Roanoke is a safe community with ethical policing. Should serve as an example for other cities and law enforcement agencies

Shortly after Tyre Nichols’ funeral on Wednesday at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, the Roanoke branch of the NAACP called on the Star City to be a “shining example” of a safe community with honest police work.

“The civil rights of Brother Tyre Nichols were broken. But we can’t do anything right now to protect his civil rights. We can make sure that no one else in the Roanoke Valley has to go through this again “Brenda Hale, the head of the NAACP branch, said.

Hale was one of several local leaders and NAACP members who spoke at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon at Roanoke’s Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. The event was put on by the NAACP branch’s Youth Council. The recent death of Nichols, which has been talked about all over the country, was the topic.

Nichols, a Black man who was 29 years old, died on January 10, three days after five Memphis police officers beat him.

Hale spoke at the Roanoke Kiwanis Chapter meeting earlier in the day on Wednesday. There, she called the deaths of Black people at the hands of police a “epidemic of modern-day lynching.”

The fact that the five police officers who beat Nichols were Black has been brought up by the national media. At the press conference on Wednesday, Youth Council advisor Gloria Randolph King said that their race doesn’t matter. Former Youth Council President Phazhon Nash, who is also a Roanoke Democratic Party officer, said the same thing.

Nash said, “That doesn’t matter.” “When you look at police work in the United States, you can see that it is built on racism, slavery, slave patrols, and the enforcement of Jim Crow laws. When black people say things like “we don’t want to pay for the police” or “black lives matter” instead of “blue lives,” we’re not always talking about the officers. We’re talking about the most important part of our country, which is law enforcement.”

Hale thanked Roanoke Sheriff Antonio Hash and Roanoke Police Capt. Jamey Bowdel for coming to the NAACP press conference on Wednesday afternoon. Bowdel came instead of city Police Chief Sam Roman, who couldn’t be there because he had to be somewhere else.

“Right now, the chief is in Richmond. We have talked, “Hale said. “We still have to work together with the Roanoke City Police Department and the Roanoke City Sheriff’s Department, so we talk a lot. Even if something bad happened right here in Roanoke, Virginia, we can’t stop working together because something bad happened in the country.”

Meanwhile, City Council Member Luke Priddy brought up an idea that Roanoke Mayor Sherman Lea had brought up in January. He asked the Youth Council what they thought about enforcing the youth curfew that the city already has.

“I am very against it,” said Jayvon Tucker, president of the Youth Council. “We do what we’re supposed to do.” “Why should we all pay for a few bad apples?”

Tucker was joined by Nash, who said that the curfew and the idea that people who are out late at night are a certain kind of person are based on old ideas.

Herbert McDowell, who works in security for Mt. Zion AME Church, took it a step further.

“For 38 years, I’ve been locked up. I understand what’s going on. Get these big guns off the streets, because we shouldn’t have to worry about a curfew “McDowell said.