meeting with the church leaders and make a decision that do you want to have one and how?

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In what direction do you want it to go?

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The second thing would be you need to designate a security director.

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That security director needs to develop a comprehensive safety and emergency response plan.

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At that point you select and you train the protective team.

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You also need to train the staff, the greeters and other church workers to be eyes and ears.

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Basically, the more persons I have in a position out there that can pick up on anomalies and get that information to people on the safety or security team, the better Test emergency response plans through regular exercises.

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You need to lay it with law enforcement and fire department.

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I mean, a pretty good way to do that is, once you've got your security team in place, is go ahead and invite them to come over and meet the team, provide coffee and donuts.

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Well, you were law enforcement, so you know the importance of donuts and you know let them.

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Okay, hey, guys, we have a security team.

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This is what we're doing.

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This is how we're set up.

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In many instances, especially in the larger cities and such, it's not going to be possible for local law enforcement to know everyone that's on that team.

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But, by the same token, if they know that there are people in place that are on that team and then the people that are on that team are trained how to handle situations, that lessens the possibility that they're going to be shot by respending law enforcement and you also have somebody on the team or somebody that can support the team, that their job is to go and meet law enforcement and accompany them to the scene, it lessens the chance that that'll happen.

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I think that it's real important to select your personnel, your team and your key volunteers.

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A few interviews and background checks Background checks are important.

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You might be surprised, especially in the larger areas, how many people do have a criminal background, the fact that, okay, maybe it was something that was 20 years ago and it wasn't necessarily a victimless crime, but it was a nonviolent crime.

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Right.

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You know, that's one thing, but you know, in many instances you would probably be surprised if all of us just did a you know a check to see how many registered sex offenders lived within you know 15 or 20 miles of us.

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There are a.

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There's a large number.

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You've got to develop a means of controlling access to the you know the entrances and the exits.

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In that particular instance, my recommendation is is you have people there and these people are trained, not so much.

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I mean, a lot of churches do have greeters.

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What a great place for a greeter you know to be in a position to pick up on something.

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And if you equip those greeters and the parking lot attendants with radios and they're in direct contact with the team, ok, you can get that information you know just as quickly as possible.

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I also believe that if you've got a large church or you know church that's got a lot of entrances, you need to have the doors locked down, the ones that that bar people from getting inside during church services, and understand that.

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Even so, that doesn't mean that somebody from the inside can't open the door for them, intentionally or unintentionally.

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Right, that's a good place to then have cameras over those areas and somebody watching those cameras.

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That's a good place to then have cameras over those areas and somebody watching those cameras, like well, I've already kind of talked about using electronic monitoring and surveillance equipment and then be on the lookout, for you know threat indicators, you know people that are wearing baggy clothes, packages unusual.

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You know packages received in the mail, unintended backpacks, you know stuff laying around strange vehicles out there.

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So if you just get all of that information, start there, then I think you can kind of start fleshing out that program.

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That's my recommendation anyway.

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Okay, topics with the bringing in the law enforcement or first responders, is that I think it?

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would be a prime opportunity also to give them a tour of the facility to show, okay, this is the sanctuary, this fellowship hall, this is our education wing, this is where the children are, and show them around where you know if you don't have a large, you know, multi-building facility, you know, seeing where everything is at, laid out, so that they can kind of, if something were to happen, okay, there's a incident in the pastor's office.

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Where's the pastor's office at?

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I don't know If you, if they're aware of you, know where that's at, the layout and everything.

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It kind of gives them one when they're responding, they know where to respond to, but as they're walking around, they should be picking up, uh, hopefully on.

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Okay, there's a hidden corner, there's a balcony up there.

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Now maybe somebody might be up there as we were coming in and just preparing for any ambush or any hidden where they might miss a suspect if something were to happen.

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So I think that that's one of the things that I try to encourage security teams is to, whenever they invite first responders, is give them know, give them a tour of the location and tell them you know where everything's at, so that you know it, kind of they've got the big picture and they're better prepared to handle an incident, should something happen.

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Exactly, and you know, given the fact that if you're doing this, of course, in a large area, you know there's a high possibility that whomever responds will have not been through that.

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But, by the same token, if you provide perhaps the you know supervisors in there with a blueprint of the church, so that they have, you know, some idea of where these areas are, and then, secondly, that's so critical, that you have somebody meet those people, right, you know?

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And I mean you need to have multiple people that are trained and capable of doing that and just say OK, officer, we've got people in place, we think it's happening over there.

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I'll point you in the general direction, I'll move you there.

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Of course, you don't want those persons accompanying them there and putting themselves in harm's way.

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But you know it's just.

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The thing is is just have exactly as you said and then have a plan B in place for you know somebody you know showing up that I live in a real rural area, such you know very much like you do, rural area, such you know very much like you do.

