Police, faith-based orgs partner amid violent crime surge: ‘Communities cannot afford to sit on the sidelines’

WASHINGTON – For the third consecutive year, local law enforcement and faith-based organizations are partnering to host community events aimed at establishing positive relationships between police and the public as part of the national “Faith & Blue Weekend” held between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10.

“There is no way for law enforcement to drive down crime without community support and … collaboration,” Rev. Markel Hutchins, CEO of the social change network MovementForward and leader of the Faith & Blue Weekend, told Fox News Digital in an interview at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. “Communities cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and not get involved.”

Hutchins, 45, joined numerous national law enforcement leaders at a Tuesday press conference explaining the mission of Faith & Blue Weekend and encouraging local faith-based and law enforcement offices to get involved this fall.

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“We have to deal with social injustices,” Hutchins said. “When there’s a police-involved tragedy that should not happen, we have to hold those officers accountable, but the vast and overwhelming majority of our law enforcement professionals … go to work every day, put on a uniform and serve and protect our communities honorably … but they can’t do it by themselves.”

He and other speakers noted that law enforcement line of duty deaths rose by 55% in 2021. Meanwhile, homicides in major cities have also increased 50% since 2019, and aggravated assaults have risen by about 39% since that year, according to data released Friday by the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Law enforcement agencies are also struggling to recruit and retain officers, creating what police and other experts have described as a “perfect storm” of events. 

“We are at something of a perfect storm in this country. Crime and violence is escalating. Communities of color and other communities are under siege … by forces that would seek to divide us and not unite us,” Hutchins told Fox News Digital. “We’re dealing with an increased number of attacks on our law enforcement professionals, and people don’t want to be policed. We’re here today to call on all of us to be the change that we want to see. We want to see more young people of color in the law enforcement profession. We want to see more communities collaborating with law enforcement.”

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Hutchins, who began his activist career in Atlanta leading marches at age 16, pointed out the difference between the civil rights activism that he participated in when he was a teenager and the marches that took place in the spring of 2020 and later, noting that what he described as the “loud minority” advocating for the “defund the police” movement seems to have overpowered the “silent majority” who want more police and protection in their communities. 

“I will continue to march and protest when it is necessary. But at this point, our best march is not on law enforcement. It’s with law enforcement,” he said. 

The more activists march against police, the more “crime and violence has escalated,” Hutchins added.

“I don’t know who these folks are,” he said of the “defund” movement protesters. “They’re certainly not from our community. They certainly don’t come from the tradition of leadership that I was reared in — mentored by people like Mrs. King and John Lewis and Hosea William and Jesse Jackson — they’re not of that yolk. … And I think, frankly, that that whole crowd — the defund the police crowd, those who are demonizing law enforcement — are less concerned about justice and more concerned about division.”

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Faith & Blue Weekend gives all faith-based and community organizations that are interested in participating the resources necessary to host the event from Oct. 7 to Oct. 10. Faith organizations and police agencies will host an array of public activities focused on repairing and strengthening trust between the public and those who serve and protect them.

When the program began in 2020, a thousand community-led activities took place in 43 states and Washington, D.C. In 2021, that doubled to more than 2,000 activities across all 50 states.

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Hutchins and other organizers of the Faith & Blue Weekend targeted faith-based organizations as the blue between police and the public because more people “assemble at faith-based organizations on a weekly basis than any other kind of community asset,” the reverend explained.

“We were very strategic in organizing Faith and Blue weekend and anchoring it in the faith space because it gives every local community individually, and it gives our nation collectively, the opportunity to raise up the voice on the majority and drown out the voice of the minority,” he said.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also attended Tuesday’s Faith & Blue press conference to discuss the challenges law enforcement organizations and communities currently face in establishing trust to combat violent crime.

“We live in an extremely challenging time — a time when the bonds between our communities and law enforcement are afraid, and the threat landscape is dynamic. In our increasingly interconnected society, trust is a key element of achieving public safety,” Mayorkas said. “The reality is that we can only strengthen and rebuild the bonds of trust by our actions.”

The secretary noted that DHS has increased funding to law enforcement agencies by more than $50 million.

“The tragedies in Buffalo, Uvalde, and Highland Park involve individuals who were exhibiting signs of serious decline, down a path that involved an increasing interest in violence,” he said. “We all recognize that there is a critical need for prevention. At DHS, we’re developing programs and resources to enable faith-based organizations, schools, health care services, law enforcement, school officials, friends, neighbors and others in the community to build their capacity to prevent violent acts from happening in the first place.”

Faith & Blue is a nationalization of the One Congregation One Precinct program by Hutchins’ organization, MovementForward.