Suburban Atlanta Agency Invites Area Clergy to Experience Use-of-Force Training

Some, like Rev. Beth Wendl of Brookhaven Christian Church, performed well, holding steady (and holding the trigger) when the man in the truck produced just a cellphone, or when the man in the alley turned around with nothing but a flashlight. 

Others, like Pastor Dennis Meredith of Atlanta's Tabernacle Baptist Church, "shot everybody."

Then there was Rev. Markel Hutchins, who was given a tougher scenario — an armed man dangling a baby over the edge of a bridge. 

"Of course y'all would give me that one," the civil rights activist joked after, it turns out, waiting too long to shoot.

The Monday afternoon "training" at the Duluth Police Department — which gave clergy members from across metro Atlanta a crack at the same state-of-the-art, "shoot or don't shoot" simulator many real-life officers train with — was part of a new initiative called "One Congregation One Precinct."

It's intended to strengthen bonds between law enforcement and the communities they serve by assigning individual officers to specific congregations and opening the lines of communication, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Fifteen clergy members participated. Seven metro Atlanta counties and three faiths — Christianity, Islam and Judaism — were represented.