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Uh, my little town here only has about 400 people and I live about four miles out and we're 15 miles from stevenville, which is where the uh, you know the, the sheriff's office is based out so we can either have a response really quick or it could be, you know, even going golly.

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If they're coming from Stephenville, just going 90 miles, they're still taking 15 minutes to get there.

00:23:48.200 --> 00:24:03.951
So that is also a reason that is super important to have a security team in place to deal with that situation immediately, because, as Ed Monk says, time is the enemy, math is not your friend.

00:24:03.951 --> 00:24:06.573
As Ed Monk says, time is the enemy, math is not your friend.

00:24:06.573 --> 00:24:20.318
The more time that person has to continue perhaps you know an active shooter event the greater likelihood that they're going to be getting a, you know, a large body count, with the majority of it coming in the first couple of minutes.

00:24:20.318 --> 00:24:23.844
So that's all good points, it's all good points.

00:24:23.864 --> 00:24:24.730
It's all good points, yeah.

00:24:24.730 --> 00:24:31.276
And the other one is you know, for the multi-campus churches there's a multi-campus church in the Dallas area.

00:24:31.276 --> 00:24:44.667
You've got a church so-and-so church, north Campus Church on the south side, if 911, you know most people with cell phones these days that's where the 911 call is coming in.

00:24:44.667 --> 00:24:52.500
They're going to say we've got an incident at Dallas Church of Christ or something.

00:24:52.500 --> 00:25:02.355
And okay, if they don't call or doesn't realize that, hey, I need to specify north campus, main campus, south campus.

00:25:02.355 --> 00:25:12.134
If there's a multi, if that multi-facility church, you know law enforcement may be delayed because they don't know which location to go to.

00:25:12.134 --> 00:25:20.555
You know, they know there's this church, but they also know that there's satellite campuses that we don't know which one.

00:25:20.555 --> 00:25:32.683
So now they're having to divert possibly a response team to each of the locations to try to figure out which facility this incident is coming from.

00:25:33.505 --> 00:25:47.910
And I think it's good to have your congregation involved in your church security to the point where, if they're instructed, hey, if something does happen, make sure you tell them which campus you're at when this happens.

00:25:47.910 --> 00:26:05.656
I know, as far as in Georgia, carrying a firearm inside the church has to be leadership approved or elder approved before they can legally carry, and that's something that the security team needs to be aware of.

00:26:05.656 --> 00:26:09.117
Who are their concealed carriers inside the church?

00:26:09.117 --> 00:26:11.298
If they're allowed to carry inside the church?

00:26:11.298 --> 00:26:21.760
Who is there with a firearm?

00:26:21.760 --> 00:26:30.734
Who may be there legally and just didn't get that permission that they know and being able to know who the good guy, bad guy is, so that the innocent person doesn't get mistaken.

00:26:32.121 --> 00:26:53.916
Well that, and assuming that there's going to be people coming in all the time that are not aware of that or they're going to ignore that, we think it's very important to go ahead and, at a minimum, advise the congregation that you have a plan in place to deal with an active shooter.

00:26:54.461 --> 00:26:59.413
If you need to protect yourself or your family, right then please do so.

00:26:59.413 --> 00:27:15.324
Just be aware that you know you're in a position where you can be mistaken for an active shooter and you know there's people all around and you can, you know, hurt or kill somebody that you didn't intend to.

00:27:15.324 --> 00:27:16.832
I'm a big matter, a matter of fact.

00:27:16.832 --> 00:27:30.266
We believe that it's critical that I don't care if you want to say we don't really have a team, a lot of churches kind of want to play that real low but just say, hey, we have a plan, there's armed security.

00:27:30.266 --> 00:27:34.011
They don't have to know whether it's police officers or whatever.

00:27:34.011 --> 00:27:38.530
It's always kind of cool if you've got at least one off-duty police officer.

00:27:38.530 --> 00:27:40.227
So, yeah, we've got off-duty police.

00:27:40.227 --> 00:27:49.211
They don't need to know how many of those people are off-duty or whether they're members of the team, but that you are putting yourself at risk.

00:27:49.211 --> 00:27:53.548
Did you see the video of the White Settlement shooting?

00:27:53.990 --> 00:27:54.570
Yes, I did.

00:27:55.073 --> 00:28:01.701
Okay, settlement shooting.

00:28:01.701 --> 00:28:02.082
Yes, I did Okay.

00:28:02.082 --> 00:28:03.845
Did you notice after the shooter was down that there were six to seven handguns?

00:28:03.845 --> 00:28:07.590
Out pointing in almost every direction in the compass yeah.

00:28:08.353 --> 00:28:18.566
And you know, and I swear in my you know I'm quick to be judgmental, but it's just like, okay, this is my opportunity to get into something.

