Northern California Conference Issues Statement After Butte County Press Conference Addressing Adventist School Shooting
See the latest Press Release on the North American Division website
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Please review and consider sharing the attached statement updating the Feather River shooting situation.
The crisis communication team responding to the Feather River tragedy in Northern California has worked together to produce an updated statement representing a summary of what is known at this moment about the circumstances around the shooting. Northern California Conference has been coordinating with law enforcement and participating in all the events on the ground since the shooting, and the attached release is originating from the NCC.
Communication personnel from the Northern California Conference, Pacific Union and the North American Division have worked together to support the local media management, as well as to monitor and media response to the tragedy in the national and international press. This has been done in coordination with Adventist Education leadership and church administration.
This coordinated effort has helped to diminish misinformation, and there is a strong commitment to providing accurate data to church leadership and members. This is the best way to combat spurious opinions and potentially harmful rumors and half-truths.
We encourage you to share this updated release with your networks, and to encourage your respective teams to be active in prayer for the Feather River community, while thoughtful and careful about sharing unsubstantiated reports from other sources. (The Sacramento Bee has had particularly strong and accurate coverage, and I would recommend seeking out their reportng for updates on the story.)
What we now call "the socials" have become far less certain as distribution channels because of the high volume of misinformation and potentially harmful opinions that characterize their content. We encourage the use of email and corporate websites for the distribution of information.
We are coordinating our media efforts across the many layers of church life, and the news release contained here will be distributed on the websites of the Northern Californa Conference, the Pacific Union, the networked churches in the Pacific Union, the North American Division, and the Adventist Review.
I want to express my great appreciation to the media professionals who have been working to support the media response, particularly to Laurie Trujillo, Kimberly Maran, Julio Munoz, Greg Dunn, and Kevin Lampe. I also want to express appreciation to Albert Miller and Berit von Pohle for their counsel and guidance in this situation.
We are praying for Feather River. Thank you for sharing this information with your networks and joining in this fellowship of support and prayer.
Ray Tetz
Director • Communication and Community Engagement
Pacific Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists
