By Dr. John E Warren
This week, no less than three meetings were held in the Southeastern community around issues concerned with police/community relations and how to make improvements. At one meeting, a “workbook” was circulated on “building trust with the Police.” This particular meeting, at Bayview Baptist Church, was supposed to be with Faith leaders or “Pastors.” There were none at the meeting, except Rev. Terry Brooks, Pastor of Bayview. There were only about 23 people in the room and most clearly were not from the community in which the meeting was being held.
Finally, on Tuesday, there was a meeting of the Police Citizens Review Board in which a member of the community poured out her soul over mis-treatment by San Diego Police in the presence of her child when there was no legal reason for such action. The missing element at all these meetings was the presence of “us.” the affected community.
Question: are we not present because we have no knowledge of these meetings or are we not present because we don’t think that such meetings will do any good?
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