October 1, 2025 • 20 mins
The first words after a mass casualty event can steady a community—or shake it further. We break down the opening press conferences following the Grand Blanc, Michigan church attack to show how leaders earn trust when stakes are highest: the county supervisor’s grounded empathy, a police chief balancing hard facts with community care, a seasoned Michigan State Police PIO orchestrating structure and boundaries, and the FBI’s clear, confident roadmap for the investigation.
We walk through the moments that mattered—why missing a PIO in the first briefing made the flow feel off, how a disciplined PIO in the second briefing controlled the room, and where sequencing can elevate impact. You’ll hear why many communicators lead with compassion before counts, how to frame heroism without drifting into speculation, and how to give the public actionable steps that convert anxiety into help: vigilance, verified tip lines, and reunification guidance. Along the way we spotlight crisp techniques like bridging, setting question parameters, and simplifying language under pressure, all while respecting investigative boundaries.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TomMueller (00:08):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis Podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management with an
emphasis on leadership.
I'm Tom Mueller.
If you'd like to drop an emailto the show, please email me at
Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
(00:28):
On our podcast this week, we'refocusing on a mass casualty
incident that occurred here inthe United States earlier this
week.
This was an incident in theU.S.
state of Michigan.
And it's an incident thatoccurred at a Mormon church in a
town called Grand Blanc,Michigan.
(00:49):
Now a gunman crashed hisvehicle through the front doors
of that church during theirworship services, got out,
started shooting, and at somepoint spread gasoline or petrol
in the church and set it onfire.
And our current count, therewere four people killed in the
(01:10):
incident, eight wounded, withnumerous others still
unaccounted for.
Now on the positive side,police arrived on the scene
within 30 seconds of the calland engaged and neutralized this
shooter.
But the fire burned for severalhours and consumed that church
building and apparently haskilled other parishioners who
(01:34):
were in the building as well.
This incident actually gives usa good opportunity to take a
look at early press conferencesand see how people who are in
highly stressful situations nowand have to step out and
communicate with the public tosee how they do that.
(01:56):
So that's what we're going todo on this podcast is we're just
going to take a look at thefirst two press conferences that
were held following thisincident and just talk about
what went well with those.
If you or I were in the roomwith them, what might meet we
have suggested they dodifferently in order to be a
little more impactful oreffective in their
(02:19):
communications during this,again, highly stressful and
difficult time.
So that's what we're going todo on the podcast today.
Now, first, we're going to takea look at the very first press
conference and the countyexecutive, who's sort of the
senior elected official for thatpopulation area, he spoke at
(02:41):
the press conference and didjust a wonderful job of
expressing his care and concernand empathy for the people and
the community.
Let's take a listen to thatstatement now.
Speaker 06 (02:54):
Well, Scott Bennett, Graham Lake Township
Supervisor, Scott, L-C-O-T-TBennett, B E N N E T T.
First, uh, let me say we areheartbroken.
This kind of violence doesn'thappen in our community.
And uh, we are heartbroken thatuh that it came to Graham Lake
(03:15):
Township, and we're gonna doeverything we can to uh support
the families, the victims, andour community uh getting through
this situation, and uhsomething that no community ever
wants to have, and uh we'regonna do our best to do
everything we can.
We appreciate the outpoint ofsupport from our elected uh
(03:37):
leaders from uh both nationaland state and offering their
assistance, and we probably willuh take them up on their offer.
So we appreciate that verymuch, and uh we appreciate uh
the community reaching out to usalso.
So the details uh are yet tocome as Chief Rennie has uh
(03:58):
said, and uh we'll wait for alittle bit later today when we
when we have the rest of thesituation uh assessed, but it
may take a little while to dothat.
But thank you for all thesupport, and I'm sure that the
families and the victims aregoing to need that.
Um tragedy that nobody wants toto and go.
Thank you.
TomMueller (04:19):
So, how do you think that county supervisor fared in
his remarks?
Pretty good.
I was very impressed with uhwith his delivery.
If you go back and look at someof the YouTube videos on it, uh
you'll see him very focused,making great eye contact with
those in the room uh and themedia.
(04:40):
So he did a really nice jobwith that.
Now, earlier on I mentionedthere was no public information
officer or someone elsefacilitating that initial press
conference.
