About 100 people showed up for a unity meeting at the Gainesville Public Safety Building Thursday evening - a meeting designed to bridge a gap between law enforcement, government officials and community members.
The meeting took place a week after police-involved shootings in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, St. Paul, Minnesota and Dallas, Texas. Those deadly incidents sparked days of protests across the country, including several in the city of Atlanta. But, organizers of the Gainesville meeting - under the umbrella of a group called Gainesville United - said their efforts to unify the community began before the most recent shootings.
"The way it started was the the chief of police [Carol Martin] and I began to talk," said Apostle Roderick Hughey with Voices of Faith North in New Holland. "We began to share our vision and our ideas for the city and come to find out that we had a lot of the same ideas. As we met, we started bringing other people in - other people with like minds that said 'Hey, we love Gainesville, we want to do more," Hughey said.
Hughey said he began discussing the idea of a united community with some of his fellow pastors in the city.
"Finally, we got to the point where we said this needs to go public - people need to see that we are doing something and we aren't doing it just because something [tragic] happened," Hughey said.
Thursday's meeting included a panel of about 20 leaders from the city of Gainesville - city council members, law enforcement officials, pastors of several denominations and others.
Organizing pastors started the session with their definitions of unity and then began a discussion of a half dozen issues they said came from community input gathered from city officials and local churches. The panel also fielded questions that were submitted in writing from members of the audience.
Traffic stops - a common place for citizen and law enforcement conflict
One of the topics that garnered the most attention was a discussion on proper protocol for citizens who may be pulled over by law enforcement for a traffic stop.
Gainesville Deputy Police Chief Jay Parrish said it's not unusual for conflicts to arise over a simple traffic stop.
"The violator doesn't feel that they've violated the law...or they're having a busy day and all of a sudden this cop's causing an inconvenience," said Parrish. The officer, however, doesn't know if the motorist is simply annoyed or is a bigger danger, so he urged people to think about the safety of the officer first.
"The officer has no idea who they're approaching," said Parrish. "Many officers have lost their lives simply for stopping a vehicle that ran a stop sign."
He outlined some basic steps for a traffic stop.
"Get out of the roadway as best as possible, stop as soon as possible, have your hands where the officer can see them readily and have your identification ready," Parrish said, noting also that it's not a good idea to argue with an officer about guilt or innocence.
"You will never win an argument over who is right or wrong on the side of the road," said Parrish. "Have those arguments in front of a judge."
Rev. Stephen Samuel, pastor of St. John Baptist Church, told Parrish he respected what he was saying, but he said the conversation needed to be advanced in another forum.
"What I mean by that is we can't talk about this issue as though we're in a vacuum," Samuel said, alluding to the shooting death of black citizen Philando Castile by police officer Jeronimo Yanez in St. Paul, Minnesota.
"What ought to be is not always what is and those are the moments that I think bring frustration, bring fear, " Samuel said. "We understand our officers make split-second decisions - we get that. The question becomes 'who gets the benefit of that split second?' and on what basis are certain decisions made."
Building community relationships
Panelists also discussed ways to build positive relationships and both Gainesville Police Chief Carol Martin and Hall County Deputy Sheriff Kevin Head outlined some of the programs law enforcement has brought to the community, minority neighborhoods in particular.
Longtime community activist Rose Johnson acknowledged that while the initiatives were welcome, government officials needed to understand that there is a painful history between Gainesville minorities and local police.
"In the black community, the reason why so many people - and especially me - don't trust law enforcement is because there's a whole history that goes back that they draw upon...and most of the time, it's generational," Johnson said.
She said law enforcement and the faith community have a lot of work to do to heal wounds of the past.
"If we don't continue to provide healing moments for people who have been hurt, we're not going to move forward on this issue of gaining trust."
Martin agreed with Johnson, saying that avenues of communication needed to be kept open.
"Because if we quit talking, there's no hope," Martin said.
Community prayer service is the next step
After more than 90 minutes of discussion, Hughey closed the conversation with an invitation to a community prayer service on the Gainesville Square on July 30 from 10 - 11 a.m.
"We're coming together as a community, all of us holding hands as a community, to pray for one thing - and that's unity," Hughey said.
Hughey said, too, that he was pleased with the outcome of Gainesville United's first "community conversation."
"The one thing I loved about it is that people really respected one another enough to let them hear what was being said...and listened to each other's questions," Hughey said. "When a community listens, you can start healing."
