This is a question recently asked of me by a church that is putting together a security team. I hope it might help some of you. They were trying to decide if they should hire off duty police officers as their primary security for church services.

The use of off duty LEO’s falls into two categories: Paid Off Duty Work or Volunteer Security Team Members.

Paid Off Duty

There is an assumed advantage to using of duty LEO’s by many church organizations. Part of this is due to the public seeing officers as defenders of the innocent and all being sharpshooters, after all they carry a gun for a living and are deemed worthy by the government.

In reality many officers are barely able to certify with their sidearms. Many departments only qualify once or twice a year. Typically, many of these officers never fire their sidearm for any type of practice between the qualifications. If you only use them for traffic control this might not matter, but do not confuse this as actual protection inside the sanctuary.

Be cautious about hiring off duty LEO’s as you have no control over who gets sent to your church. Departments sometimes use a lottery or rotation system as to who gets the next paid job for extra cash.

Some of these officers may not be the ones you want inside the church in a shooting crisis. Additionally, they will work within the departments policies and not the churches policies. If you have not policies this might not be bad but if you do have policies and they conflict you might have a problem there.

If something serious happens such as a shooting, the department may hang the officer out to dry.

This may place the burden on the church for a bad shoot or excessive use of force. The other issue is workman’s comp may not cover an off duty officer since he/she is not “on the job” and this can also open the door to a lawsuit for the church to cover medical expenses.

If you are going to hire off duty officers, you must meet with the officer in charge of off duty assignments and clarify some details such as:

1. Is the officer trained in active shooter situations?
2. Is the officer covered by workman’s comp while working at the church?
3. Will the department stand behind the officer with legal support if an incident occurs and goes to court?
4. Can I refuse an officer if he has an compatibility problem with the staff and members?

I recently attended a security seminar at the Creation Museum in Kentucky. The director of security is very fortunate in having a suitable budget for his task.

They have a large paid staff but do supplement it with some off duty officers. Their situation is unique as the officers and their department agree up front that the officer is not there as a member of the department but rather as a part time paid employee of the museum. they are issued all equipment and uniforms and operate under the museum’s policies.

Note that this group trains to a higher standard that 95% of the police departments that I know. They are an exception to the typical image of a private security organization. They are required to qualify quarterly with any arm they are required to use.

Volunteer Officers as Team Members

Many churches have members that are police officers. There can be a great asset to the church if they are free to join the team.

Many departments will not permit their officers to participate in anything that could create an implied liability for the department or the government that they work for. In past years many department prohibited or discouraged their officer from carrying a weapon off duty.

I do use some volunteer officers on our team. I have been fortunate in that they have been SWAT trained or officers that deemed that being competent with their sidearm was a critical skill. There are the types that you need to look for to volunteer for the teams. These officers tend to be very cool and collected during a crisis.

In our case these are also church members that are willing to assist. One issue is that they frequently are working for the department on Sundays or during special events and may not be available.

In our case I must supplement these officers with “joe citizens” members of the church. In my old church I needed 8 team members per Sunday to cover the church. I do not have enough LEO’s attending to make a team solely consisting of them. I needed to also use former or retired LEO’s and suitability trained civilians.

Note that these guys and gals really took the training seriously. You do need to choose them carefully for mindset as you are looking for the calm warrior who can explode and engage when needed. I believe that these people are one of my strongest assets that I have. They will be energetic in training and service as if God has given their hearts to the ministry.

In all reality, I prefer these warriors over any paid part time LEO’s as I know their heart is true and they are dedicated to Jesus, the church and
our ministry.

Jeanne Assam, Former LE Officer Credits God With Successfully Stopping Church Security Threat.