Facebook posts from law enforcement agencies regarding threats on Texas churches has made it’s way to Lamar County.
“We’ve been contacted by several people regarding a social media post regarding FBI information regarding possible attacks on Texas churches,” said Chief of Police Bob Hundley.
Several of the posts read, “Attention Local Churches: I have just received intelligence information that is very broad-based, from the FBI. They have received intelligence information that there may be attacks on Texas churches from “Lone Wolf” Isis members. Texas was specifically mentioned and the words “very soon” and “have a happy Sunday”. Please have your security teams on alert the next few weeks..always better to be safe than sorry and know that just being off the beaten path does not ensure safety. I will make sure that our officers are on alert as well.”
However, Hundley says there is not a specific threat communicated directly to anyone regarding an impending attack.
“We will never tell anyone to ignore threat information but sometimes a little more information might be helpful to fully understand what is going on and react accordingly. The FBI is excellent in making sure local law enforcement is aware of any information regarding criminal activity being contemplated or in a process that they are aware of. They do due diligence investigating these threats to a conclusion which sometimes results in only an ‘awareness’ e-mail being sent out to local law enforcement.”
Hundley explained the post which was suggesting people make an attack was several days old by the time the social media posts came out today.
“The post was not found to be credible, very broad-based and that information was shared with local law enforcement as situational awareness only. You may or may not remember that a similar type of threat was made around December of 2016.”
“We should all be aware that there are people out there who wish to harm the USA, and remain vigilant,” he further said. “The local security teams that many places of worship have on hand should be alert for suspicious activity, but that should be every day and not just because of a situational awareness e-mail.”
“You might contemplate why would a so-called terrorist make a threat public, ensuring that the target would harden because of the threat. Whoever put the original tweet out did exactly what they wanted to do, worry people, frighten people and create some amount of panic.”
