Detroit Church Leaders Push 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' Message After Deadly Shootings
DETROIT (WWJ) - Church leaders hope "Thou Shalt Not Kill" posters and billboards will help quell the escalating deadly violence in Detroit.
About 24 hours after three people were killed and six others were wounded in a shooting at an east side barber shop, local clergy members will hold an emergency meeting to talk about what they can do to help reduce violent crime in Detroit.
"We all have to do what we can do, and right now we don't have a respect in our communities for life; we don't have a respect for many things," said Minister Ovella Andreas. "But we still have to create a standard to hopefully have a consciousness about God .... because even our people have become apathetic."
Andreas said, through their "Thou Shalt Not Kill" campaign, they've already been working for the past two years to combat crime in urban neighborhoods.
"Our goal now is to infiltrate and saturate our communities with this commandment, via buses, via billboards," she said. "The churches have posters — we'll put them into the businesses in the area."
"Thou Shalt Not Kill" is one of the Ten Commandments listed in the Bible's Old Testament. Andreas said the hope is to unite enough Detroit churches and leaders to spread that urgent message.
"This is an emergency; this is a crisis, and we have to come together now to do what we can," she said. "I truly know if we do what we can, God will do what we cannot; but we're not doing all that we can."
The group had also worked to get the city to designate every twenty-second day of the month as "Stop the Violence Day."
The emergency meeting will begin at 6:40 p.m. Thursday at Greater New Tried Stone Baptist Church at 1550 Taylor St, Detroit.
MORE: Detroit Police Chief Calls Barber Shop Shooting 'Urban Terrorism'