00:28:18.566 --> 00:28:33.670
You know, it's just kind of like I can jump in on this, but I don't really know what to do and where it is, and you know, so I don't know, I, I, I have a lot of concerns about that, but of course, we can only control what we can control.

00:28:33.670 --> 00:28:42.551
One of the things I think it's really important, since we're talking to people about setting up a team, is that those people will put you at risk.

00:28:42.551 --> 00:28:56.192
So you need to handle your gun and you comport yourself in such a manner that does not look like that of a violent criminal offender, which means muzzle control is everything.

00:28:56.921 --> 00:29:18.791
If you're not shooting somebody, right then then that muzzle needs to be pointed in a safe direction, in a non-threatening direction, and, as you well know, it's relatively easy at short range, even from low, ready to come up and get a hit on a target in under a second.

00:29:18.791 --> 00:29:19.953
So you're not handicapped.

00:29:19.953 --> 00:29:26.865
And the lower your muzzle is, or, in some instances, if you've got an area where you've got, you're in a seated area, there's a lot of people or children.

00:29:26.865 --> 00:29:36.547
Okay, you don't want your muzzle covering any part of that person's body because, as we both know, you can't see their hands.

00:29:37.269 --> 00:29:37.470
Right.

00:29:37.960 --> 00:29:51.310
So that ability to see those hands not only lessens the chance that you'll shoot somebody that doesn't need to be shot, but it also means that they won't start moving their gun and put you behind that reactionary leg and you're the one that gets shot.

00:29:51.859 --> 00:29:54.930
Right, okay, all right.

00:29:54.930 --> 00:30:00.311
Well, we've talked about why armed and unarmed.

00:30:00.311 --> 00:30:04.703
Briefly, can I come back on something like that.

00:30:05.125 --> 00:30:18.594
In regard to unarmed, I've had a student that was in the Washington DC area and basically they were in a position that they could not be armed.

00:30:18.594 --> 00:30:21.188
They had to go unarmed.

00:30:21.188 --> 00:30:34.935
If that is the case and sometimes that is I think it's worth going to head and hiring an off-duty officer to go ahead and be at that service.

00:30:34.935 --> 00:30:39.303
I really think that it is important to go ahead and be at that service.

00:30:39.303 --> 00:30:44.082
I really think that it is important and this is probably going to be more true for small churches than large churches just because, you know, finances are more limited.

00:30:44.603 --> 00:31:23.672
But you know, having an armed officer there, I think, not only has a great deterrent effect, but at least you have one person you know, especially if that person is competent, that can deal with a situation that otherwise, you know, you're just not going to be well equipped to deal with ability to use their car for going home to run, sometimes running personal errands under the Indianapolis plan that a lot of law enforcement agencies have these days.

00:31:24.259 --> 00:31:30.492
But driving that troll car to church and parking it in a prominent area, that's a big deterrence.

00:31:30.492 --> 00:31:48.953
If an officer is able to do that and the church has somebody that's capable of doing that, to do that and the church has somebody that's capable of doing that, um, now that that it speaks volumes as far as, hey, there's somebody there that, uh, we may, we may want to skip this church and go to the other one to know that doesn't have anybody there that we know of.

00:31:48.953 --> 00:31:55.127
Uh, you know, the perception from outside the church is the paramount, I think.

00:31:55.127 --> 00:31:58.054
And it's also the same with your security team.

00:31:58.054 --> 00:32:12.234
If they see the security team walking around or the golf cart driving the parking lot, they know that someone's out there paying attention to the area and should be able to handle anything that pops up.

00:32:13.720 --> 00:32:13.980
You know?

00:32:13.980 --> 00:32:39.942
And another thing, brian even if you do have an armed security team, still having an off-duty officer out there not only has the same deterrent effect, but in the event that you have a breach of peace, you've got someone that can go in there and act upon a criminal trespass immediately, as opposed to if you don't leave, we're going to criminal trespass you.

00:32:39.942 --> 00:32:43.873
In that case, if they don't leave, you can actually get someone to act upon it immediately.

00:32:43.873 --> 00:33:00.875
Otherwise, if that person continues to stay on site, that's going to occupy two team members, at least in my opinion, if possible, that just have to stay next to that person just to make sure that they don't harm anybody else.

00:33:00.940 --> 00:33:03.164
So if you can do it.

00:33:03.164 --> 00:33:07.713
I think having you know an off-duty officer would be just a big benefit.

00:33:08.339 --> 00:33:09.663
Yeah, yeah, I was.

00:33:09.663 --> 00:33:19.611
Whenever I went to church in Florida with the agency I was at, we were lucky to have a large number of law enforcement.

00:33:19.611 --> 00:33:22.221
I worked with the sheriff's department.

00:33:22.221 --> 00:33:24.808
There's a couple other deputies that were there.

