National Guard Activated in Milwaukee, it Began this Way

Posted on August 14, 2016August 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Sylville Smith: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, Courtesy of Heavy

Sylville Smith was fatally shot by police in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, leading to riots in the city’s North Side. (Facebook)

A 23-year-old black man armed with a stolen gun was fatally shot Saturday afternoon by police in Milwaukee during a foot pursuit, authorities say.

The man has been identified as Sylville Smith, police said. Smith was shot in the chest and arm, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said.

He fled from a car during a traffic stop Saturday about 2:30 p.m. in the Wisconsin city’s North Side, police said in a press release. He was chased by two officers and was shot during the foot pursuit, according to police.

Peaceful protests turned to violent unrest Saturday night. One police officer was hospitalized after a brick was thrown through his windshield. Three others were hospitalized with unspecified injuries, but all were released by Sunday morning. Six buildings and several vehicles were burned, including a police car. Seventeen arrests were made, officials said.

The scene was calm Sunday morning, with community members gathering to cleanup and hold a prayer service. Governor Scott Walker activated the state’s National Guard as a precaution. They will be available to assist police Sunday if needed.

The investigation into the shooting is being conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation. The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office will then review the findings of that investigation.

The officer who shot Smith has been placed on administrative leave. His name has not been released, but police say he is a 24-year-old man who has been with the department for six years. He has worked as an officer for three years.

The officer is black, Police Chief Edward Flynn said Sunday at a press conference.

1. The Officers at the Scene of the Shooting Were Wearing Body Cameras, the Mayor Says

Milwaukee Police say the incident began when two uniformed officers stopped a car with two people inside in the 3200 block of North 44th Street about 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

“Shortly after stopping the suspects, both occupants fled from the car on foot. The officers pursued the suspects, and during the foot pursuit one officer shot one suspect, armed with a semiautomatic handgun,” police said in a press release.”

Sylville Smith died at the scene, police said.

The shooting happened in a yard in the 3200 block of North 44th Street, police said.

Police said the other suspect, who has not been named, was taken into custody and is facing charges.

Mayor Tom Barrett said the two officers involved in the chase and shooting were wearing body cameras, WISN-TV reports. The cameras were operational, Barrett said.

He said the officer ordered the man to drop his gun twice and then fired several times when he refused. Barrett said a photo from the body camera clearly shows Smith had the gun in his hand when he was killed.

2. A Loaded Gun Stolen From a Home During a Burglary Was Found After the Shooting

Police said the semiautomatic handgun recovered at the scene was stolen in a burglary from a home in Waukesha, Wisconsin, in March 2016. The burglary victim said 500 rounds of ammunition were also taken.

Mayor Tom Barrett told reporters the gun was loaded, according to The Associated Press.

“This stop took place because two officers … saw suspicious activity,” Barrett said. “There were 23 rounds in that gun that that officer was staring at. I want to make sure we don’t lose any police officers in this community, either.”

Milwaukee Police Assistant Chief Bill Jessup told the Journal Sentinel it has not been determined if the gun was pointed at the officer or if shots were fired by the suspect.

“That officer had to make a split-second decision when the person confronted him with a handgun,” Jessup said. “This is a risk they take every day on behalf of our community.”

The shooting came after five fatal shootings during a nine-hour stretch from Friday night to Saturday morning. It occurred just blocks from three of those homicides, police told the Journal Sentinel.

“As everyone knows, this was a very, very violent 24 hours in the city of Milwaukee,” Jessup said. “Our officers are out here taking risks on behalf of the community and making split-second decisions.”

3. Smith’s Criminal Record, Which Police Called ‘Lengthy,’ Included a Misdemeanor Conviction for Carrying a Concealed Weapon & Traffic Offenses

Police said in a press release that the 23-year-old man who was fatally shot had a “lengthy arrest record.”

A search of Wisconsin court records revealed several arrests, but only one misdemeanor conviction for Sylville Smith. His record also included traffic offenses. No felony convictions were found.

The misdemeanor conviction, for carrying a concealed weapon, came in July 2014. He pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined $443 and ordered to serve one day in jail.

