The National Sheriffs' Association, along with other national law enforcement groups, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, and MovementForward Inc.'s One Congregation One Precinct (OneCop) initiative are jointly organizing the most consolidated Police-Community engagement project in recent history: NATIONAL FAITH AND BLUE WEEKEND (NFBW) with FirstNet (http://www.firstnet.com/). The mission of NFBW is to facilitate safer, stronger, and more unified communities by connecting law enforcement officers and residents through local houses of worship.
NFBW is scheduled for Oct. 9-11, 2020. Although I am not aware of any effort locally to promote this weekend, NFBW is an unprecedented national law enforcement-community engagement project involving nearly every major national law enforcement agency in the United States, along with the three entities in the federal government that deal most directly with policing. It has been stated that "since around 60 million Americans attend weekly gatherings at more than 350,000 houses of worship nationwide, nothing rivals the depth and breadth of influence presented by houses of worship who are unique and powerful gateways to the heart of communities in which they have a mutual interest in achieving effective police-community engagement."
I am impressed about this effort, and I assume more information will be forthcoming since it is supported so heavily by so many groups. More information apparently is available at http://www.faithandblue.org.
Although sometimes I feel like "a voice crying in the wilderness" these days, I have claimed for some time now that the real answers to the conflict between law enforcement and various protest movements are not found in government but with local Americans. It is simply impossible for law enforcement to personally protect everyone in the United States, and no one I know wants to have a "police state" anyway.
Some time ago, my wife and I suddenly came across an accident involving a motorcyclist who failed to navigate a curve in the road successfully. We immediately stopped to render assistance, but there were already four or five people present attending to the cyclist's needs. I noted that one was some kind of medical person and that all of them were acutely aware of the way to assist an injured person. After checking to make sure all was okay and that help had been called for, we went on toward our destination. Frankly, I have lost count of the times something like this has happened during my lifetime.
I mention this story to point out that, while good traffic laws had been enacted, the police were watching out for accidents, and that the cyclist was a good driver, there was no way to prevent this accident from happening. Also, while the police and medical personnel had been summoned, the immediate needs of the injured cyclist were cared for by the people who stopped to help, not the professional people on the way to the accident.
It is my contention that safe communities are created and maintained by the people who live in them. Safety cannot be relegated to someone attached to governmental agencies; safety is the responsibility of every American citizen to make sure our communities are safe and secure. I can guarantee that should an accident or problem occur in my neighborhood almost every person living in my area would respond quickly and efficiently. We need to empower people in all of our communities to work with law enforcement to create good communities.
My heart bleeds for the people in some of our large cities who have to endure the destructive forces of people fighting law enforcement and lighting fires to burn down public buildings. There is no excuse for most of this activity, but the way to get rid of it must come from the people living there working with the law enforcement personnel hired to assist them. It cannot be one-sided, coming just from some group hired to protect them. Safety belongs to all of us and not just a few.
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Robert Box is the former chaplain for the Bella Vista Police Department and is currently the Fire Department chaplain. Opinions expressed are those of the author.