Security app will help Nassau police monitor safety in houses of worship during upcoming religious holidays

Nassau County police are working to increase the safety of local houses of worship ahead of the Passover and Easter holidays by using a panic button app designed to cut the time it takes for police to respond to emergencies.

Police said they have a fully staffed house of worship desk in Bethpage, monitored seven days per week through the police department’s division of Homeland Security.

Special operations officers, dispatchers and police intelligence are automatically notified through the RAVE Panic Button app to bypass 911 dispatch and immediately send officers to religious sites responding to incidents such as an active shooter. 

The RAVE app has been in place throughout Long Island school districts, libraries and religious sites for nearly a decade, but houses of worship will now have a similarly staffed response team to school districts through the weekend holy days, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said.

The house of worship desk was in place to monitor mosques and other houses of worship during Ramadan. 

Ryder said most active shooter situations are usually over within two to three minutes, while response times by police are usually about three to five minutes.

"If I can close that gap between two and three minutes and stop a shooting, we save lives," Ryder said.

The police department has also partnered with religious institutions to allow them to access security cameras inside the buildings and deploy drones to survey the surrounding property.

The county has drones that can respond to emergency calls, but county officials have asked the Federal Aviation Administration to station several drones near religious sites that can launch automatically once the RAVE app has been activated.

The operation is funded through grants and asset forfeiture funds, Ryder said.

"These things are going to make our response much quicker to any event that may occur," Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said. "When we get one of these application alerts, we now have the ability to send in the cavalry."

The RAVE app is registered with 263 organizations to cover more than 1,000 buildings in Nassau County, Ryder said. That includes houses of worship and 450 buildings in each of the county's 56 school districts. 

It is active in yeshivas and synagogues after police conducted a security assessment of buildings and connected religious sites for free, Ryder said. Police are still urging smaller organizations to register.

Cedarhurst trustee Dan Plaut, who also serves as chairman of security for Congregation Beth Sholom in Lawrence, said the additional security is needed in light of past threats and terrorism around the world.

"The RAVE app has revolutionized how we perceive security and response time if there's an active shooter situation," Plaut said. 

By John Asbury

john.asbury@newsday.comJohnAsbury

John Asbury is a breaking news and general assignment reporter. He has been with Newsday since 2014 and previously worked at The Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California.