MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Dozens of community leaders are praying for Memphis city and Shelby County governments.
“I think that’s the start, prayer is a start. It’s a foundation. We got to give it to God first before we try to move forward with making action and doing things ourselves,” said Pastor Charlie Caswell.
Pastor Caswell of Union Grove Baptist Church in Frayser knows of a number of young people losing their lives to violence.
Although he says prayer helps, he believed it’s only part of the solution.
“I think that better police and community relationships. This past Sunday we had a police event, Silver Blue Sunday where we honor police officers in our church where basically we let them know that we are there for them.”
Major violent crime rate in Shelby County is up 24.5% over the past two months compared to last year.
Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell also said while prayer is a start, it takes more.
“Our Operations Safe Community, which focuses on intervention, suppression and prevention, it’s been a program here for the past several years. Right now we’re going through the process of refining our next stage of Operations Safe Community,” he said.
The program aims to tackle crime prevention.
Luttrell said although some progress was made, there’s still work to do.
He said they’re also working closely with the education system to prepare high school students for jobs and employments.
Luttrell said that will help address the crime problem.