And it got a little bit awkwardthere, uh, and this is one of
the reasons you want to have thePIO there.
But the chief kicked off thepress conference and then
(05:04):
started taking questions fromthe reporters in the room, so
took questions for severalminutes, and then uh looked over
at the county supervisorstanding there and introduced
him and brought him up to makehis comments.
So a little bit awkward there,just again, PIO on the job
(05:25):
facilitates that and helpsthings flow more smoothly for
everyone involved.
But overall, the the comments,the emotion of that first press
conference was really wellmanaged as far as I can tell.
Now, the good news is for thesecond press conference, they
did have a PIO in place, andthat was a lieutenant with the
(05:50):
Michigan State Police, and uhshe's a very senior person, you
can tell, very experienced, andshe managed uh the press
conference and the media hoardvery well.
One of the things I didn'treally like about how they
managed the second pressconference uh is that the the
(06:13):
PIO introduced the police chief,and then the police chief
introduced the rest of the dice.
And so he was up there sort offumbling through the names, the
agency names, and trying to getall that done before he gave his
initial comments at the pressconference.
(06:34):
Now, in my view, thatdistracted the chief from
focusing on his remarks anddelivering them well.
And uh again, that's a role forthe PIO, in my view, to do all
those introductions, free up theprincipals who are speaking, to
focus on their remarks uh andhandling any QA.
(06:58):
Now it's quite possible thatthe police chief wanted to do
those introductions just so hecould be more in charge of that
press conference event.
So you have to allow for thatpossibility as well, that the
chief uh was comfortable withthat, wanted to do it, and so he
(07:20):
chose to do it.
That's not how I would do it,but you have to allow for those
types of variations with theleaders that you're dealing with
uh when you're setting up thesepress events.
Okay, well, let's see how thechief of police fared when he
made his remarks and after goingthrough the opening and
(07:41):
introducing everybody else.
And this clip starts off withthe public information officer
introducing the chief and thenthe chief carrying on.
Speaker 02 (07:51):
I'd like to introduce Chief William Renee
from the Grand, I'm sorry, theGrand Blank Township Police
Department.
Speaker 00 (08:02):
Uh thank you for joining us.
As uh Lieutenant Vetter said,we will take a couple questions
upon the conclusion of thispress conference.
Uh with me here on the stage isSupervisor Scott Bennett, uh
Fire Department Chief ofGrambling Township, Jamie Gent,
uh DNR Chief uh Jason Haynes,FBI Acting Special Agent in
(08:24):
Charge, Ruben Coleman, and theATF James Deer, uh, who is the
special agent in charge for thisarea in Michigan.
I have a couple updates foryou.
Uh there is a couple additionalbodies that we've discovered in
the church.
Uh so that makes our totalvictim count up to four uh
(08:46):
victims.
TomMueller (08:48):
I want to pause for just a second here and take a
look at the chief's openingcomments there.
Um again, he went straight tothe body count in this.
And is that what you wouldrecommend if you were sort of
coaching the chief on hisremarks and how to structure
(09:10):
what he was going to say?
From my view, I really wantedto see him be a little more
empathetic, right up front,recognize the impact to the
community, and then get into thenitty-gritty detail of the body
counts.
Now, to his credit, the chiefdid circle back and provide some
of that empathy a little bitlater in his remarks.
(09:32):
I wanted to see them really upfront to make sure people know
that's the priority.
All right, let's continue withthe chief's remarks from this
second press conference.
Speaker 00 (09:44):
As I said before, there has already been the
suspect who is deceased as well.
So we have five uh deceasedpersons from this tragic
incident.
Uh again, our thoughts andprayers go out to the victims of
this incident that could havebeen completely avoided.
And it's very tragic, andthat's not what our community
(10:08):
is.
I'm confident that we're gonnaovercome this as uh Graham Blink
always overcomes these type ofuh incidents.
I'd also like to acknowledgethe heroism of not only the
first responders, but the peoplewho were inside that church at
the time.
Uh they were shielding thechildren who were also present
(10:33):
within uh the church, uh, movingthem to safety.
Uh just hundreds of people justpracticing their faith.
Uh just extreme courage, brave,uh, and that's the type of
community that we are.
