Local Churches to Gather for Interfaith Conversation on Gun Violence

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — “We was watching a movie and I heard pow, pow pow and I went and peaked out the sliding door in the back,” says one resident at Brook Pines Apartment complex. After hearing multiple gun shots in the middle of the night, residents at Brook Pines Apartments off Broad River Road say they are on edge. “I am worried because it means anybody can come and do something like that,” says Kenisha Hampton, resident. According to depuites a female victim was asleep when gunshots were fired at her apartment. “It don’t happen too often, but I gues last night was one of those nights,” says one resident. Deputies later arrested Jerome Howard for the crime. It’s incidents like this that the local faith community wants stopped. “The Word of God, if I may say, says that the government, the church, the government will be upon the shoulders of the church. So I think we are righting getting back into the proper place,” says Pastor Leatha Brown of Bluff Road United Methodist Church. Friday churches from across Columbia, of different faiths, will gather for a conversation on gun violence. Pastor Brown says the faith community can give hope. “In order for the church to be a vital part of what’s happening, the church has to take it’s place and that is to say we are not, um, here to take side, we’re just here to be the foundation of which society needs to take a stand,” says Pastor Brown Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin will host the event saying, ” Columbia is not immune. The possibility of gun violence lurks in every community and in every school, no matter how rich or how poor. It’s an everyday concern and the faith community can no longer be silent. “I don’t know what they are going to do to make it safe, but something needs to be changed,” says Hampton. The Interfaith Conversation on Gun Violence will take place at First Nazareth Baptist Church on Gervais Street, Friday March 15 at 7:30 a.m. Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath Weekend is March 15-17.