DAYTON, Ohio — Mass shootings can happen anywhere at any time. That’s why the Ohio Crime Prevention Association travels to places of worship to teach the importance of being vigilant and aware of an active threat.

What You Need To Know

  • The Ohio Crime Prevention Association is a nonprofit organization that travels the state teaching places of worship active shooter and active threat training

  • It's called House of Worship Training Program and it takes about seven hours to complete

  • The next House of Worship Training Program session will be Sept. 18 in Celina, Ohio

“We never want to say, hey, just go hide and wait for the shooter or the active aggressor to find you,” said the President of the Ohio Crime Prevention Association, John DiPietro. 

DiPietro travels across the state teaching different places of worship the seriousness of an active threat in an intense seven-hour training. 

“Our mission really is to get the word out and create that whole circle of safety, demonstrating the love and the care and concern for the congregation. And so far, we've been very successful with it here in Ohio,” said DiPietro. 

It’s called the House of Worship Training Program and the OCPA does about 10 to 15 of them a year. It started in 2009, but DiPietro said the church mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 made them revamp their program and motivated them to do even more. 

“Charleston, South Carolina, is really what set everything in motion. We revised the training and with we added the active threat part of it, too, because obviously, that was the big thing with Charleston,” said DiPietro. 

The goal of the training is to learn how to not just protect yourself individually but how to protect the entire church. During the training, DiPietro shows videos of different active shooting incidents that have happened in the past to highlight human behavior and the importance of preparation. 

“The good take away on this, even though people have died, is that it really teaches the attendees that, hey, human behavior isn't really what you think it's going to be. There are active shootings and people freeze. It takes a moment for the human brain to process an event that is so crazy that you freeze,” said DiPietro.   

The training doesn’t just focus on active shooters but also other crimes that can occur in places of worship. 

“A lot of times like I said earlier, you're going to say, oh, the big risk is an active shooter. But when you start looking at the numbers, there's a lot of other crimes that are an issue. Like I said, there's staff, there's vandalism, there's breaking entering, there's domestic violence, there's child custody issues, there's all kinds of things like that,” said DiPietro. 

DiPietro suggests places of worship have active shooter and active threat drills during service to prepare because you never what can happen. The next training will be Wednesday, Sept. 28 in Celina.