The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
Interviews, stories and lessons learned from experienced crisis leaders. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Being an effective leader in a corporate or public crisis situation requires knowledge, tenacity, and influencing skills. Unfortunately, most of us don't get much training or real experience dealing with crisis situations. On this podcast, we will talk with people who have lived through major crisis events and we will tap their experience and stories from the front lines of crisis management.
Your host, Tom Mueller, is a veteran crisis manager and trainer with more than 30 years in the corporate communications and crisis fields. Tom currently works as an executive coach and crisis trainer with WPNT Communications, and as a contract public information officer and trainer through his personal company, Tom Mueller Communications LLC.
Your co-host, Marc Mullen, has over 20 years of experience as a communication strategist. He provides subject matter expertise in a number of communication specializations, including crisis communication plan development, response and recovery communications, emergency notifications and communications, organizational reviews, and after-action reports. He blogs at Blog | Marc Mullen
Our goal is to help you grow your knowledge and awareness so you can be better prepared to lead should a major crisis threaten your organization.
Music credit: Special thanks to Nick Longoria from Austin, Texas for creating the theme music for the podcast.
The Leading in a Crisis Podcast
EP 64 The Mormon church attack - using press conferences to build trust, reassure communities
The first words after a mass casualty event can steady a community—or shake it further. We break down the opening press conferences following the Grand Blanc, Michigan church attack to show how leaders earn trust when stakes are highest: the county supervisor’s grounded empathy, a police chief balancing hard facts with community care, a seasoned Michigan State Police PIO orchestrating structure and boundaries, and the FBI’s clear, confident roadmap for the investigation.
We walk through the moments that mattered—why missing a PIO in the first briefing made the flow feel off, how a disciplined PIO in the second briefing controlled the room, and where sequencing can elevate impact. You’ll hear why many communicators lead with compassion before counts, how to frame heroism without drifting into speculation, and how to give the public actionable steps that convert anxiety into help: vigilance, verified tip lines, and reunification guidance. Along the way we spotlight crisp techniques like bridging, setting question parameters, and simplifying language under pressure, all while respecting investigative boundaries.
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. On this podcast, we talk all things crisis management with an emphasis on leadership. I'm Tom Mueller. If you'd like to drop an email to the show, please email me at Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com. We'd love to hear from you. On our podcast this week, we're focusing on a mass casualty incident that occurred here in the United States earlier this week. This was an incident in the U.S. state of Michigan. And it's an incident that occurred at a Mormon church in a town called Grand Blanc, Michigan. Now a gunman crashed his vehicle through the front doors of that church during their worship services, got out, started shooting, and at some point spread gasoline or petrol in the church and set it on fire. And our current count, there were four people killed in the incident, eight wounded, with numerous others still unaccounted for. Now on the positive side, police arrived on the scene within 30 seconds of the call and engaged and neutralized this shooter. But the fire burned for several hours and consumed that church building and apparently has killed other parishioners who were in the building as well. This incident actually gives us a good opportunity to take a look at early press conferences and see how people who are in highly stressful situations now and have to step out and communicate with the public to see how they do that. So that's what we're going to do on this podcast is we're just going to take a look at the first two press conferences that were held following this incident and just talk about what went well with those. If you or I were in the room with them, what might meet we have suggested they do differently in order to be a little more impactful or effective in their communications during this, again, highly stressful and difficult time. So that's what we're going to do on the podcast today. Now, first, we're going to take a look at the very first press conference and the county executive, who's sort of the senior elected official for that population area, he spoke at the press conference and did just a wonderful job of expressing his care and concern and empathy for the people and the community. Let's take a listen to that statement now.
Speaker 06:Well, Scott Bennett, Graham Lake Township Supervisor, Scott, L-C-O-T-T Bennett, B E N N E T T. First, uh, let me say we are heartbroken. This kind of violence doesn't happen in our community. And uh, we are heartbroken that uh that it came to Graham Lake Township, and we're gonna do everything we can to uh support the families, the victims, and our community uh getting through this situation, and uh something that no community ever wants to have, and uh we're gonna do our best to do everything we can. We appreciate the outpoint of support from our elected uh leaders from uh both national and state and offering their assistance, and we probably will uh take them up on their offer. So we appreciate that very much, and uh we appreciate uh the community reaching out to us also. So the details uh are yet to come as Chief Rennie has uh said, and uh we'll wait for a little bit later today when we when we have the rest of the situation uh assessed, but it may take a little while to do that. But thank you for all the support, and I'm sure that the families and the victims are going to need that. Um tragedy that nobody wants to to and go. Thank you.
