alt=Tad WalchSALT LAKE CITY — In a videotaped message shared Sunday as part of Calvary Baptist Church’s virtual worship service, Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown expressed solidarity with the black church and denounced the actions of the fired Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd.
The service began with a stark message of unity between a white police chief and African-American Christians and was one of many calls to faith and action on the first Sunday after a week of protests, rioting and looting following Floyd’s death.
“The death of Mr. Floyd is a tragedy,” Brown said. “I am deeply disturbed and I denounce that. What I saw in that video is abhorrent. That is unacceptable for anybody who wears that badge and is expected to be a guardian of our community.”
Seated at his desk, Brown choked up as he quoted the biblical account of Jesus Christ giving his disciples a new commandment to love one another. Then he addressed the congregation directly.
“I love you, my brothers and sisters, and the women and men of the Salt Lake City Police Department stand with you in solidarity and we love you,” the police chief said.
Derek Chauvin, 44, was fired Tuesday by the Minneapolis Police Department and charged Friday with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter after videos showed that he knelt on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes while restraining him on Monday. Floyd, 46, died in police custody after telling Chauvin and three other officers repeatedly, “I cannot breathe.”
Floyd’s death sparked a national wave of protests and riots that reached Utah over the weekend. Calvary Baptist Associate Minister Rodric Land began the historic Salt Lake City church’s videotaped Sunday service by saying he had a heavy heart while watching the protests sweeping the nation after “another lynching of an unarmed black body.”
Calvary Baptist Pastor Oscar T. Moses introduced Brown’s video by describing the police chief’s long relationship with the church and black community.
“George Floyd died a heinous death at the hand of four police officers in Minnesota,” the Rev. Dr. Moses said. “Being a former police officer, I know that there are people within the department that have no value for black life whatsoever. But I know there are some that do.”
He then introduced Brown. The police chief expressed sadness that Chauvin’s actions and alleged crimes “cast a pall on all of law enforcement across this country.”
Protesters nationwide called for increased police accountability and carried signs that read Black Lives Matter. Rioting, looting and counter protests also erupted. A police vehicle was flipped and set on fire during Saturday evening riots in Salt Lake City, leading the city’s mayor to announce a curfew through the weekend.
“There are law enforcement officers that work tirelessly to build trust and confidence and relationships in our community, and (this) has destroyed that,” Brown said. “It’s having a huge impact on our country and I know it’s having a big impact here.”
Calvary Baptist Church posted a one-hour videotaped worship service on Sunday morning. It included the sermon by the Rev. Dr. Moses and prayer, song and scripture.
At the end of the service, he noted that, “We’re encouraging police departments to review your policies to make sure there is sensitivity training so these incidents will not continue to occur or will not happen again.”
Others also called for strong action.
“The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to step up and classify the mistreatment of black people in the United States by the police as a human rights violation, aggressively call out the U.S. government in the process and impose sanctions if necessary,” Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wrote in a mass email.
Johnson also called for federal legislation to ban the use of knee holds and choke holds by police officers, require state’s to make public the misconduct and disciplinary histories of police officers and implement citizen’s review boards to hold police departments accountable and build public confidence.
Meanwhile, seven members of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said Americans need to do a better job listening to the voices of black people and heeding their complaints about racist treatment.
The Southern Baptist Convention also called for police accountability.
“While we thank God for our law enforcement officers that bravely risk their lives for the sake of others and uphold justice with dignity and integrity, we also lament when some law enforcement officers misuse their authority and bring unnecessary harm on the people they are called to protect,” the convention’s leaders said in a statement.
In Salt Lake City, the Calvary Baptist Church’s choir sang under a new name in the virtual worship service because of the coronavirus pandemic. “Calvary’s Masked Singers” consisted of eight men and women wearing masks and standing at social distance from one another while singing.
“We come before you because there is no other help now,” the Rev. Dr. Moses said in prayer. “God, we ask that you would step in, protect us, give us that which we need to be able to cope in this stressful world that does not value the life of black people.”
He also prayed for physical, spiritual and racial healing.
“We pray that the word will go forth with power, that it will convict, convince and set free even those who claim to be Christian that have a disdain, hate and despise for peoples whose skin has been kissed by nature’s sun.”
He based his sermon, titled “Extra strength for today: It’s a long journey home,” on Deuteronomy 33:24-25, in which Moses blessed Asher that “as thy days, so shall thy strength be.”
“Sometimes we have to navigate our way through some difficult times in life, but Martin Luther King said we have to have faith and hope that’s able to carve a tunnel through a mountain of despair,” the pastor said. “We’ve got to hold on to God’s unchanging hand. Life can be unfair. How do you handle life when it becomes so stressful as we’re dealing in the midst of a pandemic, when we see racial aggression and racial hate being displayed against African-Americans on almost a weekly basis.”
He said the biblical text teaches that God provides strength equal to the need.
“This text teaches us God does not always give us our preferred path, but he gives us what we need to navigate it, to chart your way through this barren land,” the pastor said. “Your strength will be equal for your days. God will give you the strength to make it day by day. ... God gives us a daily dose of grace to make it.”
The Rev. Dr. Moses told his flock to take life one day at a time, take their trouble to Jesus in prayer and to practice gratitude.
Land, the associate pastor, called for Calvary Baptist’s congregation to practice an active faith focused on the hope of Christ’s cross.
“My brothers and sisters, I know we are hurting,” he said. “We are angry. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired. But as we embrace this symbol of our church, the cross, remember we do not have a passive faith, but an active one.”