BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – Some local churches and business are rethinking the idea of active shooter training for their employees and congregants.
A local company that specializes in tactical training said it has received a couple more calls in recent days from businesses and churches looking to prepare for active shooter situations.
Curt Carpenter is the owner of Lighthorse Tactical, a company that specializes in security where large groups gather like churches, schools and businesses.
“A lot of the people we train is people that’s in charge of… involved with a lay person security situation. And then also our awareness program is really for anybody at the church. That’s just for a standard churchgoer or a person in the business or whatever, employer things like that,” Carpenter said.
Carpenter said congregations and their staffs should go through active shooting trainings at least twice a year and can be modeled along the lines of a fire drill, or as involved as an active shooter simulation.
He said everyone within the organization needs to know the basic security plan, but some information should be kept close to the vest.
“I think it’s incumbent on us to advise people what we want people to do in the event of… and what they can expect, how long they can expect for a response to occur, how long they can expect to be in place, what they need to do while they’re waiting for this response to get to their particular room and certain people may not need to know exactly who the armed security people are in certain people do you need to know that,” Carpenter explained.
Carpenter said not everyone at your church, business, or school needs to know the full security plan because revealing it all could give a would-be shooter valuable information.
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