FBI shares lessons learned from church shootings with Myrtle Beach area

A church may not be able to prevent a shooting like the one that happened in Charleston earlier this year, but being pro-active could save lives, FBI agents told 500 residents who attended a forum in Conway this week.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents Thursday night provided insight gathered from 160 active shooter incidents like the June 17 shooting at a church in Charleston that claimed the lives of nine people, saying most shooters are “injustice collectors” or those seeking to become infamous.

Pastors and parishioners from across the Grand Strand mingled with law enforcement at Langston Baptist Church in Conway as FBI special agents from the Columbia field office presented information designed to raise awareness of faith-based shooting incidents and how planning ahead can save lives.

Close to 500 people gathered for the two-hour “Situational Awareness Symposium for Houses of Worship” presented jointly by the FBI and the Horry County Sheriff’s Department to learn how to handle such a crisis should it occur in their church, school or workplace.

Prior to the meeting Robert Brown, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Columbia Field Office, said the symposium was created by his office in response to the recent active shooting at Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

“It is our hope that what happened in Charleston doesn’t happen anywhere else in the United States,” Brown said. However, he added, historical data shows active shooter incidents are on the rise. Earlier this week, a man entered a church service in Selma, Ala., and shot at and wounded a mother, her infant and the pastor before parishioners tackled him.

Brown said while a church may not be able to prevent such a crisis, being pro-active could save lives.

The symposium is based, he said, on the “run, hide, fight” model. Special Agent Robert Chadwick walked the group through lessons learned from a White House Commission report that gathered data from 160 active shooter incidents across the nation that occurred between 2000 and 2013. The data includes the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, an incident Chadwick described as “one of the worst days in history.”

To help people understand better what an active shooter incident involves, Chadwick explained the difference between that and a mass killing.

“An active shooter is an individual engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined area, unlike a mass killing,” Chadwick said. He said the study reveals that none of the active shooters have ever followed victims outside the building. That is where the run part of the response comes in.

“The best way to survive is to get out,” Chadwick said. He said when catastrophe strikes, individuals need to develop a “survival mindset” and be responsible for their own survival.

When they find they cannot escape without crossing the path of the shooter, they should hide behind locked doors with the lights off and remain quiet. When that fails, then they need to fight.

This advice is a shift from the previous belief that remaining calm and cooperative is the best route to take.

“Keep out or hide out but when that fails take out the shooter, react with aggression,” he said, noting how the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 rushed the terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001 when they realized more deaths would occur if they did not act.

Data gathered in the report shows that in 21 percent of the 160 incidents studied, unarmed citizens subdued the shooter. “You have the legal right to defend yourself,” he said, adding that defense will help the survival rate.

A significant shift in how to engage an active shooter directly affects local responders. Chadwick said in the past, the protocol was to hold back until a specialized weapons and tactics (SWAT) team arrived to deal with the shooter. That all changed, he said, after the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado in 1999 that left 12 students and one teacher dead and 21 injured. At least one person bled to death following that shooting because of the delayed response.

The new protocol, he said, is to “end the killing as soon as possible to save lives.” He said after Columbine, it was determined the best course of action was to have frontline responders “move quickly to the sound of gunfire and end it.”

He admits that puts local law enforcement in more danger of being wounded or losing their lives.

Chadwick said the study revealed that 57 percent of shooters were insiders with some affiliation to the victims; 71 percent targeted were the initial focus of the shooter; and 74 percent of the shooters entered through the main entrance of the building.

Only 10 percent of shooters committed suicide after police arrived. The report shows that 80 percent of the time someone had information ahead of time that should have sent up red flags and may have prevented the killings if it had been reported.

The report shows that only 4 percent of active shootings have occurred at houses of worship and only half of those occurred during Sunday worship service. Chadwick said a house of worship remains “one of the safest places you could be.”

Brown said it will be up to local agencies to come up with formalized policies for their areas. Horry County Sheriff Phillip Thompson said his office will begin work on a safety and security presentation that can be shared within the local community. He said his office is already developing a security survey that, when requested, will allow a deputy to check any facility and provide feedback on how to improve security.

“Our schools already have a school resource officer so right now we will concentrate on places of worship obviously because of what happened in Charleston,” Thompson said.

“It is sad that we’ve gotten to this. We always look at houses of worship as a place of solace, where we felt safe,” Thompson said. “For this incident to take place in Charleston, it brought us to the realization you cannot take that solace for granted anymore…We want to get the law enforcement community and houses of worship working together to get a plan in place. That’s big. It opens a lot of doors of communication.”

The FBI is taking its symposium across the state. Upcoming presentations include one scheduled for Oct. 5 in Charleston with plans to host a talk in Florence in the near future.

“I think the more aware we can be the better we will be,” the Rev. John Kassouf, pastor of Risen Christ Lutheran Church in Myrtle Beach, said after Thursday’s meeting. “But, we must implement a plan. If it stops here, it fails.”

This story was originally published September 25, 2015 at 11:00 AM with the headline "FBI shares lessons learned from church shootings with Myrtle Beach area."