Sheriff's office to sponsor church safety, security seminar
By Brandon Davis
Published in News on June 24, 2016 1:46 PM
First Free Will Baptist Church will host a house of worship safety and security seminar sponsored by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office on Monday, June 27, at 7 p.m. at the church at 604 E. Ash St.
The church's pastor, Gary Bailey, contacted Sheriff Larry Pierce two weeks after a mass shooting last year at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., that left nine people dead.
"The episode in Charleston is what stimulated us to be looking into this," Bailey said. "We were just concerned after that incident in the church. After the incident in Charleston, we started asking ourselves, 'What can we do to be proactive? What can we do to protect the people of our church?'"
Pierce and Deputy Robin Stine, a crime prevention specialist with the sheriff's office, applied church security procedures to a crime safety program developed last year by the North Carolina Sheriff's Association. Pierce designed the association's program to fit the safety needs of worship centers to protect children and adults during times of violence and emergency.
"It's my job as sheriff of Wayne County to make sure (of) the safety and protection of the citizens of Wayne County, wherever they're at. And because your church and worship service is a general area of assembly, and that is one area that has been attacked in the United States, that is why I'm addressing it at this time," Pierce said.
He and Ms. Stine will instruct the participants on how to make a security team formed of church greeters and deacons.
The seminar will also put focus on outside church lighting and the trimming of shrubs to avoid break-ins. The issue of firearms will also be addressed, said Pierce.
"We will be covering the aspect of concealed carry at the worship center," Pierce said. "But it will be ultimately up to each worship center to decide what they will allow as far as a concealed carry and their security team."