His record also included guilty findings on traffic offenses for speeding, operating a motor vehicle without insurance, possession of open intoxicants in a motor vehicle and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended license.

Smith was arrested in 2015 on a charge of intimidating a witness by a person charged with a felony, which is itself a felony offense. The case was dropped later that year by the prosecutor.

He was also charged with first-degree recklessly endangering safety, a felony, and misdemeanor possession of THC earlier in 2015. Those charges were dismissed by a judge based on a motion by the defense.

According to the Journal Sentinel, both cases stemmed from a February 2015 shooting in which he was a suspect.

Smith was accused of calling his girlfriend from jail to tell her to call the victim in the shooting case to get him to fill out a sworn affidavit saying Smith didn’t commit the crime, according to court documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

The victim recanted his identification of Smith and the case was dropped after the victim did not show up to court and was uncooperative, the newspaper reports.

In 2013, Smith was charged with retail theft, but that case as also dropped by the prosecutor. Go here for more details, facts and videos from Heavy.

More Hillary Emails Continue to Surface, Contents are Crazy

Posted on August 12, 2016August 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Five Clinton friends who got special State Department access

WashingtonExaminer: Hillary Clinton’s campaign has struggled to explain a batch of previously undisclosed emails that contain fresh evidence of cooperation between the State Department and donors to the Clinton Foundation.

The records, which emerged through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, offered a narrow window into the extent to which friends and donors were afforded consideration and access above what was provided to other outsiders.

The emails revived questions about whether the former secretary of state maintained an appropriate distance from her family’s philanthropy. While State Department officials denied suggestions that the documents produced any evidence of impropriety, Clinton’s critics took her to task Wednesday for allegedly selling influence through the foundation.

As the Democratic nominee labors to repair a public trust that was damaged badly by the FBI’s investigation into her private email use, the signs of quid pro quo contained in the latest records will likely force Clinton to confront the long-simmering controversy surrounding her family’s foundation.

Gilbert Chagoury

Several of the most controversial emails came from the inbox of Douglas Band, a longtime Clinton aide who was then serving in a top role at the Clinton Foundation. Band went on to found a consulting firm, Teneo Strategies, whose work with clients that had interests before the State Department raised red flags.

Band wrote Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, in April 2009 to demand a major Clinton Foundation donor be given access to the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon.

Gilbert Chagoury, the Lebanese-born Nigerian businessman who had written checks to the Clinton Foundation, has a long history of giving to Clinton causes — even when election laws did not permit him to do so. His $460,000 donation to a group accused of funneling foreign contributions to the Democratic National Committee in 1997 earned him an invitation to dine at the White House with the Clintons amid a congressional probe into the arrangement.

Chagoury’s ties to the Clinton State Department have come under fire in the past due to the former secretary of state’s refusal to place Boko Haram, a Nigerian terror group, on the official list of foreign terrorist organizations. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wrote to the State Department last year to inquire about the delay in designating Boko Haram a terrorist outfit and whether it was related to Chagoury’s proximity to Clinton.

Band stressed in his email to Abedin that the Chagoury request was “very important” and instructed her to reach out to the donor immediately.

Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan and current Clinton surrogate, attempted to dismiss Wednesday any association between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department’s rush to grant Chagoury access to a high-ranking official.

“Well, I mean, I wasn’t in the State Department at the time,” Granholm said during an appearance on CNN. “But I do know that [Clinton] has abided by the ethics agreement she signed at the beginning, which was not to take any action on the part of the State Department that mixed foundation business.”

Granholm said Band had reached out to Abedin in his capacity as a representative of former President Bill Clinton, not as an employee of the family’s charity.

Even that explanation, if true, would not eliminate all the potential conflicts of interest at play, as Bill Clinton netted generous speaking fees from Nigerian entities linked to Chagoury.

Wall Street executive

Hillary Clinton welcomed a Feb. 2009 meeting with Stephen Roach, a top executive at Morgan Stanley, after Roach slipped her a copy of the testimony he planned to deliver before Congress the following week.

The Democratic nominee instructed her staff to arrange a time to meet Roach, who then ran the bank’s Asian operations, in Beijing during her upcoming swing through southeast Asia.

