Mississippi church security teams train for worst-case scenario

Clyde Morgan knows there are some tough choices that go along with volunteering to be on a church security team.

On Sunday, one person was killed and seven others wounded when a gunman opened fire on a church in Antioch, Tennessee. Authorities said the suspect was stopped when he was confronted by an usher and proceeded to pistol whip him and shot himself in the process. The usher then went to his car and got his own gun and held the gunman at bay until police arrived. All but one of the victims were over the age of 60.

That's exactly the situation Morgan and several members of a local church's security team trained for Saturday at Precision Shooting Center in Forest.

Mississippi's Church Protection Act, which became law in 2016, allows churches to set up security teams, and if they meet certain criteria, they are exempt from civil liability for actions taken by members of the security teams "in the course and scope of the member's performance of their official duties as a member of the security program for the church or place of worship."

The training program doesn't focus so much on the requirement that team members have concealed carry permits and firearms training, though those courses can be built into the program. The course discusses legal issues, guidelines and duties, and then it aims to put security team members into the mindset that needs to come after the commitment to be a church protector.

"The next step is using the firearms to fight with, and that's what we're doing today," Morgan said. "We're teaching these men not just fun shooting but how to fight with a handgun and survive."

The program begins with a classroom course in which the real life-and-death situations are discussed. Morgan and range manager Roy Aultman speak in gruff terms about calm and focus in a situation that could cause panic.

Aultman tells a story about the day a gunman entered his store in 1999. He didn't even feel like carrying his gun that day, he said, but as he strapped it on while in his office, he heard a disturbance.

"He had one of my cashiers around the neck with his left arm and with his right hand he had a gun pointed at the other three girls," Aultman said. "And my first instinct was, 'Oh God, here it is after all this time. This is for real.'"

Aultman had to take lethal defensive action that day. That's something that changes your life, he said.

The possibility of injuring and even killing someone is very real, Morgan stresses, and just like the role of the protector that they're taking on, it cannot be taken lightly.

"They have to take responsibility for potentially taking a human life. Secondly, they must be willing to give first aid to the perpetrator they just shot," he said. "Third, they take responsibility if their bullet goes through the perpetrator or misses the perpetrator and hits or perhaps kills a church member. Fourth, they are saying that they willingly would give their life to save the life of a church member."

Morgan, a retired educator with advanced degrees in criminal justice, religious and adult education and social work, among others, is retired from the Army and was decorated three times for valor as an infantry company commander in Vietnam. That military experience is what taught him some of his most valued lessons in survival, he said.

After the classroom part of the course, team members go to the gun range where they take shots at 50 yards, 25 yards and 15 yards. In one scenario, the shots are timed to add some pressure since a real scenario would definitely bring a spike in heart rate and adrenaline. There are also moving targets that pop up and "run," causing students to focus on unpredictable targets.

The members of Saturday's class declined to discuss which church they attend, which Morgan said he understood. The idea of a church security team made up of armed civilians is disconcerting to some, but Morgan likens it to having a spare tire and a jack in your vehicle.

"Do I want to get out and change the tire? Absolutely not, but the circumstances may absolutely demand that I do that," he said. "If I didn't have a spare tire and a jack, I would have to live with whatever else happened."

Most churches will never utilize their security team, just like most gun owners may never actually fire their weapon in a real-life scenario, Morgan said.

"Probably you can live 20 lives and never need one, but if you need a gun, you need a gun," he said. "But the good news is, unless you have an active shooter, if this is just your usual perpetrator, just the presence of the gun more than 80 percent of the time stops the assault."

A church has to maintain a list of their security team members and has to give the list to law enforcement in the case of an incident, Morgan said.

"We're going above and beyond what's required by the law," he said.

Contact Therese Apel at 601-961-7236 or tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.