TomMueller:So, how do you think that county supervisor fared in his remarks? Pretty good. I was very impressed with uh with his delivery. If you go back and look at some of the YouTube videos on it, uh you'll see him very focused, making great eye contact with those in the room uh and the media. So he did a really nice job with that. Now, earlier on I mentioned there was no public information officer or someone else facilitating that initial press conference. And it got a little bit awkward there, uh, and this is one of the reasons you want to have the PIO there. But the chief kicked off the press conference and then started taking questions from the reporters in the room, so took questions for several minutes, and then uh looked over at the county supervisor standing there and introduced him and brought him up to make his comments. So a little bit awkward there, just again, PIO on the job facilitates that and helps things flow more smoothly for everyone involved. But overall, the the comments, the emotion of that first press conference was really well managed as far as I can tell. Now, the good news is for the second press conference, they did have a PIO in place, and that was a lieutenant with the Michigan State Police, and uh she's a very senior person, you can tell, very experienced, and she managed uh the press conference and the media hoard very well. One of the things I didn't really like about how they managed the second press conference uh is that the the PIO introduced the police chief, and then the police chief introduced the rest of the dice. And so he was up there sort of fumbling through the names, the agency names, and trying to get all that done before he gave his initial comments at the press conference. Now, in my view, that distracted the chief from focusing on his remarks and delivering them well. And uh again, that's a role for the PIO, in my view, to do all those introductions, free up the principals who are speaking, to focus on their remarks uh and handling any QA. Now it's quite possible that the police chief wanted to do those introductions just so he could be more in charge of that press conference event. So you have to allow for that possibility as well, that the chief uh was comfortable with that, wanted to do it, and so he chose to do it. That's not how I would do it, but you have to allow for those types of variations with the leaders that you're dealing with uh when you're setting up these press events. Okay, well, let's see how the chief of police fared when he made his remarks and after going through the opening and introducing everybody else. And this clip starts off with the public information officer introducing the chief and then the chief carrying on.
Speaker 02:I'd like to introduce Chief William Renee from the Grand, I'm sorry, the Grand Blank Township Police Department.
Speaker 00:Uh thank you for joining us. As uh Lieutenant Vetter said, we will take a couple questions upon the conclusion of this press conference. Uh with me here on the stage is Supervisor Scott Bennett, uh Fire Department Chief of Grambling Township, Jamie Gent, uh DNR Chief uh Jason Haynes, FBI Acting Special Agent in Charge, Ruben Coleman, and the ATF James Deer, uh, who is the special agent in charge for this area in Michigan. I have a couple updates for you. Uh there is a couple additional bodies that we've discovered in the church. Uh so that makes our total victim count up to four uh victims.
TomMueller:I want to pause for just a second here and take a look at the chief's opening comments there. Um again, he went straight to the body count in this. And is that what you would recommend if you were sort of coaching the chief on his remarks and how to structure what he was going to say? From my view, I really wanted to see him be a little more empathetic, right up front, recognize the impact to the community, and then get into the nitty-gritty detail of the body counts. Now, to his credit, the chief did circle back and provide some of that empathy a little bit later in his remarks. I wanted to see them really up front to make sure people know that's the priority. All right, let's continue with the chief's remarks from this second press conference.
Speaker 00:As I said before, there has already been the suspect who is deceased as well. So we have five uh deceased persons from this tragic incident. Uh again, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of this incident that could have been completely avoided. And it's very tragic, and that's not what our community is. I'm confident that we're gonna overcome this as uh Graham Blink always overcomes these type of uh incidents. I'd also like to acknowledge the heroism of not only the first responders, but the people who were inside that church at the time. Uh they were shielding the children who were also present within uh the church, uh, moving them to safety. Uh just hundreds of people just practicing their faith. Uh just extreme courage, brave, uh, and that's the type of community that we are.
TomMueller:Overall, a very nice job by the chief in communicating his key messages in this press conference. I love the fact that he went to the heroism theme and recognizing those who charged into the the fray to stop the shooter and to try and help and rescue those who were injured. That heroism would become a theme in later press conferences when the more senior elected officials, statewide elected officials, and others got involved in the uh subsequent press conferences. But the chief did a nice job of highlighting those people. Now, after the chief spoke, then the special agent in charge of the FBI for that region um stepped up to the microphone and gave an update from the federal investigation perspective. Now, FBI agents aren't known for being warm and empathetic, generally speaking, but you can tell this special agent knew what the priorities were, what he wanted to communicate here, and he did a very nice job of highlighting the people aspects of the incident here. I have a feeling this agent has been through some training before, has been locked in a room and put through some tough exercises so that he recognizes the importance of getting things right in these early communications around major incidents. Let's take a listen to his remarks.