Morgan Stanley has given up to $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation, donor records show. Roach had personally donated heavily to Clinton’s past political campaigns, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The testimony Roach delivered encouraged U.S. officials to dial back the tough talk on China and embrace trade deals that included Beijing’s interests. The Morgan Stanley executive chastised politicians for saddling Wall Street with the blame for economic failures and encouraged the U.S. to address a receding middle class “without derailing globalization.”

In an interview with a Chinese television station and separate remarks alongside the Chinese foreign minister just days later, Clinton echoed many of Roach’s points about the need for Americans to save more of their paychecks and for China to increase its consumption of American goods.

It is unclear whether Roach’s inside access to Clinton persuaded her to hew closely to the views on Chinese trade he had laid out for her.

But the timing of his communications with Clinton raises questions about whether Roach exerted influence over the former secretary of state.

What’s more, the Beijing tryst was not the only time Clinton took advice from the Morgan Stanley executive.

In July 2010, Clinton told Roach she was “delighted” to receive an email from him and solicited his thoughts on upcoming bilateral talks about the economy with the Chinese. She again pushed her staff to schedule a meeting with Roach.

Morgan Stanley executives have given extensively to Clinton’s presidential campaign, despite her promise to crack down on the excesses of Wall Street.

Lobbyist access

When Jonathan Mantz, the former finance director for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign who had become a lobbyist, reached out to the secretary of state in Feb. 2009 to share some “great news,” Hillary Clinton instructed her assistant to add him to a list of people she was scheduled to call.

The email exchange offered a brief glimpse into what appeared to be a profitable friendship for both Mantz and Hillary Clinton.

For example, Mantz agreed to assist in steering his client’s funds toward one of Hillary Clinton’s pet projects: the U.S. pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. The State Department could not spend taxpayer money on the project, which many experts viewed as a diplomatic priority, so Hillary Clinton dispatched her aides to drum up funding from the same network of donors that funds the Clinton Foundation.

In June 2009, Kris Balderston, the aide charged with soliciting much of the funding for the pavilion, told Hillary Clinton that Mantz was “engaged” in the project, along with Pepsi, Microsoft and General Electric (all foundation donors).

In March 2010, Balderston informed his boss that Delos Living, a real estate company he described as “a Mantz client,” had kicked in $250,000 for the pavilion.

Within a year, Delos Living, whose board included Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, was tapped for a $5 million effort to build a soccer stadium in Haiti with the Clinton Global Initiative.

Mantz personally earned $280,000 for the “strategic counsel” services he provided Delos Living, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Unidentified job seeker

In April 2009, Band approached Abedin and Cheryl Mills, then Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, about hiring at the State Department an individual whose name was redacted.

Band forwarded an email in which the individual had expressed gratitude for an “eye-opening” trip to Haiti, where the Clinton Foundation claims to have done extensive work. The foundation official told Mills and Abedin that it was “important to take care of” the unnamed individual.

“Personnel has been sending him options,” Abedin replied.

Elizabeth Trudeau, a State Department spokeswoman, refused to reveal the identity of the individual Wednesday but argued her agency brings in many different people for many different reasons.

“The department regularly hires political appointees with a range of skill sets,” Trudeau said.

The spokeswoman declined to say whether the person was put in a government position by Hillary Clinton’s team. If he was, it would not have been the first time a donor received a plush appointment.

In 2011, Hillary Clinton’s aides rushed a top secret security clearance for Rajiv Fernando, a wealthy Chicago businessman, so he could serve on the International Security Advisory Board.

When reporters asked for a copy of his resume, State Department officials panicked and stripped Fernando of his position for fear that his lack of credentials would come under scrutiny.

Consulting connections

Hillary Clinton asked Abedin in April 2009 whether she should reach out to a Pentagon official on behalf of Jackie Newmyer, a longtime friend and president of a consulting firm called Long Term Strategy Group.

Emails made public by the State Department suggest Newmyer secured meetings with Department of Defense officials by the following month about landing a contract for her firm.