TomMueller (10:50):
Overall, a very nice job by the chief in
communicating his key messagesin this press conference.
I love the fact that he went tothe heroism theme and
recognizing those who chargedinto the the fray to stop the
shooter and to try and help andrescue those who were injured.
(11:14):
That heroism would become atheme in later press conferences
when the more senior electedofficials, statewide elected
officials, and others gotinvolved in the uh subsequent
press conferences.
But the chief did a nice job ofhighlighting those people.
Now, after the chief spoke,then the special agent in charge
(11:37):
of the FBI for that region umstepped up to the microphone and
gave an update from the federalinvestigation perspective.
Now, FBI agents aren't knownfor being warm and empathetic,
generally speaking, but you cantell this special agent knew
(12:03):
what the priorities were, whathe wanted to communicate here,
and he did a very nice job ofhighlighting the people aspects
of the incident here.
I have a feeling this agent hasbeen through some training
before, has been locked in aroom and put through some tough
exercises so that he recognizesthe importance of getting things
(12:27):
right in these earlycommunications around major
incidents.
Let's take a listen to hisremarks.
Speaker 07 (12:36):
My name is Ruben Coleman, and I am the acting
special agent in charge of FBIDetroit Field Office, which
covers the entire state ofMichigan.
First, I want to sincerelyexpress our condolences to the
victims of the shooting, theirfamilies, and this entire
community.
I would like to also thankChief Rennie, the Grand Link
Township Police Department, andall of our federal, state, and
(12:58):
local law enforcement partners,other first responders, and the
community members for theirimmediate actions in this
situation.
This act of violence has noplace in our state or anywhere
else in our country.
The FBI is committed tocontinue finding out the facts,
circumstances, and motivesbehind this tragedy.
(13:19):
I can confirm at this time thatthe FBI is now leading the
investigation and isinvestigating this as an act of
targeted violence.
FBI crisis response teams, suchas our evidence response teams,
SWAT, special agent bombtechnicians, victim specialists,
were deployed to the scene.
(13:39):
We also have special agents whoare continuing to conduct
interviews and intelligence andprofessional staff personnel
providing research and analysis.
I would like to thank them fortheir work on this case.
We ask that members of thepublic share any information
that would assist us in thisinvestigation.
And we encourage them to pleasereport to the FBI at 1-800-call
(14:04):
FBI or tips.fbi.gov.
Any piece of information couldbe crucial.
We ask that you keep thevictims of this tragedy, their
families, and the entirecommunity in your prayers.
Thank you.
TomMueller (14:20):
That special agent again did a really nice job of
delivering those remarks.
You know, he did it in such away that uh, you know, you come
away from them thinking, wow,that person's in charge.
They know what they're doing,they know what their priorities
are, and they are going to beleading in this investigation.
And that makes me feel prettygood knowing there's somebody of
(14:45):
this caliber in charge of thisinvestigation.
There is a level ofsophistication to the special
agent's remarks that just leadsme to believe he's either been
through this before or he's beenthrough training.
They may have a specialtemplate or pattern documents
that they can draw from to dothe initial remarks for major
(15:09):
incidents like this.
At any rate, he delivered itnicely and left us all feeling
very good about the FBI'sparticipation in this incident
response.
As we draw to a close for thatpress conference now, the public
information officer steppedback up to the podium and took
(15:29):
questions from the mediagathered in the room there.
Again, the PIO here is a fairlysenior officer with the
Michigan State Police.
She comes across as a veryexperienced public information
officer as well.
So I'd like you to listen tohow she handles various
questions that are put to her bythe gathered media.
(15:52):
She's very clear, veryauthoritative in how she deals
with various questions.
And toward the end of thisexchange, you'll hear her use a
bridge and talk about theheroism, again, of the people
involved in this.
She did a really nice job ofmanaging some tough questions
(16:17):
and then returning theconversation back to focus on
the people aspects of this.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 03 (16:25):
Can we speak to the motive of rigoring speculations
that it might have anything todo with the Charlie Kirk
assassination in Utah?
Speaker 02 (16:32):
That's exactly what it is, a speculation, and we
won't come to those types ofconclusions for some time.
Speaker 05 (16:37):
Do you know if there's any connection between
the suspect and the church orits members?
