Religious schools like Annunciation face particular security challenges in the age of school shootings

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — When evaluating how secure a location is, experts generally talk about “soft” targets like schools or “hard” targets like police stations.

The deadly shooting in Minneapolis – 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 while schoolchildren gathered for morning Mass 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 The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. Last year, a teenage girl killed two people and wounded several others at Abundant Life Christian School in Wisconsin.

More generally, religious institutions have also been the site of mass shootings in the past decade, including attacks at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2018; at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017; and at the Mother Emanuel AME 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 extensive history of anti-Semitic attacks and terrorism.

For example, the Secure Community Network, 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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