Speaker 07:My name is Ruben Coleman, and I am the acting special agent in charge of FBI Detroit Field Office, which covers the entire state of Michigan. First, I want to sincerely express our condolences to the victims of the shooting, their families, and this entire community. I would like to also thank Chief Rennie, the Grand Link Township Police Department, and all of our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, other first responders, and the community members for their immediate actions in this situation. This act of violence has no place in our state or anywhere else in our country. The FBI is committed to continue finding out the facts, circumstances, and motives behind this tragedy. I can confirm at this time that the FBI is now leading the investigation and is investigating this as an act of targeted violence. FBI crisis response teams, such as our evidence response teams, SWAT, special agent bomb technicians, victim specialists, were deployed to the scene. We also have special agents who are continuing to conduct interviews and intelligence and professional staff personnel providing research and analysis. I would like to thank them for their work on this case. We ask that members of the public share any information that would assist us in this investigation. And we encourage them to please report to the FBI at 1-800-call FBI or tips.fbi.gov. Any piece of information could be crucial. We ask that you keep the victims of this tragedy, their families, and the entire community in your prayers. Thank you.
TomMueller:That special agent again did a really nice job of delivering those remarks. You know, he did it in such a way that uh, you know, you come away from them thinking, wow, that person's in charge. They know what they're doing, they know what their priorities are, and they are going to be leading in this investigation. And that makes me feel pretty good knowing there's somebody of this caliber in charge of this investigation. There is a level of sophistication to the special agent's remarks that just leads me to believe he's either been through this before or he's been through training. They may have a special template or pattern documents that they can draw from to do the initial remarks for major incidents like this. At any rate, he delivered it nicely and left us all feeling very good about the FBI's participation in this incident response. As we draw to a close for that press conference now, the public information officer stepped back up to the podium and took questions from the media gathered in the room there. Again, the PIO here is a fairly senior officer with the Michigan State Police. She comes across as a very experienced public information officer as well. So I'd like you to listen to how she handles various questions that are put to her by the gathered media. She's very clear, very authoritative in how she deals with various questions. And toward the end of this exchange, you'll hear her use a bridge and talk about the heroism, again, of the people involved in this. She did a really nice job of managing some tough questions and then returning the conversation back to focus on the people aspects of this. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 03:Can we speak to the motive of rigoring speculations that it might have anything to do with the Charlie Kirk assassination in Utah?
Speaker 02:That's exactly what it is, a speculation, and we won't come to those types of conclusions for some time.
Speaker 05:Do you know if there's any connection between the suspect and the church or its members? Any prior connection?
Speaker 02:Again, part of the investigation, we're not going to speculate at this time. Right now, we are working tirelessly to recover the victims of this incident and reunite families. Please be patient as we work through that process.
Speaker 04:Is there anywhere that the community should be aware of or something?
Speaker 02:The community should remain vigilant, and anytime they see something suspicious, they should report it immediately. There isn't at least one other report that a local church was searched by the bomb spectrum. We've searched multiple churches this evening for bomb threat protocol. Is that based on actual threats? Yes. Okay. We've received 911 calls about bomb threats or uh other indications that there was a bomb at a different location. Some of them were churches. And we have responded and cleared those locations.
Speaker 05:Did those threats come after the suspect was killed at the church?
Speaker 02:Yes. I think that's part of the investigation. Do you have a comment on that?
Speaker 05:Were those LDS churches where all threats were, or were there other denominations? I can't speak for motivation.
Speaker 02:Yeah, I can't answer that locate that at this time.
Speaker 04:What else can we say about this concept? You know, you don't we don't we're not going to talk about motor yet, but what else can we say anything about it at all?
Speaker 02:Right now, what we'd like to do is talk about the heroism that we saw today. Um the people who responded in such a uh valiant way to protect the others, both law enforcement, fire department, EMS. Um everybody did an excellent job working together to keep people as safe as they possibly could.
TomMueller:So that PIO did a fantastic job of moderating the QA of that press conference and uh just demonstrating leadership in her style and her authority as she worked through that. While also being respectful of most of the questions, although uh you could tell she wasn't tolerating any speculation when there was one question about whether the incident was related to the murder of Charlie Kirk a few weeks ago. So a nice job. And it's fun to watch a PIO who's really good at what they do uh in managing a very subjective and potentially volatile situation with media in the room and cameras rolling. So Lieutenant Vetter there did a terrific job as far as I'm concerned. And that's gonna do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast. I hope you've enjoyed our review of this press conference that happened earlier this week and can take away a few of the lessons learned as I have from walking through and seeing how these public servants are responding under very stressful conditions for me.
