A group of Starkvillians from many walks of life came together at Trinity Presbyterian Church Sunday evening to discuss community safety.
The forum was presented by the Mississippi State University Department of Communication in conjunction with National Issues Forums and the Kettering Foundation, which will report the data from the Starkville session and others like it to U.S. lawmakers.
“The idea behind tonight’s event was to bring a group of community members interested in discussing how we move forward as a community to ensure safety for everyone and to address injustices as they are happening relating to safety and violence in our community,” said MSU Communication Professor Melanie Loehwing led the forum along with Cade and Becky Smith.
Loehwing added that she considered the event a success.
“It thought it was a fantastic conversation, “ Loehwing said. “We had a nice turnout of folks who had a lot of different interesting ideas about how Starkville can move forward, and also represented a number of diverse views.”
The forum included discussion on three views of community safety and law enforcement and the pros and cons of each. The views included enforcing the law together, applying the law fairly and de-escalating and preventing violence.
Doug Bedsaul, the owner of the Downtown Martial Arts Academy in Starkville voiced disapproval of the stop-and-frisk tactics used by many agencies during the second view discussion.
“On a personal note, being a minority myself, I have run into some problems in the past due to my child being mixed-race and could certainly have some problems with such a system,” Bedsaul said. “(I’m) not seeing almost any benefit of such a system.”
Most members of the discussion also expressed disapproval of the tactic.
In the first part of the discussion, Bedsaul said he had worked with police departments before teaching martial arts, and felt it was good for officers to have something between talking and shooting for many situations.
Other topics discussed included the need for continued training in police departments, strong community relationships with police, neighborhood watch programs and the role body cameras could play in police work.
Loehwing said the department was considering having similar forums every few months following the success of the first.