A.G. Gancarski
When pastors come together for a media event, know that it’s going to start off with prayer. And that prayer gives an idea as to the interpretive bias of the person speaking.
The prayer starting off the latest in a series of events with faith leaders offering solutions to Jacksonville’s epidemic of violent crime offered thanks for Mayor Alvin Brown. If that didn’t give it away, the news release headline announcing it did: Faith leaders to demand that Sheriff Rutherford take action
It was the second such news conference Tuesday. Earlier, a group of African Methodist Episcopal Church pastors spoke at a different venue in New Town. As quoted by WJXT TV 4, Mark Griffin of Wayman Ministries said:
“We realize that an election is approaching. However, we cannot wait until May 19 to take action. How many more children will be killed between now and May 19th? How many more gang shootings will take place between now and May 19th? How many more funerals will we have to officiate between now and May 19th? This is about people, not politics. We cannot afford to point finders at each other while criminals are pointing guns at our children.”
The AME Ministerial Alliance might have thought it was about “people, not politics.” Yet the group of preachers who came together during the second press event, highlighted by a group of black Baptist preachers, argued differently.
The Rev. Eugene Diamond took aim at Pastor Ken Adkins’ advocacy of a 9 p.m. curfew for the most crime-ridden neighborhoods, saying that a “curfew like [in] Baltimore and Ferguson” would not “foster the goal” of better relationships between the police and the policed.
Rather, if “responsible citizens stand up, this foolishness [of gang violence and the like] will take a seat.”
Pastor John Allen Newman concurred, saying that a curfew would be “counterproductive.” However, he was willing to lay blame at the feet of Sheriff John Rutherford, saying that the “proliferation and saturation of crime” is the fault of the sheriff and that the “facts don’t support” any other interpretation.
Saying that the sheriff’s budget had gone up in recent years, while seemingly being unaware of that budget increase being attributable to increased pension costs more than to increased operational capacity, Newman asserted that “the mayor has built his entire campaign on bringing all sides together.”
Some disagree. Adkins said it was simply an “anti-Kenneth Adkins press conference.” Even the most generous interpretation of the event would not miss the political ramifications: both the dismissal of Rutherford and the embrace of Brown.
The ministers addressed, without identifying it, the recurrent claim made by Brown’s political opponents that he hasn’t given the Sheriff’s Office enough to work with by saying that “city council ratifies the budget.” And they said, also, that “we’re not here to be political pawns,” even as they assigned the blame for the crime wave to the current sheriff.
The question becomes one of what the sheriff can actually do. On the campaign trail, Republican candidate Mike Williams has given examples of short-term initiatives that have bred short-term success in abating the epidemic of violence. But those resources, especially in the case of last year’s Operation Ceasefire, came at the expense of other parts of the community.
With crowds gathering on Baltimore streets as this is written, communities across the country are forced to have dialogs regarding the efficacy of current police methods, the feasibility of current laws, and the community’s role in enforcing its own standards.
Jacksonville — with its own problems of violence and, even after almost a half century since consolidation, its very real divisions — is no exception. The question that remains, even after two days of ministerial media events, is when will the discussion be advanced beyond which politician deserves the blame, and toward a sustainable way forward that isn’t rooted in 20th century budgets and mindsets?