In March, Newmyer had prepared for Hillary Clinton a proposal in the hopes of winning a consulting deal with the State Department.

Newmyer aimed to advise the administration on Iran, among other things, as the U.S. moved toward its controversial negotiations with the country.

*****

Not complete without George Soros has access and influence, right? Poor Ambassador Stevens never had the access or influence with Hillary Clinton, nor did any of those survivors or the dead from Benghazi.

Leaked e-mail shows Soros urged Clinton to intervene in Albania civil unrest

More leaked e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State prove that she was taking foreign policy advice from left-wing billionaire activist George Soros.

An e-mail provided by WikiLeaks showed Soros reaching out to Secretary Clinton over a foreign policy dispute in Albania.

“Dear Hillary,

“A serious situation has arisen in Albania which needs urgent attention at senior levels of the US government. You may know that an opposition demonstration in Tirana on Friday resulted in the deaths of three people and the destruction of property.

“There are serious concerns about further unrest connected to a counter-demonstration to be organized by the governing party on Wednesday and a follow-up event by the opposition two days later to memorialize the victims.

“The prospect of tens of thousands of people entering the streets in an already inflamed political environment bodes ill for the return of public order and the country’s fragile democratic process.”

Soros urges the then-Secretary of State to get the international community involved and pressure the Prime Minister to “forestall further demonstrations” and “tone down public pronouncements” as well appointing a senior European official to act as the mediator.

The left wing billionaire also gave Clinton a list of potential nominees to appoint as mediator: Carl Bildt, Martti Ahtisaari and Miroslav Lajcak.

The e-mail was sent from Soros’ aide to Richard Verma, then the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs who forwarded it to several of Clinton’s top aides including Huma Abedin, Jacob Sullivan, and Philip Gordon. Sullivan forwarded it to Clinton.

Just three days after Clinton received the e-mail from Soros the EU ended up sending Soros’ suggested nominee Lajcak to mediate the civil unrest, the BBC reported.

CENTCOM Reports Altered to Follow Obama’s Lead

Posted on August 12, 2016August 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Not all intelligence professionals complied with the reports declaring in Congressional testimony conditions that were dramatically worse than what Barack Obama was telling the American people. The consequence of the top CENTCOM staff altering and filtering factual summaries can never be fully measured however, immediately after General Mattis left CENTCOM, the process was changed and reporting began to go south. When General Austin replaced Mattis, collaboration and use of all intelligence tools were amended. Timing is important such that the fall of Ramadi and Fallujah happened but notably within days of Obama making the declaration that Islamic State was the JV team, Mosul fell.

The United States officially left Iraq in 2011, there were an estimated 700 terror fighters that remained, within several months the number grew to several thousand while the top count going into 2014 it was 31,000. Today, Islamic State has functional operating cells in 24 countries. Attention to al Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Taliban and other terror factions has been eliminated from the political lexicon.

The Congressional 17 page report is.

House probe: Central Command reports skewed intel on ISIS fight

FNC: Intelligence reports produced by U.S. Central Command that tracked the Islamic State’s 2014-15 rise in Iraq and Syria were skewed to present a rosier picture of the situation on the ground, according to a bombshell report released Thursday by a House Republican task force.

The task force investigated a Defense Department whistleblower’s allegations that higher-ups manipulated analysts’ findings to make the campaign against ISIS appear more successful to the American public.

The report concluded that intelligence reports from Central Command were, in fact, “inconsistent with the judgments of many senior, career analysts.”

Further, the report found, “these products also consistently described U.S. actions in a more positive light than other assessments from the [intelligence community] and were typically more optimistic than actual events warranted.”

Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who was involved in the House report, said Thursday the data was clearly “manipulated.”

“They wanted to tell a story that ISIS was the JV, that we had Al Qaeda on the run,” he told Fox News. “This is incredibly dangerous. We haven’t seen this kind of manipulation of intelligence … in an awfully long time.”

It is unclear how high up the reports in question went, though the task force found “many” Central Command press releases, statements and testimonies were “significantly more positive than actual events” as well.