Any prior connection?
Speaker 02 (16:42):
Again, part of the investigation, we're not going
to speculate at this time.
Right now, we are workingtirelessly to recover the
victims of this incident andreunite families.
Please be patient as we workthrough that process.
Speaker 04 (16:57):
Is there anywhere that the community should be
aware of or something?
Speaker 02 (17:00):
The community should remain vigilant, and anytime
they see something suspicious,they should report it
immediately.
There isn't at least one otherreport that a local church was
searched by the bomb spectrum.
We've searched multiplechurches this evening for bomb
threat protocol.
Is that based on actualthreats?
Yes.
Okay.
We've received 911 calls aboutbomb threats or uh other
(17:21):
indications that there was abomb at a different location.
Some of them were churches.
And we have responded andcleared those locations.
Speaker 05 (17:28):
Did those threats come after the suspect was
killed at the church?
Speaker 02 (17:33):
Yes.
I think that's part of theinvestigation.
Do you have a comment on that?
Speaker 05 (17:41):
Were those LDS churches where all threats were,
or were there otherdenominations?
I can't speak for motivation.
Speaker 02 (17:48):
Yeah, I can't answer that locate that at this time.
Speaker 04 (17:51):
What else can we say about this concept?
You know, you don't we don'twe're not going to talk about
motor yet, but what else can wesay anything about it at all?
Speaker 02 (17:58):
Right now, what we'd like to do is talk about the
heroism that we saw today.
Um the people who responded insuch a uh valiant way to protect
the others, both lawenforcement, fire department,
EMS.
Um everybody did an excellentjob working together to keep
people as safe as they possiblycould.
TomMueller (18:15):
So that PIO did a fantastic job of moderating the
QA of that press conference anduh just demonstrating leadership
in her style and her authorityas she worked through that.
While also being respectful ofmost of the questions, although
uh you could tell she wasn'ttolerating any speculation when
(18:39):
there was one question aboutwhether the incident was related
to the murder of Charlie Kirk afew weeks ago.
So a nice job.
And it's fun to watch a PIOwho's really good at what they
do uh in managing a verysubjective and potentially
volatile situation with media inthe room and cameras rolling.
(19:01):
So Lieutenant Vetter there dida terrific job as far as I'm
concerned.
And that's gonna do it for thisepisode of the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I hope you've enjoyed ourreview of this press conference
that happened earlier this weekand can take away a few of the
lessons learned as I have fromwalking through and seeing how
(19:26):
these public servants areresponding under very stressful
conditions for me.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis Podcast.
On this podcast, we talk allthings crisis management with an
emphasis on leadership.
I'm Tom Mueller.
If you'd like to drop an emailto the show, please email me at
Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com.
We'd love to hear from you.
(00:28):
On our podcast this week, we'refocusing on a mass casualty
incident that occurred here inthe United States earlier this
week.
This was an incident in theU.S.
state of Michigan.
And it's an incident thatoccurred at a Mormon church in a
town called Grand Blanc,Michigan.
(00:49):
Now a gunman crashed hisvehicle through the front doors
of that church during theirworship services, got out,
started shooting, and at somepoint spread gasoline or petrol
in the church and set it onfire.
And our current count, therewere four people killed in the
(01:10):
incident, eight wounded, withnumerous others still
unaccounted for.
Now on the positive side,police arrived on the scene
within 30 seconds of the calland engaged and neutralized this
shooter.
But the fire burned for severalhours and consumed that church
building and apparently haskilled other parishioners who
(01:34):
were in the building as well.
This incident actually gives usa good opportunity to take a
look at early press conferencesand see how people who are in
highly stressful situations nowand have to step out and
communicate with the public tosee how they do that.
(01:56):
So that's what we're going todo on this podcast is we're just
going to take a look at thefirst two press conferences that
were held following thisincident and just talk about
what went well with those.
If you or I were in the roomwith them, what might meet we
have suggested they dodifferently in order to be a
little more impactful oreffective in their
(02:19):
communications during this,again, highly stressful and
difficult time.
So that's what we're going todo on the podcast today.
Now, first, we're going to takea look at the very first press
conference and the countyexecutive, who's sort of the
senior elected official for thatpopulation area, he spoke at
(02:41):
the press conference and didjust a wonderful job of
expressing his care and concernand empathy for the people and
the community.
