Evangelical Churches Join Police Meet and Greet

Cops and Churches are working together to curb crime. Today, in the weekly meet and greet sessions, police officers were accompanied by three pastors of the Evangelical Churches. We caught up with Deputy Commissioner of Police Chester Williams and Pastor Howell Longsworth on the south side and they shared how this partnership can help to make a positive impact.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations)

“It is a multi-faceted approach; one we want to encourage them to go to church; two we want to get them closer to God; three we want them to understand that that the lifestyle that the lifestyle they are living fighting with each other or gunning down each other is not the proper one. You can live your life without doing things like that; try to be more positivity. One of the things we are trying to show them is that positivity takes you a long way instead of holding hate and anger within you.  The interaction has been excellent. Many of these young men are God fearing persons and one of the only obstacles that they may have going to church is that the church may be outside of their zones and they may not feel comfortable leaving their zones. So, what we will be doing is that whenever we invite them to church we will provide transportation to pick them up, take them to church and when it is over we will drop them back. So, they have been very receptive.”

Howell Longsworth

Howell Longsworth, President, Belize Association of Evangelical Churches

“I think, very importantly, they can look at somebody like me as a role model. To know that many years ago, I started selling snow cones and turned to be a very successful business man and about twenty years ago my life changed. I was an Ambassador to CARICOM and then I am now the President of the Belize Association of Evangelical Churches that incorporates the Baptist Association, the Assemblies of God and many non-denominational churches. We find it very important, as a matter of fact, that has been our cry for a long time, to partner with the business community, with the police and we are very pleased to see what the police is doing to reach out to some places that’s never been done; to see the interaction and camaraderie that happens and the respect that these young men give to the police. So, we feel it is important that we join in. We want to be able to teach these young men the same thing that I learn and that the success for being a better person lies within us. We are having good reactions and I am sure that when we reach out to the mothers – I, myself, am a victim of crime – my son was murdered and that family came and we are friends; we forgave he fellow who murdered our son and that family, especially, is a very good friend of ours. We reached out to them and we want to set the example where we will minister to the women who have lost their loved ones and do not continue to perpetrate hate and anger that exist that allows these things to happen.”