Officials were working to improve security at an Illinois church where an attack on Sunday took the life of the congregation's pastor.
Shooting Happened During Morning Service
Twenty-seven-year-old Terry Sedlacek allegedly shot Rev. Fred Winters early Sunday morning during a service, according to The Associated Press. After his gun jammed, he took out a knife but was subdued by two parishioners, both of whom were stabbed. The parishioners are expected to survive.
The News-Democrat reported that the church had a lock-down procedure, and had identified members who were in law enforcement and medicine.
“They’ve done a lot of work out there to be prepared,” Maryville police chief Rich Schardan said about the church, according to the News-Democrat.
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Other places have taken steps to improve safety at church. The Arkansas State House last month passed a law to allow concealed weapons in church, according to the Associated Baptist Press. The bill was introduced because of church shootings across the country, its sponsor said.
Background: As congregations grow, so does potential for problems
During the last few years, churches have increased the amount of security they have. According to CNN, it's not uncommon for a church to have armed guards.
“We realized that, as the largest Baptist church in Kentucky, we’d be a little naïve to think something would never happen to us. We’re catching up in an era of terrorism and a church is no different,” Randy Record told CNN. Record is a police officer and pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville.
Churches have been the scene of violent attacks on several occasions in the last few years. In November, a minister was shot and killed outside of a church in Kentucky, and another man was injured.
In 2007, four people were killed and another five were wounded when a man attacked two churches in Colorado. An armed volunteer stopped the attack, and is widely credited with saving dozens, if not hundreds of lives.
That incident encouraged many churches, such as Nebraska’s Lincoln Berean Church, to consider adding security systems or personnel.
Sources in this Story
- Belleville News-Democrat: Expert: Churches also need security
- CBS News: Preacher Slay Suspect Was Mentally Ill
- Associated Baptist Press: Arkansas House passes bill allowing guns in church
- CNN: Armed guards keep watch over church services
- The Times of London: Armed guards brought in to protect Assisi church from beggars
- The (Lakeland, Fla.) Ledger (Religion News Service): Armed Guards Make a Grim Addition to Sunday Services
- Mass Media Funk: Not dying to get to heaven
- Wounded Times: Sad day in America when churches need security guards
- The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.): Armed guards necessary in today’s world
Though more incidents are being reported, crime is not common at churches. After the shooting at Colorado’s New Life Church, the Religion News Service reported that violent crimes accounted for five percent of claims filed with one insurer that had 40,000 churches as clients.
The United States isn’t the only place where churches are protecting themselves. In May, security guards started patrolling Rome’s Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi, according to the Times of London. The security firm said the guards were there at the friars’ request because of “thefts from offertory boxes as well as harassment of visitors by beggars and pickpockets.”
Churches with enormous congregations, also known as “mega-churches,” have led to an “entire industry devoted to protecting and securing crowds that can be larger than some towns or shopping malls,” reported the Religion News Service.
At such churches there is often a great deal of cash from the offertory.
Opinion & Analysis: Sanctuary no more
Robert Todd Carroll, writing on the site Mass Media Funk, said he hasn’t thought of churches as sanctuaries since one was bombed in Alabama in 1963, killing four children. The conspirators in the plot escaped justice for several years before eventually being tried and convicted.
As incidents such as the one at New Life Church are reported more frequently, Carroll wonders whether more people will take matters into their own hands to save other’s lives, as Jeanne Assam did. Assam is the guard who shot at the gunman and interrupted his attack.
The thought of churchmenbers protecting each other still isn’t comforting, he wrote, “because even though I’ve meditated on this long and hard I can’t for the life of me decide what kind of gun the Prince of Peace would buy.”
Kathie Costos, who describes herself as a chaplain who lives in Florida and serves veterans, commented on the CNN story on her blog, Wounded Times. “It’s a very sad day in America when churches need security guards with guns,” she wrote. “There are no longer limits criminals even find offensive.”
After the New Life Church shootings, Barry Noreen wrote in the Colorado Springs Gazette that many people probably hadn’t thought previously about guards in churches, but should have.
“Before Sunday’s tragedy, some might have thought it a bit over the top to have armed guards at New Life Church. By Monday morning, those people awoke to what might have seemed a new, harsher world. No. It’s the same dangerous place it was just a couple of days ago.”
“It’s sad,” he wrote, “that such measures are necessary at a church, where everyone expects to find peace and serenity.”
