Ex-Soldier's Company Works To Provide Security, Peace Of Mind For Churches
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Recent violent attacks inside houses of worship have a local security expert seeing an increase in business. Just last weekend, a gunman opened fire inside a Taiwanese church in California.
One worshipper died when he rushed the shooter. Four others were hurt. Members of the congregation managed to hog-tie the attacker.
Sheepdog Church Security is helping produce safety teams for churches here in Minnesota and across the country.
Kris Moloney began helping local churches with security issues in 2009. He became a church security instructor years later after seeing an increase in attacks on houses of worship.
"We give them kind of that foundation information they need so they can develop programs at their own church," Moloney said.
Sheepdog Church Security, Moloney's company, operates in all 50 states, educating thousands of people in hundreds of churches on how to create safety teams to protect worshippers.
"It increases to 180 incidents per year with an average of 70 people getting killed, "said Moloney.
Moloney served 21 years in the Army, a Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom Veteran. He also was in law enforcement for 18 years.
Moloney uses his expertise to produce informational videos.
"I do all of the online training events by zoom and the other thing that we've done is we made videos of all of this stuff so people can train on their own time and their own computers, "Moloney said.
Ridgewood Church in Minnetonka is one of several churches in Minnesota who use Sheepdog Church Security.
"It's easy to follow some of its fairly intense our most recent training of his was active shooter training and that was that took most of our month training to get through that and we'll be reviewing it again next month," said Jerry Cox.
Ridgewood Director of Public Safety Jerry Cox says church goers feel good knowing their safety is a priority.
"We're kind of Suttle we're not hidden by any mean I think everyone is supportive of that and glad to know that especially in the day and age there are people who have their back while they are worshipping, "Cox said.
Sheepdog Church Security teaches seven courses which are two hours long. Moloney plans to add a mass trauma course in the coming weeks.
You can learn more about his programs by clicking here.
