JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. – A Jacksonville-based African-American pastor expressed his disappointment in the violence and shootings in Jacksonville Beach that left one person dead and three people injured on Sunday night.
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Pastor Mark Griffin of the Wayman Temple A.M.E. church said African-American pastors were very vocal about the racist Dollar General Murders last year, and he said pastors don’t hesitate to voice their opinions about alleged mistreatment of minorities at the hands of local law enforcement.
Griffin called the activities that led up to the three shootings on Sunday ‘disorganized chaos that has no place in Jacksonville’.
“I was just so disappointed to see a group of African-American young people involved in that type of activity,” Griffin said. “But let me let me say, they don’t represent all African American youth in this city. We have tens of thousands of young people that are going to school every day.”
Griffin spent park of his spring break mentoring and tutoring young local students and said he realizes not everyone at Jacksonville Beach was engaged in the activities that led up to three separate shootings.
He also said we can’t escape the fact that those involved were primarily young black men and women. Griffin said it’s important that city leaders deal with issues like these united.
“And all of us, whether we are black or white, we have to take a stand and say enough is enough, no more,” Griffin said. “We have to find a way to solve this issue, whether IT’S happening at Jax Beach , Valencia Way, Justino Hilltop wherever it is, if there’s crime and violence going on, we cannot stand on the sideline.”
Griffin said he wants local teenagers and college students to know when they see large gatherings of people in an unorganized event with no security or no one in charge, it’s likely a place they shouldn’t be in search of a good time.
Griffin said he was pleased to see the response by Jacksonville Beach Police Department, the local communities’ reaction after they voiced their concerns about the shooting during public comment at Monday night’s city council meeting.
“And I must commend the leadership at Jax Beach, because in all of the conversation, from law enforcement to city council to the residents, they have been very careful about their wording,” Griffin said. “I must commend them. They’ve not use any of those words that would inflame all of us. They haven’t used the word ‘thug’, they haven’t used the word ‘hoodlums’…And so I must commend them that they’ve been very careful and that they haven’t said anything to incite more negativity. But deep down in their hearts, I know they have to wonder, where is our leadership from the black community and when will we stand up and say ‘enough is enough?’”
Griffin said he’s hoping the dialouge today will encourage other leaders in the African-American community to come together and find a way to help steer the younger generation on the right track.