00:33:24.808 --> 00:33:38.933
We had a couple city police officers that attended that church and the highway patrol had a couple officers that attended that church, so we had a well-bast law enforcement presence there.

00:33:54.611 --> 00:34:02.917
And I can see where that helps out with quelling any disturbance a church security team, because you have a number of officers in attendance.

00:34:02.917 --> 00:34:27.052
The problem with that is going to be, in my opinion, is just going to be proximity to areas where a threat may happen, which means if you don't have a position, a person positioned in those areas to where they can intercept and act upon it, then a lot of carnage and damage can take place before you know anybody can get to it.

00:34:27.052 --> 00:34:42.612
So it's great having that in place, but, by the same token, you know positioning and having people that are trained to deal with these situations and willing to deal with those decisions and do it competently, is extremely important Right.

00:34:43.313 --> 00:34:43.635
Okay.

00:34:43.635 --> 00:34:52.775
So when churches decide that, hey, we want to have a security team, what should they look for in their members for the security team?

00:34:52.775 --> 00:35:12.244
What kind of qualities, characteristics in your mind do you think best fit somebody that might be wanting to be on that team, and how should the church bet out some of the people that may be coming in your ideas?

00:35:13.806 --> 00:35:45.822
I'm a big fan of maturity and having good judgment and having a good record of demonstrating that it doesn't necessarily mean they had to be former military, former law enforcement someone that is a responsible person and, you know, in most instances people in the church will either be familiar with that person or definitely an interview has to take place and you know what references checked.

00:35:45.822 --> 00:35:48.588
I think that's number one is that.

00:35:48.588 --> 00:35:53.025
Second is going to be what is your motivation?

00:35:53.025 --> 00:35:59.280
Okay, is your motivation to serve, uh, to protect those who can't protect themselves?

00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:24.869
Or is this your opportunity to you know, kind of, okay, wear a gun and protect others and tell people, yeah, I'm on a security team, uh, you know, uh, what a lot of people don't realize that after a while and, like I said, I did that for nearly eight years it was complacency tends to, you know, set in, it becomes boring.

00:36:24.869 --> 00:36:26.527
It is a commitment, et cetera.

00:36:26.527 --> 00:36:29.706
So is this someone that has a reputation for?

00:36:29.706 --> 00:36:33.313
You know, when they say that they'll do something, will they do it?

00:36:33.313 --> 00:36:42.119
Do they realize that a failure on their part to show up without good cause can cause, you know, a hardship on others?

00:36:42.119 --> 00:36:43.923
I think that's super important.

00:36:43.923 --> 00:36:56.208
The other thing is they need to have competent firearm skills In most instances, in my opinion, in regards to being on a church security team, they will not security team they will not.

00:36:56.208 --> 00:37:16.452
But a person that has, you know, good marksmanship skills, good gun handling they can get a gun in and out can be trained up by someone you know, like yourself, that knows what they're doing in a relatively short amount of time, and I think all of that is super important.

00:37:16.472 --> 00:37:25.074
The main thing is is I'm looking for ego, I'm looking for, you know, a quiet confidence, you know, something that exudes competence.

00:37:25.074 --> 00:37:54.534
I, in many instances, surprisingly so, especially in the smaller churches, a lot of the members on your church team are going to be older guys and in a lot of them they have a lot of those qualities, but they no longer have the physical skills, competence, et cetera, agility and the other thing is, in my opinion, you're probably more likely to get punched than you are get shot, right?

00:37:54.534 --> 00:38:00.463
So are you someone that is willing to learn how to do what we call the assertive interview?

00:38:00.463 --> 00:38:06.302
You know, uh, you know courteously, uh, confront someone with another person.

00:38:06.302 --> 00:38:11.061
You know, kind of go through some questions, see if you can get a feel for, kind of where they're at.

00:38:11.443 --> 00:38:15.172
Uh, like you said, we need to kind of err on the side of grace.

00:38:15.231 --> 00:38:23.338
In most instances, we're going to be the first point of contact and so we're there to not only be, you know, hardcore security guys.

00:38:23.338 --> 00:38:37.454
I don't want to be hardcore, I want to be someone that's here on the benefit for the church, which means, hey, I may need to, you know, get a feel for where this person is and then get them connected and kind of figure out what I need to do.

00:38:37.454 --> 00:38:45.943
I think all of that is very important and you know it's hard to just have a cookie cutter list of what I'm looking for.

00:38:45.943 --> 00:38:50.070
I think part of it is I kind of know when I see it.

00:38:50.070 --> 00:39:20.688
Now I just need to confirm, but I think maturity, competence and willing to train and enough physical attributes and skills to where they can probably deal with, you know, someone that is being confrontational, survive, getting punched, you know, perhaps with another person, detain someone that needs to be detained for the sole reason that they represent an immediate threat to others, whether lethal or less lethal.

