Video: Sheriff Says Local Churches Need To Have Plan In Place Before Crisis Strikes

TUPELO, MISS. (WCBI) – Everytime Doctor Keith Cochran steps into the pulpit at West Jackson Street Baptist Church, he is certain of at least two things, he has prepared for his sermon, and his congregation is prepared if someone inside, or outside the church, wants to hurt others.

“When there’s lots of people around, for me the priority is, we need to get people to safety, yeah, we need to stop the guy , but we need to get people to safety and take care of them,” Dr. Cochran said.

Pastor Cochran says the plan of action for an active shooter situation would be to , run, hide and as a last resort, fight. He says the congregation has been briefed on the crisis plan, and during each service, the church hires an off duty sheriff’s deputy to patrol the property.

Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson says Sunday’s massacre shows that smaller churches make easy targets.

“If you was an individual that was going to target a church it would make more sense to target something that posed you less on a threat, and a small church is probably not going to,” Sheriff Johnson said.

Sheriff Johnson says the answer is not having more laws and regulations on the books, he says churches need to be proactive and have simple plans of action, in case the unthinkable happens.

“I think most people have more security than they did four or five years ago, but now how far that goes, I don’t know we have that many churches that are truly prepared to take on something like this,” he said.

Sheriff Johnson understands churches need to be welcoming, but he says they also need to be safe.

The sheriff encourages churches to join forces and hold workshops to help train members on how to react in case of an emergency.