Foreword
This incident happened at a political protest, and I am asking you to set the politics aside. Whether you support or oppose the No Kings movement has no bearing on what happened in that street. We are reviewing it because the people on that safety team operated a lot like church safety teams do. They were volunteers. Some carried guns and some did not. They worked in pairs, talked on radios, and were responsible for thousands of people who had no idea who they were or what training they had. When one of them fired, he did it in a crowd, on partial information, under the same pressure armed church volunteers train for. We are looking at the mechanics of what happened and what church safety teams can learn from them.
What Happened
On the evening of June 14, 2025, a No Kings march in downtown Salt Lake City drew between 10,000 and 18,000 people, depending on the report. The organizers fielded a volunteer safety team in yellow vests that, according to charging documents, handled medical care, crowd management and de-escalation. At least two of those volunteers were armed, and one of them was Matthew Scott Alder. Richard Whitney, who organized the team, testified that he paired Alder, who was armed, with Nathan Bergstrom, who was not.
Shortly before 8 p.m., the team’s radio carried a report of a “gun, AR-15” and a person in all black with a Confederate flag. Both descriptions referred to Arturo Gamboa, 24, who was openly carrying an AR-15-style rifle, which is legal in Utah. Bergstrom testified that Gamboa was “fishing in a bag” in an alley and acting “more than suspicious.” He said, “I thought it was somebody that was about to commit a mass shooting.” A second volunteer, Aaron Ferdig, drew his own handgun. The radio then carried “gun, gun, gun,” and Alder fired three rounds. Alder later told investigators he saw a man “ducked down as he was loading his rifle” and believed a mass shooting was about to happen.
One round hit Gamboa and another hit his rifle. Arthur “Afa” Folasa Ah Loo, 39, was walking into the march about 160 feet from Alder, according to prosecutors. A police officer testified that cell phone video shows Ah Loo falling after the third shot, and he died at the hospital. Gamboa never fired his rifle. Police booked him on suspicion of murder and later released him, and Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill declined to charge him, saying Gamboa was lawfully allowed to carry the rifle and broke no law.
Accounts of what Gamboa did with the rifle still conflict. Police first said witnesses saw him raise it and run toward the crowd. Video later published by Fox 13, and a friend who watched a balcony video, show the rifle pointed at the ground until the shots started. At the October 13, 2026 preliminary hearing, Third District Judge Derek Williams found enough evidence that Alder acted recklessly and ordered him to trial. The judge noted that three or four people stood between Alder and the man he was shooting at. Alder has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Neal Hamilton, argues the third round struck a gate box and ricocheted into Ah Loo, while the prosecution’s firearms expert testified that the recovered bullet was “nearly pristine,” which makes a ricochet less likely. A pretrial conference is set for December 11.
Lessons for Church Security Teams
Reading a Gun in Context
Whether a visible gun signals a threat depends heavily on where you are. In Utah, a man walking down a public street with a rifle on his back is breaking no law, and Gill said exactly that when he declined to charge Gamboa. Texas allows open carry of long guns, and Florida’s open carry rules changed after a 2025 appeals court ruling. In most of California and New York, a man pulling an AR-15 out in public is so far outside the norm that it draws an immediate police response. Your team needs to know your state’s carry laws and what is normal in your community before deciding what a rifle in the parking lot means. Even where open carry is common, deadly force is justified by behavior: the person has the ability to kill, the opportunity to do it, and is acting in a way that shows they are about to. Bergstrom read “fishing in a bag” as the start of a mass shooting. That called for a radio report and closer observation. Train your team members to name the specific act that moved a person from suspicious to an imminent threat before they draw.
Backstop
At the hearing, Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney Josh Graves, who is no relation to me, argued that a backstop is of “vital importance” when shooting into a large crowd and that each shot should be a conscious decision. Every police firearms instructor in the country teaches the same thing. At 160 feet, a change of one degree in muzzle angle moves the point of impact almost three feet. That is my own arithmetic, offered as an illustration and not a figure from the testimony. Most church volunteers qualify with a handgun at seven to fifteen yards on a static range, if they qualify at all (you absolutely need to qualify; my qualification video is on courses.christianwarriortraining.com). In a sanctuary, the area behind an attacker holds pews, families and the hallway to the nursery. Walk your room with your team and identify the angles where a shot has no safe backstop. Then rehearse what each team member does from those spots, whether that means moving for a clean line, closing distance or holding fire.
