Seminar Scheduled on Church Safety

Church officials from the San Fernando Valley, Burbank and Glendale will participate in a safety seminar next week to learn about how to deal with problems caused by transients in and around church buildings.

The 7:30 p.m. session Tuesday at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Glendale was planned after an attempted rape of an elderly woman in August inside Incarnation Roman Catholic Church--a block away from St. Mark’s.

A transient, Filiberto Gutierrez Maldonado, 34, was arrested in the attack and is awaiting a pretrial conference in Pasadena Superior Court.

Glendale Police Sgt. Rick Young, who oversees crime prevention in his department, will be at the seminar to discuss security options for the churches. Topics to be covered include personnel safety, building security and safety tips for dealing with transients, officials said.

St. Mark’s church officials sent invitational letters to 20 churches in North Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank and La Canada. Seven churches said they would send representatives.

“We hope this meeting will be enlightening and helpful to various churches and the particular problems that they have experienced (with transients),” said Mary Anne Parkin, a spokeswoman for St. Mark’s.

Employees at St. Mark’s said transients have been spotted wandering near church offices. They suspect the transients manage to stay overnight in the churches and drink the wine normally used for communion, according to Frank Bunkell, manager of the church’s grounds and facilities.

After contacting other local churches, “you find out that they’re dealing with the same transients,” Bunkell said. “We know the people by name. They work their way around town.”

Young, in addition to offering safety tips, hopes to ease church leaders’ concerns over transients and to emphasize that the attempted rape was an isolated incident.

“Most transients themselves are rather harmless,” the police sergeant said. “They’re just looking for a place to sleep and stay out of the cold.”

For more information about Tuesday’s seminar, contact Mary Anne Parkin at St. Mark’s at (818) 240-3860.