Houses of worship will learn to protect against shooters at Valley event

PHOENIX — A Wisconsin-based insurance company is holding an event Thursday at a Phoenix-area church to help Arizona houses of worship protect against mass shootings.

Church Mutual Insurance Company is hosting the free Preparing for an Armed Intruder event at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Up to four members per religious organization can sign up online for the event, which includes breakfast and lunch.

Church Mututal’s assistant vice president for risk control Guy Russ told KTAR News 92.3 FM on Wednesday that the company recognized a need to train its customers, who are largely religious organizations.

He said Church Mutual wanted to make sure “we could provide our policyholders with information and training on how to recognize threats against their organization, and, if they find themselves in a situation with an armed intruder, that they would have tools to respond to those threats.”

There will be multiple presentations and Q&A sessions focused on learning about warning signs for potentially violent behavior, options for responding to a shooter and ways to mitigate risk before a shooting happens.

Participants will learn to how to implement the five ALICE principles: alert, lock down, inform, counter and evacuate.

Russ said recent shootings at religious facilities inspired the company to act.

“We’ve seen a number of events over the last seven years,” he said.

“We’ve seen 66 people killed at houses of worship over that time, and we want to make sure that our policyholders can be prepared.”

KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Nailea Leon contributed to this report. 

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