LAURINBURG — Over the past couple of weeks there have been of a string of unrelated shootings in Laurinburg, and one local pastor is asking for the community to come together before tragedy strikes.
The Rev. Michael Edds is a known name in the community as the pastor for Cross Pointe Church and for giving kids a place to go once a week. The church began “Kids’ Fun Night Out” which has recently moved from Tuesday to Wednesday evenings where over a hundred children enjoy food, prayer and fun activities.
Recently Edds was driving the bus that picks up and drops off the children and dropped some off in the Washington Park area. Not long afterward he got a text from a mother saying that someone had shot at the apartment building.
“What if one of those babies had been outside on the porch?” Edds said. “Approach is reactive rather than proactive. If you’re reacting things have already happened … we’ve had people shot in that area, people killed and it’s an on-going situation. My concern is that we have a mass shooting tragedy in the making if we don’t do something.”
While Edds has come to the City Council about the topic of crime, he’s asking that everyone come together to do something.
“Everybody, the City Council, county commissioners, police department, Sheriff’s Office, need to come together and say we need to do something,” Edds said. “Right now it’s in certain areas but if we don’t do anything it will spread. People’s lives are at stake, especially these babies, these children in this city.”
Edds isn’t all talk with no solutions. He offered up several, including adding more lighting in these high-crime areas, putting a police officer or sheriff’s deputy living in the apartments at the Housing Authority properties, and having churches adopt the various neighborhoods in the areas to go get the kids once a week and take them somewhere to give them something to do.
“These people are afraid to report things because they live in these communities,” Edds said. “The Housing Authority does a great job keeping those areas clean, but they need help they can’t do it alone.”
He added that there could even be just an officer from the police department and Sheriff’s Office have deputies just sit in these areas to watch to help decrease the crime.
“First you have some surveillance with someone there, light it up it’s so dark over there,” Edds said “Put up tsunami cameras there and have someone watching them. Those are defensible zones. They could split this up and work it out together.”
Edds offered to help with grant writing to get money to help fund some of the projects as he has gotten grants to help fund the expansion and building of Cross Pointe which is a multi-use building rather than just a church. He added that he hopes that local officials will go out into the community and see the need for something to be done.
“I grew up in a secure environment — don’t these children deserve the same?” Edds said. “This can’t be ignored but it is going to take all of us coming together to help stop this problem … I know we can’t stop all crime but we can minimize it and make Laurinburg boom.”
Reach Katelin Gandee at 910-506-3171 or at [email protected]