Let's take a listen to thatstatement now.
Speaker 06 (02:54):
Well, Scott Bennett, Graham Lake Township
Supervisor, Scott, L-C-O-T-TBennett, B E N N E T T.
First, uh, let me say we areheartbroken.
This kind of violence doesn'thappen in our community.
And uh, we are heartbroken thatuh that it came to Graham Lake
(03:15):
Township, and we're gonna doeverything we can to uh support
the families, the victims, andour community uh getting through
this situation, and uhsomething that no community ever
wants to have, and uh we'regonna do our best to do
everything we can.
We appreciate the outpoint ofsupport from our elected uh
(03:37):
leaders from uh both nationaland state and offering their
assistance, and we probably willuh take them up on their offer.
So we appreciate that verymuch, and uh we appreciate uh
the community reaching out to usalso.
So the details uh are yet tocome as Chief Rennie has uh
(03:58):
said, and uh we'll wait for alittle bit later today when we
when we have the rest of thesituation uh assessed, but it
may take a little while to dothat.
But thank you for all thesupport, and I'm sure that the
families and the victims aregoing to need that.
Um tragedy that nobody wants toto and go.
Thank you.
TomMueller (04:19):
So, how do you think that county supervisor fared in
his remarks?
Pretty good.
I was very impressed with uhwith his delivery.
If you go back and look at someof the YouTube videos on it, uh
you'll see him very focused,making great eye contact with
those in the room uh and themedia.
(04:40):
So he did a really nice jobwith that.
Now, earlier on I mentionedthere was no public information
officer or someone elsefacilitating that initial press
conference.
And it got a little bit awkwardthere, uh, and this is one of
the reasons you want to have thePIO there.
But the chief kicked off thepress conference and then
(05:04):
started taking questions fromthe reporters in the room, so
took questions for severalminutes, and then uh looked over
at the county supervisorstanding there and introduced
him and brought him up to makehis comments.
So a little bit awkward there,just again, PIO on the job
(05:25):
facilitates that and helpsthings flow more smoothly for
everyone involved.
But overall, the the comments,the emotion of that first press
conference was really wellmanaged as far as I can tell.
Now, the good news is for thesecond press conference, they
did have a PIO in place, andthat was a lieutenant with the
(05:50):
Michigan State Police, and uhshe's a very senior person, you
can tell, very experienced, andshe managed uh the press
conference and the media hoardvery well.
One of the things I didn'treally like about how they
managed the second pressconference uh is that the the
(06:13):
PIO introduced the police chief,and then the police chief
introduced the rest of the dice.
And so he was up there sort offumbling through the names, the
agency names, and trying to getall that done before he gave his
initial comments at the pressconference.
(06:34):
Now, in my view, thatdistracted the chief from
focusing on his remarks anddelivering them well.
And uh again, that's a role forthe PIO, in my view, to do all
those introductions, free up theprincipals who are speaking, to
focus on their remarks uh andhandling any QA.
(06:58):
Now it's quite possible thatthe police chief wanted to do
those introductions just so hecould be more in charge of that
press conference event.
So you have to allow for thatpossibility as well, that the
chief uh was comfortable withthat, wanted to do it, and so he
(07:20):
chose to do it.
That's not how I would do it,but you have to allow for those
types of variations with theleaders that you're dealing with
uh when you're setting up thesepress events.
Okay, well, let's see how thechief of police fared when he
made his remarks and after goingthrough the opening and
(07:41):
introducing everybody else.
And this clip starts off withthe public information officer
introducing the chief and thenthe chief carrying on.
Speaker 02 (07:51):
I'd like to introduce Chief William Renee
from the Grand, I'm sorry, theGrand Blank Township Police
Department.
Speaker 00 (08:02):
Uh thank you for joining us.
As uh Lieutenant Vetter said,we will take a couple questions
upon the conclusion of thispress conference.
Uh with me here on the stage isSupervisor Scott Bennett, uh
Fire Department Chief ofGrambling Township, Jamie Gent,
uh DNR Chief uh Jason Haynes,FBI Acting Special Agent in
(08:24):
Charge, Ruben Coleman, and theATF James Deer, uh, who is the
special agent in charge for thisarea in Michigan.
