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4th District leads citywide unity prayer
n BY KAREN STAHL
Connecting the city through the power of prayer across di- verse faiths was the primary goal of Eric “Krunch” Davis in the 4th District during a Unity Prayer Service on the evening of Aug. 7.
The concept of public prayer is not new to the 4th District. Every Friday night, the faith-based subcommittee, along with local pastors and community members, gathers in areas where they’ve seen an uptick in violent crime, particularly shootings.
“We get a corner, and the church leaders and pastors from that particular area — especially since the 4th District is so large — pray on that corner,” Davis said. “We invite residents out, we give them the information that we have about what has trans- pired in that area from a law enforcement perspective, we have prayer and sometimes we’ll sing a song.”
The weekly prayer meetups have also featured a partner- ship with the Southeast Alliance. Staff members set up a table to pass out masks and personal protective equipment (PPE). Davis shared that Friday evenings are the most rewarding time of the week for him.
“I used to call it ‘positive loitering and prayer,’ because we take over that corner to do something good and bring the com- munity together,” he said. “We try to pick a corner where there’s a little bit of visibility and a little bit of traffic, because we have people who see us out there who pull over to join. If shootings have happened near there, maybe half a block away, we’ll also do a prayer walk to where the shootings occurred.”
His subcommittee in the 4th District had been planning a prayer at the station as usual at the beginning of August. But the week before the event, officers mourned the tragic suicide of Chicago Police Department’s Dion Boyd and three more offi- cers shot in the 25th District.
One of the pastors who Davis works with suggested a city- wide unity prayer, so he got on the phone and started talking
about the idea to all the faith-based liaisons in the districts.
“I told them what I was trying to accomplish and told them every district can do it its own way,” Davis noted. “But if you have a faith-based subcommittee, have them report to your re-
spective district, and we’re going to start praying at 6 p.m.” Fourteen districts were able to participate on Aug. 7 to pow- erfully bring together law enforcement and the community
throughout the city with the Unity Prayer Service.
As Davis looked over the crowd in the 4th District and real- ized the power of the collective prayer happening with other officers and community members, he felt peace knowing that they were doing their part in helping the people they’re sworn to protect — and he plans to keep holding weekly prayer gath-
erings as long as possible.
“The unity part of it, the coming together, it was power-
ful,” Davis said. “It’s always been everybody unified, together, because we all know we want to change the narrative in our community. I get the energy to do it, because I know it’s help- ing people. It’s helping people to know their neighbors, and it’s helping us by letting us know what’s going on. That’s what keeps me going.”
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