The joint task force report blamed “structural and management changes” at the CENTCOM Intelligence Directorate starting in mid-2014 for the intelligence products. Surveys provided to the task force, according to the report, showed 40 percent of analysts later claimed they “had experienced an attempt to distort or suppress intelligence.”

The report also said senior leaders relied on details from coalition forces rather than “more objective and documented intelligence reporting,” using this as a rationale to change reports – sometimes “in a more optimistic direction.”

The Defense Department inspector general is now taking a close look at the findings – and looking for more possible whistle-blowers. The joint task force described its assessment released Thursday as an “initial report” and continues to investigate.

“The facts on the ground didn’t match what the intelligence was saying out of the United States Central Command,” Pompeo said.

The Pentagon did not comment in depth on the report, citing the ongoing IG investigation.

However, spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Patrick L. Evans said the intelligence community assessments are “based on multifaceted data related to the current security environment.”

“Experts sometimes disagree on the interpretation of complex data, and the Intelligence Community and Department of Defense welcome healthy dialogue on these vital national security topics,” he said in a statement.

When the allegations initially surfaced last year, the White House insisted no one in the administration pressured anyone, and suggested blame may rest with the military.

It WAS the Russians that Hacked the DNC and More

Posted on August 11, 2016August 11, 2016 by Denise Simon

This website reported several weeks ago along with evidence it was the Russians that hacked the Democrat Nation Committee, and these hacks are reported to be wider and deeper than previously reported. This site also reported that the FBI went to the Hillary campaign headquarters with evidence of a hack and asked only for the sign in activity logs to further the investigation, but the Hillary camp refused to cooperate or collaborate.

Well, turnabout is fair play. It is all about favors right? Yuppers….

Cyberattack on Democrats bigger than originally believed: report
TheHill: The cyberattack targeting Democratic politicians was more widespread than originally believed, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The likely Russian cyberattack breached the private email accounts of more than 100 party officials and groups, sources told the Times.
Email accounts of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign officials, party operatives and Democratic Party organizations seem to have been the focus of the attack.

The FBI is now widening its investigation, and officials have started to tell Democrats that Russians may have gained access to their email accounts.

It had been previously reported that Russian hackers accessed the networks of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Clinton campaign’s network was also believed to have been breached.

But the hack may also have extended to other organizations such as the Democratic Governors’ Association, according to the Times.

Ahead of the Democratic National Convention last month, a trove of emails was released by WikiLeaks that appeared to show officials at the DNC planning how to undermine Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign.

The emails resulted in the resignation of former DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other top officials.

Last week, FBI officials briefed staff members of House and Senate Intelligence Committees on its investigation into the issue and are expected to brief other congressional committees in the coming days.

******

Impeach Loretta Lynch! Why? She is not serving justice under a RICO or public corruption.

Report: Loretta Lynch’s Justice Dept. Declined FBI Request To Investigate Clinton Foundation

DailyCaller: The Department of Justice declined a FBI request to open up a public integrity investigation into the Clinton Foundation, CNN reported on Wednesday.

According to the news network, the FBI made the request earlier this year, but the DOJ said it did not have enough evidence to open a formal probe. CNN reported:

The Clinton Foundation was not part of the recent investigation into her private server; it was separate. The FBI went to Justice Department earlier this year asking for it to open a case into the foundation, but the public integrity unit declined. The Justice Department had looked into whether it should open a case on the foundation a year prior and found it didn’t have sufficient evidence to do so.

Opposition to the FBI’s request — if the report is accurate — is likely to raise even more questions about whether the DOJ is acting impartially. Attorney General Loretta Lynch came under fire last month after it was revealed that she met in secret on her government airplane with Bill Clinton in late June.The meeting occurred days before the FBI and DOJ were set to interview Hillary Clinton as part of its investigation into whether Clinton or her aides mishandled classified information by using a private email system.

Lynch has insisted that she did not discuss the investigation with the former president. It has also been reported that the Clinton campaign has considered asking Lynch to remain as attorney general if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

The CNN report helps settle a question that government officials have largely avoided addressing.

FBI Director James Comey declined last month to say whether an investigation into the Clinton Foundation was underway.

Clinton’s campaign spokesman Brian Fallon recently said that there is “no evidence” that the Clinton Foundation is or was under investigation.

