Securing the Sanctuary-Christian Warrior Training
Keith Graves
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A Kill List Targeted Churches. Here’s How We Stopped It
If this debrief helped you, please consider upgrading your subscription. Facebook | X | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn | Threads | TikTok A Kill List Targeted Churches. Here’s How We Stopped It. On July 10th, 2025, a 277 page email landed in hundreds of inboxes across the Treasure Valley of Idaho and across the country. It named police officers. It named judges. It named church members. It listed home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, children, and workplaces. Then, in plain English, it told people to “go hunt and kill.” My church was not named in the original document, but we became involved soon after. Friends of mine were named. People I do life with on Sundays were named. Churches in our area were named. The threat was real, and the response had to be immediate. What happened over the next 48 hours is the reason no one in this story was murdered. That did not happen because we got lucky. It happened because churches in our area had already built the relationships, the intelligence network, and the law enforcement connections needed to respond before the threat reached our doors. What Happened The couple behind the email was Jonathan and Jolene Harms of Boise, Idaho. They had previously been members of Table Rock Church in Boise and had been excommunicated. They were angry about it, and they believed they had a divine commission to bring judgment against the people who had removed them. On July 10th, they put that belief into a 277 page manifesto and emailed it to hundreds of people. The document named more than 20 victims by name, home address, phone number, and email address. It named their children. It named their workplaces. It named churches. The document specifically condemned several churches, including Table Rock Church in Boise, Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis, Faith Community Church in Boise, The Well Reformed Church, and Main Street Church in Boise. My church was not on that original list. That changed later when intelligence developed that Harms associates were being directed toward additional churches, including ours. By the time that happened, the system was already moving. The Police Response The Harms had already been on law enforcement’s radar before the July 10th email. Jonathan Harms had been placed on a brief mental hold in May, and two church leaders had already obtained civil protection orders against the couple. The July 10th email violated those orders directly. Boise Police Department moved quickly. On July 12th, two days after the email went out, Boise PD served arrest and search warrants at the Harms residence on East Highland Valley Drive. Officers knew the couple had weapons, so they staged the crisis negotiation team and the special operations group. Jonathan Harms came out of the house and complied. He was taken into custody without incident. Inside the home, officers recovered a substantial amount of firearms and ammunition. Jolene Harms was arrested separately by Garden City Police Department on a related telecommunication harassment charge after sending a message threatening a Boise police officer’s children. That should have ended the threat. It did not. Jolene was released on bond, and over the following weeks both Harmses kept going. They sent certified letters to victims in violation of protection orders. They continued posting the manifesto online. They added new threats. The escalation continued. In September, both were arrested again on expanded charges. Their bonds were set at $15 million each. As a retired police officer, I can tell you that a $15 million bond for a threat case is something I have never seen before. They later represented themselves at trial. After two weeks of proceedings, the jury deliberated for about five and a half hours. Jonathan Harms was convicted on 62 counts. Jolene Harms was convicted on 60 counts. The charges included first degree stalking and witness intimidation. Each now faces more than 200 years in prison. That is the public record side of the case. Now let me explain what happened on the church side. The Church Intelligence Group Within minutes of the July 10th email landing in inboxes, the document was in the hands of the Treasure Valley Church Security Intelligence Group. For the last several years, a number of churches in the Boise area have been meeting regularly to coordinate on security. We call it our intelligence group. The men who serve as intelligence officers at each church know each other. We have each other’s phone numbers. We have each other’s email addresses. We have a standing agreement. If a threat lands at your church, you push it out to the group. If a threat lands in the group, every church gets it. That is why the response moved so quickly. When the manifesto hit one church inbox, the intelligence officers did not have to figure out who to call. They already knew. Within minutes, every intelligence officer in the network had a copy. We worked the document together. We pulled out names. We pulled out addresses. We cross referenced the named victims with church membership rolls. We identified threat indicators inside the manifesto. Then we built an intelligence bulletin and pushed it to area church security teams immediately. The church security response happened independently of the police investigation, but it was informed by the same urgency: protect the people who had been named, assess whether our churches were exposed, and harden our defenses before anyone showed up. We were not interfering with law enforcement. We were not duplicating their job. We were doing the work churches need to do to protect their own people, assess the threat, identify who may be affected, and harden their defenses. The reason we were able to move that fast is simple. The relationships already existed. There was no learning curve in the middle of the crisis. The system was already running before the threat arrived. The Trespass Order The Harms going to jail did not end the threat. Jolene was out on bond. The manifesto was still circulating online. Their associates, whom they referred to as disciples, were still active. Then word came to my church through a reliable source that those associates were being directed to our services. We were not in the original manifesto. We had not done anything to the Harmses. But we were part of the intelligence group, and now we were on the list of places where bad things could happen. We did not wait. Our church secured a trespass order against Jolene Harms. The sheriff’s department delivered it, and she was barred from all church property. A few days later, Jolene called the church to ask why. She got a direct answer. We knew what was happening, and she was not welcome at our church. The phone call ended. No associates ever showed up. Whatever they had planned never came through our doors because we acted before they arrived. A trespass order does two things. The first is obvious. It legally bars a known threat from coming onto your property. If that person comes back, they can be arrested. Your team does not need to debate it at the door. You do not need to improvise. The law has already been put in motion. The second thing is less obvious, but it is just as important. A trespass order tells the threat actor and anyone working with them that your church is awake, organized, and willing to use the legal tools available to protect your congregation. Bad actors looking at a church as a soft target are looking for confusion. They are looking for hesitation. They are looking for a congregation that will not act. A trespass order sends a different message. Not here. Lessons for Your Church There are five practical lessons every church security team should take from this case. 1. Build a Regional Church Security Intelligence Group Before You Need One Do not wait until a manifesto lands in your inbox to figure out which churches near you have security teams. Find the churches in your area. Reach out to the men responsible for security. Start a meeting. Once a month is enough to begin. Talk about what you are seeing. Talk about people moving between churches who concern you. Talk about protocols. Talk about weak points. Build trust over time. When a real threat arrives, the call needs to go out immediately. That only happens if the relationships already exist. 2. Your Church Needs an Intelligence Officer The intelligence officer position at your church is not optional. This is not a volunteer who checks the news on Sunday morning. This needs to be a man assigned to the role, with the time and tools to do the job. His responsibilities should include monitoring open source threats, watching social media accounts of known persons of concern, maintaining a working relationship with local law enforcement, and pushing alerts to your team and to peer churches in your area. There is another piece to this. When another church’s intelligence officer calls you, answer the phone. Over the years, I have personally called churches that were named in threats to warn them, and those calls have gone unanswered. That is a failure on the receiving end. If you are the man at your church who would receive that kind of call, decide now that you will answer it. 3. Build Direct Relationships With Law Enforcement The reason we were able to get fast, candid communication from officers about the Harms case is that those relationships had been built long before July 10th. Take a patrol officer to coffee. Invite officers to your security team meetings. Walk them through your church layout. Give them your contact information and ask for theirs. Your first real conversation with local law enforcement should not happen during a crisis. 4. Ask Law Enforcement to Create a Church and Synagogue Liaison Position Every police department and sheriff’s office in this country should have an officer assigned as a liaison to churches and synagogues in their jurisdiction. This does not need to be complicated. It
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