00:39:20.688 --> 00:39:23.625
I think all those are important.

00:39:24.347 --> 00:39:26.331
Okay, yeah, all right.

00:39:26.331 --> 00:39:32.972
So we've talked about the qualifications, or what they should be looking for in their team members.

00:39:32.972 --> 00:39:36.851
Once you have a team, how important is continued training?

00:39:36.851 --> 00:39:57.835
And of course, you and I both know that that is very important, but that seems to be sometimes, hey, we're going to start a team and we've got it in place, but they don't go to the range to qualify, check their firearm proficiency, they don't stay up to date on maybe laws, different things like that.

00:39:57.835 --> 00:40:01.943
What's your view on continuing education for the church security team?

00:40:02.864 --> 00:40:29.768
Well, ideally it would be monthly, but I realize that in this day and age that's just almost unrealistic, especially when you consider that you're serving on the team itself maybe four times a month, maybe two times a month, maybe just one a month, but still, you've only got so much time, and most people the only time they have is on the weekends, and on the weekends there's a lot of stuff going on.

00:40:29.768 --> 00:40:32.981
Of course you've got the Sunday service Quarterly.

00:40:32.981 --> 00:40:39.110
I think would be awesome, and for me, I think would be uh awesome and uh, for me.

00:40:39.110 --> 00:40:46.416
Uh, I think, uh, quarterly should probably alternate between uh range work and requalifying.

00:40:46.416 --> 00:40:48.340
I think you should have a qualifying test.

00:40:48.340 --> 00:40:49.103
We have one.

00:40:49.103 --> 00:40:59.253
Uh, you need to be able to demonstrate that you can pass it, you know, every single time, and then maybe work on some you know fundamental skills.

00:40:59.253 --> 00:41:13.842
I've always kind of thought the most important thing basically was really good gun handling and short range, you know, surgical shooting, with the ability to take a shot at a longer range if need be.

00:41:14.543 --> 00:41:17.771
And then from there it might be good to work in some movement drills.

00:41:17.771 --> 00:41:27.771
You know some things that okay, obviously, the chances are that I'm going to be able to just stand here and deal with something from the location that I started on when it happened.

00:41:27.771 --> 00:41:29.302
It's probably pretty remote.

00:41:29.302 --> 00:41:30.545
I'm probably going to have to move.

00:41:30.545 --> 00:41:34.402
Okay, so being able to move, deal with crowds.

00:41:34.402 --> 00:41:47.195
You know, have surprise stages set up where you have to clear your angles so that if you, you know, pass throughs, will you know, hit somebody else.

00:41:47.621 --> 00:42:01.715
Or I understand that, wow, there was a target, there was a, you know, a target, if you will, that representing a person that could have stepped in that line of fire at any moment, because they don't really know what's going on when you saw on that white cell that people were going in all directions.

00:42:01.715 --> 00:42:04.445
So I think all of that's really important.

00:42:04.445 --> 00:42:07.161
And then the other time is I would actually do the work in the church.

00:42:07.161 --> 00:42:10.813
I would work on, you know, refining my OC skills.

00:42:10.813 --> 00:42:19.880
I would work on doing that insertive interview where, like I said, when you come up there and interview, I would work on what I refer to as some defensive tactics.

00:42:20.019 --> 00:42:23.871
Most of my defensive tactics that I teach are very survival oriented.

00:42:23.871 --> 00:42:35.130
They start defense Any offense is just limited to, you know, putting that person in a position where they can't hurt anybody else and then do some you know, active shooter stuff.

00:42:35.130 --> 00:42:43.449
So if I go into a room and I'm starting to look for people, where are they going to be and you know how do I do that correctly.

00:42:43.449 --> 00:42:51.394
And I think it's real important to have like room entry techniques taught to you by someone that knows what they're doing.

00:42:51.394 --> 00:42:57.172
And on those I've seen some oh my God, on some newspapers church security teams.

00:42:57.172 --> 00:43:07.509
It was like an eight-man team and it was a bunch of big guys wearing shorts and they were clearing a hallway and I'm like going okay, okay, that's pretty much ridiculous.

00:43:08.271 --> 00:43:11.764
Most of your response is going to be done by a single team member.

00:43:11.764 --> 00:43:24.835
What would be really awesome if you could get two of them and then show them how to, you know, get into a room and get themselves where they're clearing those hard corners immediately, you know, get in a diverging situation.

00:43:24.835 --> 00:43:28.327
I think being able to do all that stuff on a quarterly basis would be awesome.

00:43:28.949 --> 00:43:35.213
Okay, all right, and I would say recommend, maybe not discouraging like what we're doing.

00:43:35.213 --> 00:43:41.509
Zoom for you know your um, your uh, non-shooting or non-physical events?

00:43:41.509 --> 00:43:45.184
No, maybe you're just updating policy or going over policy.