I have a couple updates foryou.
Uh there is a couple additionalbodies that we've discovered in
the church.
Uh so that makes our totalvictim count up to four uh
(08:46):
victims.
TomMueller (08:48):
I want to pause for just a second here and take a
look at the chief's openingcomments there.
Um again, he went straight tothe body count in this.
And is that what you wouldrecommend if you were sort of
coaching the chief on hisremarks and how to structure
(09:10):
what he was going to say?
From my view, I really wantedto see him be a little more
empathetic, right up front,recognize the impact to the
community, and then get into thenitty-gritty detail of the body
counts.
Now, to his credit, the chiefdid circle back and provide some
of that empathy a little bitlater in his remarks.
(09:32):
I wanted to see them really upfront to make sure people know
that's the priority.
All right, let's continue withthe chief's remarks from this
second press conference.
Speaker 00 (09:44):
As I said before, there has already been the
suspect who is deceased as well.
So we have five uh deceasedpersons from this tragic
incident.
Uh again, our thoughts andprayers go out to the victims of
this incident that could havebeen completely avoided.
And it's very tragic, andthat's not what our community
(10:08):
is.
I'm confident that we're gonnaovercome this as uh Graham Blink
always overcomes these type ofuh incidents.
I'd also like to acknowledgethe heroism of not only the
first responders, but the peoplewho were inside that church at
the time.
Uh they were shielding thechildren who were also present
(10:33):
within uh the church, uh, movingthem to safety.
Uh just hundreds of people justpracticing their faith.
Uh just extreme courage, brave,uh, and that's the type of
community that we are.
TomMueller (10:50):
Overall, a very nice job by the chief in
communicating his key messagesin this press conference.
I love the fact that he went tothe heroism theme and
recognizing those who chargedinto the the fray to stop the
shooter and to try and help andrescue those who were injured.
(11:14):
That heroism would become atheme in later press conferences
when the more senior electedofficials, statewide elected
officials, and others gotinvolved in the uh subsequent
press conferences.
But the chief did a nice job ofhighlighting those people.
Now, after the chief spoke,then the special agent in charge
(11:37):
of the FBI for that region umstepped up to the microphone and
gave an update from the federalinvestigation perspective.
Now, FBI agents aren't knownfor being warm and empathetic,
generally speaking, but you cantell this special agent knew
(12:03):
what the priorities were, whathe wanted to communicate here,
and he did a very nice job ofhighlighting the people aspects
of the incident here.
I have a feeling this agent hasbeen through some training
before, has been locked in aroom and put through some tough
exercises so that he recognizesthe importance of getting things
(12:27):
right in these earlycommunications around major
incidents.
Let's take a listen to hisremarks.
Speaker 07 (12:36):
My name is Ruben Coleman, and I am the acting
special agent in charge of FBIDetroit Field Office, which
covers the entire state ofMichigan.
First, I want to sincerelyexpress our condolences to the
victims of the shooting, theirfamilies, and this entire
community.
I would like to also thankChief Rennie, the Grand Link
Township Police Department, andall of our federal, state, and
(12:58):
local law enforcement partners,other first responders, and the
community members for theirimmediate actions in this
situation.
This act of violence has noplace in our state or anywhere
else in our country.
The FBI is committed tocontinue finding out the facts,
circumstances, and motivesbehind this tragedy.
(13:19):
I can confirm at this time thatthe FBI is now leading the
investigation and isinvestigating this as an act of
targeted violence.
FBI crisis response teams, suchas our evidence response teams,
SWAT, special agent bombtechnicians, victim specialists,
were deployed to the scene.
(13:39):
We also have special agents whoare continuing to conduct
interviews and intelligence andprofessional staff personnel
providing research and analysis.
I would like to thank them fortheir work on this case.
We ask that members of thepublic share any information
that would assist us in thisinvestigation.
And we encourage them to pleasereport to the FBI at 1-800-call
(14:04):
FBI or tips.fbi.gov.
Any piece of information couldbe crucial.
We ask that you keep thevictims of this tragedy, their
families, and the entirecommunity in your prayers.
Thank you.
TomMueller (14:20):
That special agent again did a really nice job of
delivering those remarks.
