Leaders at a Southern California synagogue knew they needed to increase security around their front door a year before a gunman walked through it and opened fire.
The Chabad of Poway synagogue sought a $150,000 federal grant to install gates and more secure doors, but it took nearly a year for the application to be approved and the money to be distributed. It was awarded in late March.
"Obviously, we did not have a chance to start using the funds yet," Rabbi Simcha Backman told The Associated Press.
Backman, who oversees security grants for the 207 Chabad institutions across California, wouldn't give details on the planned enhancements or speculate whether they might have changed the outcome of Saturday's attack.
The gunman killed a woman and wounded an 8-year-old girl, her uncle and Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was leading the service on the last day of Passover, a major Jewish holiday. Goldstein, who lost a finger, joined President Donald Trump on Thursday for the National Day of Prayer.
"We will fight with all our strength and everything that we have in our bodies to defeat anti-Semitism, to end the attacks on the Jewish people and to conquer all forms of persecution, intolerance, and hate," Trump said before introducing Goldstein.
The rabbi praised Trump's response to the shooting and called him a "mensch par excellence."
"You heal people in their worst of times, and I'm so grateful for that," Goldstein told Trump at the event at the White House.
The Poway synagogue doesn't have security guards. But rabbis of California's Chabad organization began asking members who were trained law enforcement professionals to carry their weapons at services after a gunman massacred 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last October.
Goldstein also applied for a concealed carry permit, and the congregation received training from the city of Poway on responding to an active shooter.
Houses of worship, like all institutions open to the public, face a balancing act in providing security while maintaining a welcoming atmosphere, said Jesus Villahermosa, a former law enforcement officer in Washington state who teaches classes nationwide on deterring and reacting to active shooters.
"All the mechanical security in the world isn't going to change that anyone in America can walk into any place in America and open fire," he said. "It's difficult because I don't think there is a perfect solution."
Even installing metal detectors merely makes those gathered there the potential initial target, he said.
Villahermosa said synagogue leaders were wise to ask officers to come armed, but layers of security would be best, including professional armed guards at entrances, embedded in the congregation and at the front of the worship area.
On Saturday, an off-duty Border Patrol agent who attends the synagogue fired at the gunman as he fled, hitting his vehicle. The 19-year-old suspect, John T. Earnest, has pleaded not guilty to murder and attempted murder charges.