00:43:45.184 --> 00:43:53.360
No, this would be a great um way to conduct training without having to physically be in person.

00:43:53.360 --> 00:43:57.820
So your thoughts on virtual or you know, like something like that.

00:43:58.811 --> 00:43:59.532
No, I think it's good.

00:43:59.532 --> 00:44:00.394
I think it's good.

00:44:00.394 --> 00:44:02.239
I'm kind of a Luddite.

00:44:02.239 --> 00:44:18.438
You know, I'm an old analog guy from the fifties, so my high tech skills are sorely lacking, but what I've been exposed to by, you know, people like yourself and other people, to, by you know, people like yourself and other people that are, you know, very digitally competent, is that.

00:44:18.438 --> 00:44:27.882
Yeah, there's a lot to be gained from that, and a lot of times we always make everybody on our team do a pre-service sweep.

00:44:28.282 --> 00:44:52.856
That is once you, okay, you have a pre-team meeting, you go over concerns If you have pictures of people, you talk about anything that's going on, and then you send your team out with the exception of your parking lot person and your react the leader and they do a pre-service sweep Okay, what they're doing in there is they're going through every room in the house of worship Okay, just kind of looking for anything that's out of place.

00:44:52.856 --> 00:44:56.139
That puts them back into this mindset.

00:44:56.139 --> 00:44:57.021
I'm on a team.

00:44:57.021 --> 00:45:07.596
The Zoom meetings that you are referring to, I think are excellent for doing that, reminding me this is not something that I just show up and just say, okay, I'm going to wing it.

00:45:08.097 --> 00:45:15.422
It's like, okay, this is important and in many instances, this is a great opportunity to maybe share some videos.

00:45:15.422 --> 00:45:23.503
John Correa has some great videos out there of you know, people that were in, you know, lethal force encounters.

00:45:23.503 --> 00:45:27.039
Ok, this is what it looks like and what can we learn from this?

00:45:27.039 --> 00:45:46.322
And you'll learn things about how people react, how they move, how they move and, as such, I think it helps you develop a plan in your mind that you can act upon, as opposed to okay, I've got to figure out what I'm going and making it up on the fly and I've got to be two seconds, you know, to make this work, so I think it's a great idea.

00:45:46.949 --> 00:45:47.851
Okay, all right.

00:45:47.851 --> 00:45:58.965
We already talked briefly about the local responders playing a plan in their training or in their plan, not forgetting them.

00:45:58.965 --> 00:46:03.681
Anything else you want to touch on on that one before we jump to the next.

00:46:04.389 --> 00:46:08.960
Well, in regard to local response, we're talking about first responders, police and.

00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:15.481
Emts OK, again, we're going to have to kind of work with what they're willing to do.

00:46:15.481 --> 00:46:31.059
I think the main thing is is that just being able to get them in there, you know, invite them to come in quarterly you know, invite the you know one of the supervisors or something you know, just say, hey, guys, this is what we're doing.

00:46:31.139 --> 00:46:33.391
Hey, meet the team, you know.

00:46:33.391 --> 00:46:40.282
Let me show you where we're going to be set up during a service, and so they get some sort of familiarity with the team.

00:46:40.282 --> 00:46:57.813
The thing that I think that is super important in that regard is not only regardless of the size of the campus, does it help them get into a position to deal with the problem faster, position to deal with the problem faster.

00:46:57.813 --> 00:46:58.175
It's just that.

00:46:58.175 --> 00:46:58.717
Okay now I know that.

00:46:58.717 --> 00:47:03.572
Okay, I've got something other than the shooter and I've got something other than victims and I've got something other than witnesses.

00:47:03.572 --> 00:47:07.239
Okay, I've got guys that are basically first responders.

00:47:07.239 --> 00:47:08.623
I have them on site.

00:47:08.623 --> 00:47:15.724
I need to treat them the same way I would treat an off-duty, you know, out-of-uniform police officer.

00:47:16.289 --> 00:47:17.313
I think that's real critical.

00:47:17.313 --> 00:47:18.931
All right, Would you?

00:47:18.931 --> 00:47:33.481
I've recommended this to a couple of churches that I've talked to about church security is, you know, opening up the house of worship to law enforcement to conduct a training exercise.

00:47:33.481 --> 00:47:58.302
Law enforcement to conduct a training exercise, maybe having a mock situation, that way they're actually participating and you're interacting with the church security team and then handling whatever mock situation that you or the police department sheriff's department have planned with an actor to train.

00:47:58.302 --> 00:48:00.036
Well, what are your thoughts on that?

00:48:00.710 --> 00:48:03.659
Well, my only regret is I didn't think of that first.

00:48:03.659 --> 00:48:07.380
I think that's amazing because they do do it in local schools.

