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Chief James McMillen

Chief's Corner

James McMillen is chief of Sikeston Department of Public Safety.

Opinion

Chief James McMillen: Where do we go from here?

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

I sit back and look at all the challenges our nation is facing in the last three weeks since the horrible incident in Minneapolis. Protests and riots have erupted across the nation stemming from this wrongful treatment acted out by Derek Chauvin. Even prior to this, for more than three months now, our nation has been plagued with the coronavirus pandemic. More locally, we have faced many difficulties ourselves, and it leaves me often thinking what I can do to help bring our community together. I understand there are many differences of opinion on all these issues. I can honestly say I have never seen the country more divided.

How did we get here? First, in a republic such as ours, every voting adult must take the time to learn issues and participate in the voting process. We should be holding our leaders accountable but also holding ourselves accountable by bringing our concerns to those in leadership roles. We also need to vote those out who are not representing our ideals. I think most everyone can agree that the average American does a poor job doing this. In fact, many do not vote and have never taken the time to call their local representative.

I think all these conversations must start in each individual community and build from there. If we want to find solutions to many of these major issues, it is going to involve communication and participation. I have sat in many of our local city council meetings and have seen little participation. To be fair, if I were not in this current position, I am not sure I would have chosen to attend myself. We are all busy in our everyday lives, but we see how important and destructive it can be when we do not have this interaction.

I can say that our city council cares about our community. These council men and women volunteer their time and subject themselves to criticism so they can do their best to steer the city in the right direction. This last week the council unanimously approved this “Strengthening Police and Community Relationships” program sponsored by the Department of Justice. I was encouraged when so many members of the African American community attended. Many were upset with me and my department, but the takeaway for me was that these same people wanted the same things I want — a better community.

How do we accomplish this? This program is certainly a start. Most everyone wants the same things. We all want equality and a peaceful place to live. It is interesting to me that for decades we as a nation have pulled further from God. It seems like we are living out an Old Testament story in modern times. The people are rejecting God and I believe these hardships we are facing are purposely designed to get us to turn back to Him in repentance.

We need to start these conversations in our own community on a foundation that we all believe in. In fact, many of our laws on the books are based on Christian morality. We can all agree that the murders that happened last weekend are outrageous and so was the death of George Floyd. It does not matter what race you are; we all agree that this is unacceptable. I know that we have great officers working for our community, but some are failing at building personal relationships with the community we serve. It is of the utmost importance that we as a department identify the 98% of the good people in our community that we are serving so we can identify the 2% of the people committing these violent acts. Not doing so makes it nearly impossible to prevent or solve these acts of violence.

I am sickened by these acts of violence regardless the race of the victims. I know we have some racial issues in America, but I honestly believe the major problem is that of the human heart. All races are affected by this. Without repentance and Christlike love for one another, I am afraid we will struggle to solve many of these issues.

In the coming days, Kenny King with Grace Bible Fellowship will be holding a call for repentance and prayer for our community. He tells me all are invited to join in prayer and repentance. This is the same church that was recognized by Time Magazine for consolidating an African American church with a predominately white church. I was inspired by this effort myself as I notice that many churches in America still self-segregate. We must stop judging any group by the acts of a few. The only way to do this is to build relationships and get to know the individual and as Dr. Martin Luther King put it: judge the individual based on the content of their character.

Jonah 3:10

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