Edmond churches focus on security after West Freeway shooting

A lot can happen in six seconds.

What began as an ordinary Sunday morning worship right after Christmas ended tragically for members of the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, TX. The congregation lost members Tony Wallace, 64, and Richard White, 67, to the shots of Keith Thomas Kinnunen, a previous criminal offender.

Kinnunen, 43, also died in the incident when volunteer security guard and former sheriff Jack Wilson shot him—all in six seconds.

With another church shooting in the books, churches all over the country are focusing efforts on ensuring their members remain safe during worship. Churches in Edmond have the same mentality.

Mark Taylor, executive minister at the Memorial Road Church of Christ, said he immediately felt great sorrow for the loss of life at the West Freeway congregation.

“Every time there is a place of worship shooting covered in the media, it does cause us to evaluate,” Taylor said. “Our security team members have tried to learn from [West Freeway’s] experience. I can’t say whether this will directly lead to a change, but it certainly has been one more instance where we have evaluated what we’re doing.”

Taylor describes the security measures at Memorial Road as “multi-faceted.” With police vehicles, volunteer security guards and two uniformed officers on-site for surveillance and responder purposes, Taylor said these defense mechanisms act as a deterrent for potential offenders.

“There is some research that if a bad actor were to show up and they see a police car out front and they see uniformed officers inside the building, they’re more reluctant to act upon their bad intentions,” Taylor said. “ But also we have somebody here trained to be a first responder and to respond to a threat. In addition to on-duty officers, we also have off duty and retired hired officers.”

With the Oklahoma gun law going into effect last November, citizens are allowed to openly carry firearms without a permit. However, this law does not include private spaces. Memorial Road has chosen not to allow the open carry of weapons in the church building.

“We want this to be a safe place not only security-wise, but emotionally and spiritually,” Taylor said. “We want to highlight that this is a church and for that reason, we don’t believe that the open carry of weapons is appropriate. But we’re not trying to dampen anybody’s rights to conceal carry.”

Randy Roper, minister at the Edmond Church of Christ, said the shooting reminded him again about the brokenness of our world.

“The tragic shooting in Texas certainly raises our awareness to the possibility of it happening anyway,” Roper said. “It gives us an opportunity to revisit what we are doing to help make people feel safe and secure.”

While churches in Edmond reevaluate their security policies, the shooting continues to feel like a “bad dream” for West Freeway members, according to Oklahoma Oklahoma Christian University alumnus Clint Jennings.

Jennings attended the West Freeway Church of Christ from birth through high school and calls the congregation home. After communicating with people from the community, he said many are shaken up.

“I think there’s a lot of PTSD that’s going to be coming out,” Jennings said. “You wouldn’t think that that would happen with a bunch of older people because think that they would be firm in their faith, but they’re only human. It would be hard for me to go back in that church and worship, but can you imagine going back into worship that next Sunday?”

One of Jennings’ friends said he would have typically stood where one of the victims did to serve communion that Sunday morning. Another one of Jennings’ friends said his parents attended church the morning of the shooting.

“His dad was standing next to the sheriff, and he could only get through so much of the video before he had to stop watching it,” Jennings said. “Me, on the other hand, I just kept playing it over and over again. So it’s just kind of weird how everybody handles these kinds of things happening.”

The politicizing of the situation occurred soon after the shooting itself. Jennings had distinct feelings about this phenomenon.

“It’s going be a whole headliner, a point of reference for all the crazy right-wing people and on the left side,” Jennings said. “I still think there still needs to be some things in place to try to prevent bad people from getting guns. I don’t know what the right answer is. It’s a hard question to ask, but I was thankful the person who was armed took him out. Because that could’ve blew away the whole congregation.”

Jennings said he is glad somebody was prepared and thought through that plan of action before the tragedy. However, he believes people should have faith and recognize the reality of death in the world.

“You should be ready to go,” Jennings said. “Death is present all over the place.”