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Counterterrorism Guide: Situational Awareness to Hinder An Attack

The Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT) is a US interagency collaboration based at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which is aligned under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

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Working with intelligence analysts from NCTC, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), JCAT’s primary mission is to improve counterterrorism information sharing between federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government agencies and the private sector. The latter is where that information is adaptable for personal self-defense and church security teams in being situationally aware to pre-indicators of criminal and terroristic attacks.

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of SITUATIONAL AWARENESS ]

One resource is JCAT’s Counterterrorism Guide For Public Safety Personnel, offering content to assist self-defenders and church safety volunteers in:

Enroll in the Sheepdog Church Security Academy Safety Member Certification Program

Church security teams usually consist of every-day volunteers: men and women who are passionate about doing all they can to protect their congregation from natural and man-made threats, but who are not professionally trained in law enforcement, military defense, or medical emergency skills.

[ Bookmark the SemperVerus CHURCH SECURITY INTELLIGENCE CLIPBOARD ]

SemperVerus highly recommends the Sheepdog Church Security Academy Safety Member Certification program as an excellent online training curriculum that prepares volunteers to handle the full spectrum of threats churches face today—emergency response, disruptive persons, violent intruders, and abuse. Students gain practical skills rooted in legal clarity, real-world tactics, and biblical values.

Report: US Government “Weaponized Its Full Weight Against Christians” 2021–2024

“A review of federal departments and agencies revealed a consistent and systematic pattern of discrimination against Christians during the [years 2021 to 2024],” summarizes the US Department of Justice’s 49-page Initial Report by the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. “Where there should have been ‘equal justice under law’ there was unequal treatment—policies and practices that singled out Christian people, Christian houses of worship, and Christian convictions for disfavored treatment.”

[ Read SemperVerus articles on the topic of CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION ]

This “initial assessment of the harm caused when religious liberty is denied” is the first outcome of President Trump’s February 6, 2025, Executive Order, Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias, his mandate to “ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.”

FBI: Reported Crime Statistics in America for 2024

A violent crime occurred in the United States, on average, every 25.9 seconds in 2024, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program of over 14 million criminal offenses reported by more than 16,000 participating law enforcement agencies and analyzed by the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer.

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On average, a murder occurred every 31.1 minutes and a rape occurred every 4.1 minutes. Violent crimes include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault; property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, Chart: The Spectrum of Potential Threat Personas in Self-Defense and Church Security ]

Just under 73% of the persons arrested in the nation during 2024 were males. They accounted for 78.7% of persons arrested for violent crime and 65.6% of persons arrested for property crime.

[ Read the SemperVerus article, A List of Active Killer Incidents at Houses of Worship and Religious Schools ]

In 2024, 65.5% of all persons arrested were White, 30.5% were Black or African American, and the remaining 4.1% were of other races.