Though the DOJ decided not to pursue a public integrity investigation, new questions about the Clinton Foundation were raised on Tuesday after the watchdog group Judicial Watch released a new set of emails showing that a top adviser for the non-profit asked Clinton’s State Department aides to help out several individuals — including a major Clinton Foundation and a close associate. (RELATED: Clinton Foundation Official Asked Hillary’s State Dept. For Favors For Donor, Associate)

The Clinton Foundation official was Doug Band. He has worked for Bill Clinton for years and now runs the consulting firm Teneo Strategies.

In an April 25, 2009 email, Band asked Clinton aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills to help put Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on issues related to Lebanon.

Chagoury, a longtime Clinton donor who was once a close associate of Nigerian dictator Sani Abache, has given between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation. In 2009 he pledged $1 billion to help with a project undertaken by the Clinton Global Initiative, a Clinton Foundation offshoot which Band helped advise.

“This is very important,” Band said in his request to Mills and Abedin. “He’s key guy there and to us.”

In another April 2009 email, Band forwarded an email to Mills, Abedin and another Clinton aide, Nora Toiv, entitled “A favor.”

The individual seemingly asked for a job with the State Department.

“Important to take care of [redacted],” Band wrote.

On April 29, 2009, Band emailed the same trio of advisers asking: “Can someone pls call [redacted]? He calls me every day and we owe him some attention.”

It is unclear who the individual was, but Abedin told Band that she would place the call. Band’s remark that “we owe him some attention” suggests that the functions of the Clinton Foundation overlapped with the State Department.

Abedin and Toiv later landed a job at Band’s firm, Teneo.

The Clinton campaign denied to CNN that the Band emails were evidence of collusion between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

“Neither of these emails involve the secretary or relate to the Foundation’s work,” Clinton campaign spokesman Josh Schwerin told the network. “They are communications between her aides and the President’s personal aide, and indeed the recommendation was for one of the Secretary’s former staffers who was not employed by the Foundation.”

Notably, Schwerin’s comment does not address Band’s request on behalf of Chagoury, the major Clinton Foundation donor.

Is your Church Targeted for Terror?

Posted on August 8, 2016August 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

Yazidis, Jews, Apostate Muslims and Christians have all been part of the genocide in the Middle East and terror has arrived in Europe.

The Director of the FBI, James Comey has already sounded the alarm speaking to a terror diaspora…anyone listening?

Churches take new security measures in face of terror threats

FNC: As Father Josiah Trenham prepared to read the Gospel, several parishioners discreetly scooped up their babies, retreated up the aisles of St. Andrew Orthodox Church and out into the spring air, so as not to allow the crying of little ones to disturb the divine liturgy.

The time-honored tradition was shattered when a car passed by the Riverside, Calif., church, slowing down as the front passenger leaned out of his window and bellowed menacingly through a bullhorn, according to witnesses.

“Allahu Akbar!” the unidentified man repeated several times as the unnerved parents drew their infants close and exchanged worried glances.

Members of the church were gathered under the main archway when the car passed slowly by, its occupant allegedly yelling “Allahu Akbar!” over a bullhorn. (FoxNews.com)

Witnesses were able to give Riverside police a description of the green Honda Civic, but not of the three occupants. Some told police they believed one or more of the men may have been taking photographs, according to Officer Ryan Railsback. Although Trenham insisted multiple congregants heard the Arabic phrase, Railsback noted no mention of it was in the police report.

Whatever the case, no law was broken – even if an unmistakable message was sent and received.

“Be calm and to keep a special vigilance over the property and our children while we are at church,” Trenham wrote in an email to parishioners in which he recounted the disturbing event. “Pray that these provocative young men might repent of their intimidation and be saved.”

Trenham told FoxNews.com last week the situation remains “tense and tenuous,” and said the church now has security officers on hand for all regular services.

“It is a deep sorrow to live this way in the ‘new America,’” he said.