You know, he did it in such away that uh, you know, you come
away from them thinking, wow,that person's in charge.
They know what they're doing,they know what their priorities
are, and they are going to beleading in this investigation.
And that makes me feel prettygood knowing there's somebody of
(14:45):
this caliber in charge of thisinvestigation.
There is a level ofsophistication to the special
agent's remarks that just leadsme to believe he's either been
through this before or he's beenthrough training.
They may have a specialtemplate or pattern documents
that they can draw from to dothe initial remarks for major
(15:09):
incidents like this.
At any rate, he delivered itnicely and left us all feeling
very good about the FBI'sparticipation in this incident
response.
As we draw to a close for thatpress conference now, the public
information officer steppedback up to the podium and took
(15:29):
questions from the mediagathered in the room there.
Again, the PIO here is a fairlysenior officer with the
Michigan State Police.
She comes across as a veryexperienced public information
officer as well.
So I'd like you to listen tohow she handles various
questions that are put to her bythe gathered media.
(15:52):
She's very clear, veryauthoritative in how she deals
with various questions.
And toward the end of thisexchange, you'll hear her use a
bridge and talk about theheroism, again, of the people
involved in this.
She did a really nice job ofmanaging some tough questions
(16:17):
and then returning theconversation back to focus on
the people aspects of this.
Let's take a listen.
Speaker 03 (16:25):
Can we speak to the motive of rigoring speculations
that it might have anything todo with the Charlie Kirk
assassination in Utah?
Speaker 02 (16:32):
That's exactly what it is, a speculation, and we
won't come to those types ofconclusions for some time.
Speaker 05 (16:37):
Do you know if there's any connection between
the suspect and the church orits members?
Any prior connection?
Speaker 02 (16:42):
Again, part of the investigation, we're not going
to speculate at this time.
Right now, we are workingtirelessly to recover the
victims of this incident andreunite families.
Please be patient as we workthrough that process.
Speaker 04 (16:57):
Is there anywhere that the community should be
aware of or something?
Speaker 02 (17:00):
The community should remain vigilant, and anytime
they see something suspicious,they should report it
immediately.
There isn't at least one otherreport that a local church was
searched by the bomb spectrum.
We've searched multiplechurches this evening for bomb
threat protocol.
Is that based on actualthreats?
Yes.
Okay.
We've received 911 calls aboutbomb threats or uh other
(17:21):
indications that there was abomb at a different location.
Some of them were churches.
And we have responded andcleared those locations.
Speaker 05 (17:28):
Did those threats come after the suspect was
killed at the church?
Speaker 02 (17:33):
Yes.
I think that's part of theinvestigation.
Do you have a comment on that?
Speaker 05 (17:41):
Were those LDS churches where all threats were,
or were there otherdenominations?
I can't speak for motivation.
Speaker 02 (17:48):
Yeah, I can't answer that locate that at this time.
Speaker 04 (17:51):
What else can we say about this concept?
You know, you don't we don'twe're not going to talk about
motor yet, but what else can wesay anything about it at all?
Speaker 02 (17:58):
Right now, what we'd like to do is talk about the
heroism that we saw today.
Um the people who responded insuch a uh valiant way to protect
the others, both lawenforcement, fire department,
EMS.
Um everybody did an excellentjob working together to keep
people as safe as they possiblycould.
TomMueller (18:15):
So that PIO did a fantastic job of moderating the
QA of that press conference anduh just demonstrating leadership
in her style and her authorityas she worked through that.
While also being respectful ofmost of the questions, although
uh you could tell she wasn'ttolerating any speculation when
(18:39):
there was one question aboutwhether the incident was related
to the murder of Charlie Kirk afew weeks ago.
So a nice job.
And it's fun to watch a PIOwho's really good at what they
do uh in managing a verysubjective and potentially
volatile situation with media inthe room and cameras rolling.
(19:01):
So Lieutenant Vetter there dida terrific job as far as I'm
concerned.
And that's gonna do it for thisepisode of the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I hope you've enjoyed ourreview of this press conference
that happened earlier this weekand can take away a few of the
lessons learned as I have fromwalking through and seeing how
(19:26):
these public servants areresponding under very stressful
conditions for me.
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