Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Hundreds march in valley for peace
Community, police rally against violence
Standing on a patch of grass, Glenn Davis watched Saturday afternoon as peace marchers holding signs and chanting slogans passed by the apartment complex in the northeast valley where he has lived for a dozen years and where shootings, stabbings and other violence have become all too commonplace.
Hundreds participated in the I Love My City March, sponsored by the Nevada Black Police Association, Nevada Latino Police Officers Association and Victory Outreach Summerlin, which started at the Liberty Village Apartments, 4870 Nellis Oasis Lane, and wended through a neighborhood ending at the parking lot of a closed Wal-Mart at 5350 N. Nellis Blvd.
The marchers were community members, churchgoers and police officers who came together in the name of bringing peace.
Davis said he was reminded of the spirit of community activism he experienced in his youth during marches in the South during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He said he can still recall the sting of tear gas during a sit-in led by Martin Luther King Jr.
The peace rally represents the type of event needed to remedy violence that has surged in recent years, said Davis, a Las Vegas resident for two decades.
“I’ve seen the town change,” Davis said. “It seems like it’s slowly deteriorating.”
Recalling when the town’s population was only 200,000, Davis said the increase in residents and changing city demographics have brought violent crime.
Davis said the rally “is a start,” and a sense of coming together that is “needed in this town.”
That sense of community was exactly what Sgt. Jose Hernandez of the Metropolitan Police Department’s community-focused policing section said police had hoped to accomplish in partnering with Victory Outreach for the event.
Hernandez called the event, created in response to violent crime, a success. By working directly with the community — especially children — officers could develop trust with residents that could help prevent violent crime in the future. The march and rally represent the kinds of positive steps needed to curb crime, he said.
At the rally, officers mingled with community and church members at the event, which included live music, games and puppet shows.
“This,” Hernandez said, gesturing at children jumping rope with police officers, “is what makes police work great.”
Armando Garcia, an event organizers and a pastor at Victory Outreach Summerlin, said ijn a Facebook post that he was dismayed by the violence in the area and urged friends, family and congregants to pray for the community.
Garcia took another step by helping organize Saturday’s events and encouraging the congregation to try “to do something about it.”
“It’s about bringing a sense of hope and maybe some answers to the community,” he said.