The leaders didn’t get the memo blaming the Confederate Flag.
Via Detroit FREEP
In response to a crime wave that has swept across Detroit in recent weeks, several faith leaders united Wednesday morning to issue a plea to the community: It’s time to stand up and speak up.
“It’s not snitching to talk about something that is pervading in our communities,” said the Rev. Eddie Connor Jr. of Open Door Ministries International. “Especially to those young people who may have information, this has to stop. The countless killings. The lives being lost continually. We can’t have a summer of killing … we can’t have a summer where we’re burying or having these young lives being exterminated.”
The pastors joined together at the Greater Quinn AME Church in Detroit as part of the Project Good Samaritan, the faith-based program of Crime Stoppers of Michigan.
Over the course of the June 20-21 weekend, 27 people were shot in the city and three people died. That weekend at a neighborhood party at a community basketball court on the west side, 12 people were shot, one of them killed.
The violence continued this past weekend.
Between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 a.m. Monday, there were 10 homicides and 20 non-fatal shootings, according to police.
Five people, including a 14-year-old, were injured in a shooting at a party at a car wash near Gratiot and Whithorn, late Sunday. And on Saturday, four others were shot and injured in a party in the area of Conner and Shoemaker.
No arrests have been made in any of those cases, police said. Detroit Police Chief James Craig has called those responsible for the crime “urban terrorists who are committing these senseless acts of violence.”
Enough is enough, according to E.L. Branch, senior pastor of Third New Hope Baptist Church in Detroit.
“When something happens in our community, somebody knows something,” Branch said. “Do not fear retaliation. If you won’t make that call for your own sake, make it for the sake of the families who are still suffering, who have lost loved ones during this crime wave. … Do it for the community at large because unless we say something, unless we do something, this crime wave will continue. Our police department can only do so much.”
Father Norman Thomas of the Sacred Heart Church said silence and loyalty can sometimes be a wonderful thing, but in this instance, the community must come forward with information. Thomas echoed sentiments that a “no snitch” culture must cease to exist.