Local electeds from both the city and the county say that one way the community can combat gun violence is getting kids back to church.
Leon County Commissioner Carolyn Cummings was joined by Tallahassee Mayor John E. Dailey and City Commissioners Dianne Williams-Cox, Jeremy Matlow and Curtis Richardson at the Tallahassee Urban League.
The group gathered June 19 for a press conference addressing gun violence and presenting an award to retiring Deputy Chief of Police Maurice Holmes.
“We had gun violence on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you know, these things they call the pop-ups because when the clubs close out, everybody said, ‘We’re going to this parking lot,’ and that’s a new trend … (but) a dangerous trend,” Tallahassee Urban League President and CEO Curtis Taylor said.
“We also need to get back to the basics of taking them, exposing them to Christian education. We need to take our children back to church,” Cummings said. “Teach them Christian principles and let them know that they are somebody, and not only that, that they can grow up to be productive members of our community without the gun violence.”
Williams-Cox told her own stories of growing up in the church: “Commissioner Cummings taught my children in Sunday school and I taught her children in Sunday school, but the agreement was, if you go out on Friday or Saturday you got to get up and go to church on Sunday … If you want to have fun you’ve got to go to church.”
As pop-up parties have become the new scene for shootings in the capital city, Tallahassee police have begun deploying drones to surveil crowds while working with state lawmakers on proposals aimed at reducing gun thefts from unsecured vehicles.
Richardson acknowledged some of the work the city has done to aid the police department.
The city commission “made the tough decision to increase our property tax where we could fund the resources that the police department and others needed in order to address this problem (and) we gave the chief the resources that he needed,” Richardson said.
Honoring the work of Holmes
Holmes is one of several at TPD who are opting into the city’s voluntary severance program. This means his retirement is just on the horizon and, before he stepped down, the Urban League wanted to present him with the Inaugural Presidents’ Award.
Holmes spoke to those in attendance promising that his retirement did not mean goodbye and even as a civilian he would work to tackle the dangers of gun violence.
“This is not goodbye, by no means. Just see you later, but you will see me in this community continually pushing the issue of reducing crime, continue bridging the gap between law enforcement and our community as a whole and continue to bring attention to what’s arming most of our young adults,” Holmes said.
Arianna Otero is the trending and breaking news reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her via email at AOtero@tallahassee.com and follow her on X: @ari_v_otero.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee leaders urge church attendance to curb gun violence
Reporting by Arianna Otero, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Arianna Otero, Tallahassee Democrat | USA TODAY Network