Radio Reports
Whitney described the radio traffic in order: “gun, AR-15,” a man in all black with a Confederate flag, then “gun, gun, gun,” then gunfire. By the time Alder had eyes on Gamboa, three transmissions had already told him what he was looking at, and two volunteers had drawn their weapons. Once one person calls out a gun, the transmissions that follow tend to repeat and build on it. Teach your team to report what they observe in plain terms and leave the interpretation to the team leader. “Male, black hoodie, rifle on his back, walking east past the north doors” gives the next person facts to act on. “Active shooter” gives them a conclusion before they have seen anything. Have your team practice observation reports on the radio during regular Sunday services and review them in the debrief afterward.
Written Policy for Armed Volunteers
Sarah Parker, a national coordinator for the 50501 Movement, told the Associated Press that organizers asked all attendees, including safety volunteers, not to bring weapons. Police said the event permit did not provide for armed security. The organizer of the safety team still knew Alder was armed and paired him with an unarmed partner. Ah Loo’s widow has since sued the rally organizers, calling Alder an “untrained volunteer.” If your church allows armed team members, put that decision in writing. Have it approved by your elders, checked against your state’s law and your insurance carrier, and tied to a training and qualification standard you can produce on paper. Then make sure your team follows that policy on Sunday morning, because a written policy the team ignores gives no legal protection to the volunteer or the pastor who signed it.
Legal Defense Coverage
Alder is facing a criminal trial, and the organizers are facing a civil lawsuit. Anyone who carries on a church safety team could end up in the same position, whether the charge comes from a genuine mistake or from political pressure on a prosecutor. Keep serving. The church needs you on that post. Understand that a legal defense can be very expensive, and plan for it now. Right To Bear is the legal defense coverage I recommend for church security teams and concealed carriers. If you sign up through the Christian Warrior Training partner link, you get 10 percent off the Security Plan for the life of your membership, and the plan includes the Multi-State add-on covering all 50 states and the Bail Bond add-on. Keep the code CWT at checkout, where it is applied automatically.
Biblical Perspective
Proverbs speaks directly to the difference between weighing what you see and reacting to what you hear.
Proverbs 14:15 (ESV) “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”
Solomon describes two people receiving the same information. The simple one accepts whatever reaches them and acts on it. The prudent one stops long enough to ask whether it is true and what the next step will cost. On June 14, the safety team in Salt Lake City heard “gun, AR-15,” a description of a man in black with a Confederate flag, and “gun, gun, gun.” Some of that was accurate, and some of it pointed toward a conclusion no one had confirmed. The prosecution made the same point at the hearing when it said each shot should be a conscious decision. A church safety volunteer who has been trained to test a radio report against what they can see is practicing what this verse describes.
Proverbs 19:2 (ESV) “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.”
The desire to protect people is the reason every one of you volunteers. Solomon warns that desire without knowledge goes wrong and that the person who hurries misses the way. Alder wanted to stop a mass shooting. If the prosecution is right, he acted on partial knowledge and in haste, with three or four people between him and his target and a crowd beyond. One of his rounds struck Ah Loo. Sound judgment under pressure comes from training done ahead of time, from a written policy the team knows, and from prayer before the doors open. Those give a volunteer the time and discipline to confirm what they are looking at before they act.
Final Assessment
A safety volunteer saw a man with a rifle in a crowd of thousands, heard “gun, gun, gun” on the radio and fired three times. One of those rounds killed Afa Ah Loo, who had no part in what was unfolding. The man with the rifle was never charged, and the volunteer will stand trial for manslaughter. A jury will decide whether his conduct was reckless or negligent.
Church safety teams work under many of the same conditions that safety team did: crowds, carry laws that differ from state to state, armed volunteers with uneven training, and radio traffic that can run ahead of the facts. Put in writing who may carry and the qualification standard they must meet. Teach the difference between a suspicious person and an imminent threat as it applies in your state. Walk your sanctuary and mark where no shot is safe. Train your team to report what they see on the radio, and get legal defense coverage in place before you need it.
Join the Conversation
If your team has worked through policy for armed volunteers or drilled backstops in your sanctuary, tell us how you did it in the comments. Share this with your pastor and your safety team leader before your next team meeting.
Copyright © 2026 Keith Graves. All rights reserved.