00:48:07.380 --> 00:48:18.635
So you know, especially you know and you know, if you just ask them to do that, and again, some of these departments are really really small, they're really spread out.

00:48:19.271 --> 00:48:26.800
But you know, hey, just say hey, could you get a couple officers over here and we'd like to do some mock training and interacting with the team.

00:48:26.800 --> 00:48:37.804
And you know what, if you've got somebody on your team that is really competent to, you know, teach force on force.

00:48:37.804 --> 00:49:02.521
We took KR Training's Carl Renz force on force instructor course and the reason that we did that Brian was not so much that we needed help in developing scenarios, we needed help in making sure that all training was safe, right, and again, he teaches those guys great scenarios.

00:49:02.521 --> 00:49:08.514
But we've been through a lot of that stuff ourselves and I would really recommend that class to anybody.

00:49:08.514 --> 00:49:30.315
You know, but that ability to go in there and sanitize everything, you know, make sure there is no live weapons anywhere, being able to do a scan, control all of that and then just do that stuff, and you can do it with nothing more than paintball, mask and airsoft pistols, right, yeah, but you know just that ability.

00:49:30.315 --> 00:49:32.916
And again, guess what's that also doing for the team?

00:49:33.780 --> 00:49:36.273
Okay, they're getting some training just as ability.

00:49:36.775 --> 00:49:38.119
And again, guess what's that also doing for the team?

00:49:38.119 --> 00:49:39.184
Okay, they're getting some training just as well.

00:49:39.184 --> 00:49:46.090
And those guys, the uh, the deputies, uh, or the police officers, probably in that area, probably most, maybe deputies uh, they're getting some training as well.

00:49:46.090 --> 00:49:49.820
And you know just little cheap airsoft guns, so I think that would.

00:49:49.820 --> 00:49:52.114
Or you know what, just do blue guns, you know red guns.

00:49:52.114 --> 00:49:56.402
But the airsoft guns tend to, you know, give a little bit more.

00:49:56.882 --> 00:49:57.583
Reinforcement.

00:49:58.070 --> 00:50:10.583
Well, they get more reinforcement and you know, they'll tell you pretty quick you know, hey, did I do what I needed to do, or did I maybe mess up and did I just learn something?

00:50:10.583 --> 00:50:14.561
You know, some of my greatest knowledge has come from messing up, and I have a lot of knowledge.

00:50:16.231 --> 00:50:17.114
I think we all do.

00:50:17.114 --> 00:50:18.478
Yes, sir.

00:50:18.478 --> 00:50:32.945
So finishing up, if people wanted to find out about you or your training company, where would they go to find out more about the Moses and Palisade Training Group?

00:50:33.891 --> 00:50:35.686
Well, palisade Training Group.

00:50:35.686 --> 00:50:37.713
We're based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

00:50:37.713 --> 00:50:42.364
Our website is ptgtrainingllccom.

00:50:42.364 --> 00:50:45.514
We have a website there with a class description.

00:50:45.514 --> 00:50:52.934
Like I said, we're doing our level two church security instructor leader class on August 10.

00:50:52.934 --> 00:50:57.344
People do not have to take level one before they take level two.

00:50:57.344 --> 00:51:00.519
As a matter of fact, people on an existing team can do level two.

00:51:00.519 --> 00:51:06.349
This is all hands-on, where, basically, it takes place in a local MMA gym.

00:51:07.775 --> 00:51:08.557
And so we've got.

00:51:08.557 --> 00:51:12.878
My grandson in the house.

00:51:12.878 --> 00:51:18.675
All right, he's going back into the living room.

00:51:21.070 --> 00:51:29.005
So, anyway, and the other thing is that I'm a content contributor for CCW Safe.

00:51:29.005 --> 00:51:38.038
Ccw Safe provides legal liability coverage for concealed carriers and there's two programs that they offer.

00:51:38.038 --> 00:51:46.864
One is their ultimate program, which provides the concealed carrier with coverage while working on a volunteer church security team.

00:51:46.864 --> 00:51:53.164
And if you do not have coverage in some form or fashion, I would say don't get on a team.

00:51:53.164 --> 00:51:54.675
I am that serious about it.

00:51:54.675 --> 00:52:10.976
It could be such a life-changing event and you're not going to be the only one affected your loved ones, your wife, your spouse, everybody if you end up in jail or bankrupted and they will bankrupt you.

00:52:10.976 --> 00:52:26.880
The other thing that they offer now is a volunteer church or a house of worship security team plan for churches that have at least three members on the plan I think it's like $279 a year and it covers them.

00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:27.742
For those services.

00:52:28.411 --> 00:52:29.597
I write content for them.

00:52:29.597 --> 00:52:34.722
I frequently appear on podcasts with Don West.

