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| HALF A DOZEN UNIFORMED LRPD OFFICERS SAT SILENT DURING THE MEETING |
The "Crisis in the Community" meeting that Director Ken Richardson held at the Willie Hinton Community Center last night was not your friendly neighborhood get together.
Few paid attention to Director Richardson's admonishment that no personal attacks were to occur. The crowd and the speakers tossed them around like a frisbee.
Frustrated and angry citizens questioned the actions of the City Manager and Police Chief.
The Police Chief, as he usually does when cornered took aim and lashed out at one of the audience members, Dr. Anika Whitefield, when she questioned targeting blacks for marijuana use and the lack of development districts in Ward 2.
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| DR ANIKA WHITFIELD EXPRESSES HER CONCERNS |
One more notable event was when Director Richardson made cutting comments about police pulling him over while driving through his ward, which resulted in a long stink eye stare from Buckner aimed at Richardson.
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| BUCKNER AND RICHARDSON LOCKED IN A STARE BATTLE |
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| THE BUCKNER STINK EYE TREATMENT |
Buckner was not the only one to give a gloating look during the meeting.
City Manager Bruce Moore yelled out "no personal attacks" when a citizens said he was a good person but a bad city director.
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| THE MOORE STINK EYE STARE |
Several audience members voiced the same complaints as the newly formed Citizens for Credibility and Trust in Little Rock Leadership .
The city leaders present made several veiled comments about "disinformation" being spread. The information put forth by the newly formed group was supported by no less than 25 pages of documents that backed up their assertions made at a press conference last Friday on the steps of Little Rock City Hall.
Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Wendell Griffen addressed the group and stated that "Little Rock is running out of time."
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| JUDGE & PASTOR WENDELL GRIFFEN |
Griffen stated that "every major civil disorder began with a police encounter that went bad." He added that "there is not a correlation between traffic stops and homicides" referring to the problem of LRPD's so called "positive engagement stops" in which LRPD officers randomly stop vehicles and issue verbal warnings for some minor infraction just so they can check the individuals name to see if there are warrants so they can arrest people of color.
Griffen also stated that you "don't police neighborhoods out of violence...people relate their way out of violence. If you don't have good relations, you can flood people with police and all you have is people controlled and they are waiting to act out their rage."
The loss of trust in our city leadership demands change. We need to clean out city hall in the next election and restore credibility in Little Rock city government.
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Local network news coverage of the meeting.
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