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Local police to hold active shooter training for area churches

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Courtesy of Scott Moore

Matt Davy of Combined Catholic Church Safety Ministry, left, and Sgt. Ron Raymond of Chartiers Township Police Department act out a scenario during an ALICE Training session last year.

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Courtesy of Scott Moore

A slide is shown from a local ALICE Training session.

The recent spate of deadly church shootings across the nation has places of worship reviewing their safety plans.

Police from Canonsburg, Cecil, Chartiers, Houston and North Strabane will hold an active shooter training program for the local faith-based community on Saturday at Sarris Public Library in Canonsburg.

Scott Moore, chairman of the Combined Catholic Church Safety Ministry, and Canonsburg Mayor David Rhome, a member of the Washington County Ministerial Association, coordinated the event.

They said there is no telling when or where a mass shooting will occur, so educating congregants about how to respond during an active shooter situation is valuable.

“People say, ‘It won’t happen here,’ but you don’t know that,” said Moore, a retired fire chief and paramedic who also worked for the Department of Homeland Security. “You have to be prepared for the inevitable. With preparation and education, people should feel more confident about worshipping at the place of their choice.”

Certified active shooter instructors from the police departments will teach those who attend how to respond during an attack and what to do when first responders get to the scene.

The ALICE program – which stands for Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate – has been used by school districts, churches and businesses as a way to minimize deaths in an active shooter situation.

About 70 people are expected to attend the program.

Rhome said invitations were sent to local places of worship asking for three members from the congregations to participate in the four-hour program.

Moore said Rev. Carmen D’Amico, administrator of Miraculous Medal, St. Patrick and Holy Rosary Catholic churches, was prompted to hold an active shooter class in the spring of 2018, following numerous church shootings, including the shooting at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., in 2015, where a white supremacist killed nine church members during a prayer service.

The safety committee reviewed church security plans at Miraculous Medal and implemented a security system with panic buttons, purchased wasp spray – a nonlethal deterrent that sprays about 30 feet, and decided to lock all doors except the front door once Mass begins.

Religious institutions, which have long been considered a safe space, have become a site of mass shootings.

In October 2018, a gunman entered Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, where he killed 11 people and injured six others.

Last week, a shooter walked into a synagogue in Poway, Calif., and opened fire, killing a woman who shielded the rabbi and wounding three more.

The California shooter appeared to have been inspired by the attacks on mosques in New Zealand on March 15 that left 50 worshippers dead, and by the shootings at Tree of Life.

“It’s a shame that we have to have programs like this,” said Rhome, “but it’s a way of life right now.”

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