The incident took place on April 12, some four months after a terror attack left 14 dead in nearby San Bernardino, and just over three months before a French priest was killed by ISIS-linked jihadists in his church. The events, whether far or near, underscore a grim new reality for pastors such as Trenham: Instead of offering sanctuary from evil, churches could in fact be attractive targets for terror.

“Many churches are now hiring self-defense instructors for classes or security guards that include off-duty police,” said Ryan Mauro, a professor of Homeland Security at Liberty University and national security analyst for the Clarion Project. “If you are an Islamist terrorist seeking self-glory, executing a priest will bring you more attention than executing an average civilian.”

While no lethal terror attacks have occurred inside a U.S. church to date, experts like Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, notes the threat tally is growing.

The murder of French Priest Jacques Hamel on July 26 showed terrorists could target Christian churches.

“I’m pretty sure there will be attacks in the future,” King said. “Until [radical Islam is defeated], we can expect Christians, including in the West, to rationally tighten security measures and try to protect themselves from attack.”

In February, Khial Abu-Rayyan, 21, of Dearborn Heights, Mich., was arrested after he told an undercover FBI agent he was preparing to “shoot up” a major church near his home on behalf of ISIS. A month earlier, the Rev. Roger Spradlin of Valley Baptist Church – one of the biggest congregations in Bakersfield, Calif. – told attendees that they had received a threat written in Arabic.

Spradlin told his congregants the church had received a threat, and officials have since taken new precautions. (Valley Baptist Church)

“Undercover officers were then placed during worship services,” Valley Baptist spokesman Dave Kalahar said. “The FBI continues to investigate along with the local task force.”

Last September, an Islamic man clad in combat gear was charged with making a terrorist threat after entering Corinth Missionary Baptist Church, in Bullard, Tex., and claiming that God had instructed him to kill Christians and “other infidels.” A year earlier, police were called to Saint Bartholomew’s Catholic Church in Columbus, Ind., after the house of worship was vandalized with the word “Infidels!” along with a Koranic verse sanctioning death for nonbelievers. Similar graffiti was found that same night at nearby Lakeview Church of Christ and East Columbus Christian Church.

St. Bartholomew Pastor Clem Davis said he doesn’t know if the threat was legitimate, but said little can be done to harden a target whose mission is to welcome all.

“I don’t know that there is any real protection against the ‘lone wolf’ mentality, not without infringing on everybody’s freedoms,” Davis said. “We don’t have metal detectors, people go in and out. Churches are family-orientated, public, tax-supported spaces; so they may appeal to some as a target.”

Synagogues have faced increasing threats in recent years, too. Earlier this year, the FBI disrupted a plot by a Muslim convert to blow up the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center, in Aventura, Fla. A 2014 audit by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found that anti-Semitic incidents rose 21 percent across the country that year.

Eastern Orthodox Christians, who in many cases suffered persecution at the hands of radical Muslims in their Middle Eastern homelands, believe they may be singled out because of their heritage. Mass at St. Andrew typically attracts up to 400 worshippers with roots in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Russia and Greece.

“We have guards now; we never used to have guards,” said St. Andrew attendee Solomon Saddi, a Syrian-American Christian. “They keep an eye on everyone and talk to the faces that aren’t familiar,” he continued, referring to the aftermath of the April incident. “It is a very dangerous time for us even in America.”

In San Diego’s Iraqi-Christian community, known as Chaldeans, many local churches have had to dip into their collection baskets to hire security.

“There is a concern over attacks,” said a parishioner at St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Church. “Everyone knows that a church, especially like St. Peter, is a risk. But everyone tries not to let their fear get in the way of their faith.”

The July 26 murder of the Rev. Jacques Hamel, in the Normandy town of St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray sent shock waves around the world, and signaled to U.S. law enforcement that it could happen here, said Horace Frank, assistant commanding officer of the Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department.

“We see things happen in other countries and worry about them happening here,” Frank said. “You always have to be worried about copycats. That’s why we focus on prevention, trying to look ahead.”

Frank’s division works with Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh groups to discuss such topics as terrorist reporting, suspicious activity and active shooter training.

“We reach out to churches and they reach out to us. You have to be aware, you have to be vigilant,” Frank said. “It’s a concern not just in Christian communities, but all faith communities.”