Faith-Based Daily Awareness Post 08 March 2024

These updates are shared to help raise the situational awareness of Faith-Based organizations to best defend against and mitigate the impacts from all-hazards threats including physical security, cybersecurity, and natural disasters.

New documentary to show never-before-seen footage of gunman taking Texas synagogue hostage

The Forward reports:

A documentary about the 2022 hostage crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, is in final production, and includes extensive video and audio from inside of Congregation Beth El, where a man held Rabbi Charlie-Cytron Walker and several congregants at gunpoint for 11 hours.

The video, from the synagogue’s own cameras, shows — among other images — the captives in prayer shawls, their hands raised above their heads as the gunman brandishes his weapon. It also shows the moment of their escape.

In a 2022, The Dallas Morning News reported:

It was 2018, and a massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh had just left 11 people dead. Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville was over 1,300 miles away, and yet, it hit too close to home.

The following year, the fear was even more palpable: a shooting at a synagogue in Poway, Calif.; another at a kosher grocery store in Jersey City; a rabbi stabbed to death during Hanukkah in Monsey, N.Y.

The Colleyville synagogue, like countless other religious institutions worldwide, sought training to manage potential threats of its own. And then the threat became reality.

…

“Over the years, my congregation and I have participated in multiple security courses from the Colleyville Police Department, the FBI, the Anti-Defamation League, and Secure Community Network. We are alive today because of that education,” Cytron-Walker said in a statement. “I encourage all Jewish congregations, religious groups, schools, and others to participate in active-shooter and security courses.”…

Analyst Comments:

The documentary has not been released yet, so it cannot be evaluated at this time, but it may serve as a good lesson for House of Worship safety and security.

In the January 2022 Colleyville synagogue incident, a gun man took four people hostage. Some of the hostages had received active shooter training which they credited with saving their lives. While this was a hostage situation, and not an active shooter incident, the training was very relevant. They discretely worked their way towards an exit, and at the right time, rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker threw a chair at the gunman, and they escaped out the exit. Law enforcement then neutralized the gunman.

This incident is a good example of Faith-Based Organization members receiving training, using their training, and with the assistance of law enforcement, escaping tragedy.