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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Religious schools like Annunciation face particular security challenges
in the age of school shootings
By Eric Levenson, CNN
Updated:
5:30 AM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025
Source: CNN
When evaluating how secure a location is, experts generally talk about
“soft” targets like schools or “hard” targets like police
stations.
The – at a combined church and school – was at the extreme end of
that spectrum.
“Certainly houses of worship and schools are the softest of soft
targets, and (the shooter) knew that clearly,” said Donell Harvin,
former DC Chief of Homeland Security and Intelligence.
The attack at Annunciation Catholic Church underscored the particular
security challenges that religious schools face in the age of the
school shooting. These hybrid institutions have to balance the need for
secure school grounds for children with the welcoming and openness that
is fundamental to organized religion.
“There’s a clash of tenants here,” CNN chief law enforcement and
intelligence analyst John Miller said. “The first is a school, which
is (designed) to protect the children and have a layered approach to
security. But the second is the house of worship, which is by principle
… meant to be open to all at any time.”
The risk to religious schools has become more pronounced these days as
the attack at Annunciation was the third mass shooting at a religious
school just in the last couple years.
In 2023, a 28-year-old killed three children and three adults at , a
private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. Last year, a teenage
girl killed two people and wounded several others at .
More generally, religious institutions have also been the site of mass
shootings in the past decade, including attacks at the in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, in 2018; at the in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017;
and at the Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.
The balance of openness and security
Religious schools face a particularly tricky balance between their
desire to remain open to the community and their need for security for
students.
The challenge is that “hardening” locations, such as with a beeping
metal detector or armed guards, can change their welcoming atmospheres,
said Geno Roefaro, the co-founder and CEO of SaferWatch, a safety and
security technology platform.
“That’s not the feeling of openness,” he told CNN. “At the same
time you need to protect everyone.”
He said SaferWatch tries to bridge that gap by using technology, such
as security camera analysis and panic alarm systems, to anticipate an
emergency and warn people about it immediately.
“It’s a balance of openness versus 100% lockdown of everything,”
Roefaro said. “So you have to do that by leveraging technology just
because it’s too expensive (otherwise), and sometimes it’s not
possible to have every single entrance of a large area (locked down)
like that.”
Private schools have other challenges, too. Security in public schools
may be directed at a district level that oversees dozens of schools,
allowing for standardized practices. Private schools, on the other
hand, may be one-offs.
“Sometimes for the religious organizations, security is a little bit
of an afterthought. It’s important but it’s not the main focus, as
much as it would be for a school,” Roefaro said. “Most of our
places of worship customers are really just customers because they have
a school on campus, like exactly what you just saw in Minnesota.”
Miller, the CNN analyst, said Jewish schools have been at the forefront
of these security technology efforts due to the of anti-Semitic attacks
and terrorism.
For example, the , a nonprofit safety and training organization, helps
Jewish institutions across the country implement tools like security
cameras, alarm systems and “greeter guards” to keep them safe while
still being open and welcoming.
Annunciation’s security efforts
That tension between openness and security was clear in the attack at
Annunciation.
According to a senior law enforcement official, the shooter visited the
church weeks ago under the pretext of wanting to reconnect with the
Catholic faith at the school, which the shooter once attended.
Investigators believe that, from this visit, the shooter created a
detailed, hand-drawn diagram of the church’s interior.
The Annunciation Catholic School handbook offered an outline of some of
its security policies.
The church where the shooting occurred had been designated as one of
the spots to take students to if they need to evacuate due to an
emergency. The school conducts three lockdown drills during the school
year. Further, the outside doors of the campus are locked at 8 a.m. and
hallway doors to the school are locked at 3:30 p.m.
The Annunciation Church also had a practice in place to lock the church
doors as Mass service began. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara
said the church’s locked doors helped prevent the tragedy from
becoming even worse.
“A number of the doors had been locked once Mass began, which is part
of their normal procedure,” O’Hara told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“We believe that this step also played a part in ensuring this
tragedy did not become that much worse.”
With the doors locked, the shooter instead shot through the
stained-glass windows into the church.
Children also described getting down, taking cover and helping others
take cover, as they had practiced before during training drills,
O’Hara said.
A 10-year-old student who survived the attack said they regularly
practiced their emergency response plan, although in the school rather
than in the church building.
“We practice it like every month, or I don’t know. But we’ve
never practiced it in the church though, only in school. So it was way
different,” Weston Halsne said.
When the shooting began, he ducked under the pew and covered his head
as his friend dove on top of him, he said.
“(He) saved me though because he laid on top of me, but he got
hit,” Weston said, adding the boy was hit in the back. “He’s
really brave, and I hope he’s good in the hospital.”
Former Annunciation student Audrey Kisling, who is now 16, recalled
practicing lockdown drills when she attended school there.
“It was a great school experience there; I was never worried about
anything like that,” she said of Wednesday’s tragic shooting. “I
always thought it happened at public school.”
And never did she ever expect something to happen at church, she said.
Audrey, who was walking back through the Windom neighborhood Wednesday
with her father, John, and younger sister, Riley, after visiting family
that lived near Annunciation, said there wasn’t typically any
security personnel present at the school. There is a lock on the
church, Audrey noted.
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