00:52:34.722 --> 00:52:53.945
Don is a nationally known criminal defense attorney, george Zimmerman was his client in the Trayvon Martin incident and Sean Vincent, he is a jury consultant, and I do podcasts with those guys covering a lot of different topics.

00:52:53.945 --> 00:52:55.750
You can find those at CCW safe.

00:52:55.750 --> 00:53:19.262
I also wrote probably oh my God, maybe close to a hundred articles that are relevant to concealed carriers that can be found at CCW safe and their new section and that's CCW safecom, and I am the primary customer support representative for the Farm Trainers Association, which is.

00:53:19.461 --> 00:53:28.483
FTAprotectcom, and we provide legal liability coverage, for we have some for our instructors.

00:53:28.483 --> 00:53:36.494
We have some pretty outstanding members, yourself included, and there's quite a bit of material that I've put on there for them also.

00:53:36.494 --> 00:53:39.121
So, that's kind of the stuff that we have going on.

00:53:39.869 --> 00:53:47.652
Okay, All right, Well, appreciate that and I'll put those links excuse me those links into the show notes and everything.

00:53:47.652 --> 00:53:57.271
So, finishing up our interview today, the bonus question what do you do to unwind or de-stress from your daily demands and routine?

00:53:58.735 --> 00:53:59.797
Well, I tell you what.

00:53:59.797 --> 00:54:06.394
I'm pleased to say, that I was in the oil and gas business for 41 years.

00:54:06.394 --> 00:54:09.804
That's a relatively high stress industry.

00:54:09.804 --> 00:54:19.702
I was in a position where I dealt with, you know, multimillion dollar projects and if any one of those, I mean, I would negotiate them, put them to writing.

00:54:19.702 --> 00:54:27.503
You know, in many instances I'd initially write the you know, the final assignment or deed or whatever, and then close them.

00:54:27.503 --> 00:54:33.623
An error on my part, you know, would have probably been the end of my job for any one of those.

00:54:33.730 --> 00:54:35.317
I did that for a few years.

00:54:35.317 --> 00:54:39.240
I retired in 2019.

00:54:39.240 --> 00:54:44.882
And since then my stress levels have gone way, way, way down.

00:54:44.882 --> 00:55:00.445
So I know this is going to sound kind of the work I do for the Farm Trainers Association and CCW Safe and work with guys like you is actually something that is a de-stressor for me or a reward.

00:55:00.445 --> 00:55:06.842
I work out, you know, two times a week at the gym.

00:55:06.842 --> 00:55:17.632
I'm still doing Brazilian jujitsu on a just kind of a private lesson basis, and then I live out here, uh, with my wife on some beautiful acreage.

00:55:17.632 --> 00:55:21.592
It's almost it's kind of like the hill country of Texas is called the cross timbers area.

00:55:22.074 --> 00:55:32.099
So it's hilly and gorgeous and beautiful and kind of arid, and everything out here that's native, tries to bite you, sting you, claw you, you know, and it's great.

00:55:32.099 --> 00:55:39.034
I've got a couple of rescue pits that you know, think that they won the lottery, and you know so.

00:55:39.195 --> 00:55:50.621
I've got a great wife, I've got a great granddaughter, great grandchildren, so my life is, you know, relatively low stress.

00:55:50.621 --> 00:56:11.942
My wife, she comes home from work every day and she goes and she'll typically watch television, and I'll go and work on this stuff and, you know it's gratifying to me, you know, kind of getting in the you know what they would call the golden years of life, where we kind of feel like, okay, don't have a lot of time left to accomplish some stuff.

00:56:11.942 --> 00:56:14.032
So I'm trying to kind of get that done.

00:56:14.032 --> 00:56:23.742
You know, my, my objective is, is, to the extent that I can, is, you know, leave a legacy, you know, for my friends and my family, and so, uh, that's pretty much it.

00:56:23.742 --> 00:56:26.530
So I'm, I'm a, I'm a really lucky guy.

00:56:27.150 --> 00:56:56.204
Okay, well, thank you for that, steve, and uh, we will put uh, those uh links to, like I said, your website and the article that you talked about and some other things in the show notes and if anybody wants to get in touch with you.

00:56:56.204 --> 00:56:59.887
I guess they a little bit about church security teams and why we should have them.

00:57:00.869 --> 00:57:02.777
Well, it was an honor to appear on this podcast.

00:57:02.777 --> 00:57:04.094
I'm flattered that you would ask me.

00:57:04.757 --> 00:57:05.619
Well, thank you, steve.

00:57:05.619 --> 00:57:08.438
You have a wonderful day, sir, you as well.

00:57:12.552 --> 00:57:16.472
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00:57:16.472 --> 00:57:23.056
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00:57:23.056 --> 00:57:30.434
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00:57:30.434 --> 00:57:38.851
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00:57:38.851 --> 00:57:43.262
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