In an effort to increase trust and confidence, North Charleston PD organized another meeting with the community Wednesday evening

North Charleston, South Carolina – North Charleston Police Department organized another event, meeting the local community as a part of their series of events in order to improve communication and build trust and confidence with the local residents.

The last event took place on Wednesday evening and that was NCPD October’s event, a part of its monthly Community Roll Call to try to better its relationship with the community.

“We understand that there’s a distrust, right? And we understand that there’s this line in the sand that almost seems taboo to cross. We want to kind of squash the narrative, said Keith Smalls, a lifetime North Charleston local resident.

We want people to realize that we’re all in this fight together and in order for us to get across to that safe space we have to all come together and work together as law enforcement and community,” Smalls added.

He is one among many who are touched by the increasing gun violence in the area in the last couple of year and he seeks more police presence on the streets claiming that would lower the gun violence rate in the community.

Additionally, Smalls can actually really tell how painful the results of the gun violence are since he lost his 17-year-old son in a shooting incident.

Smalls has taken part in numerous similar events like the one on Wednesday in an effort to make the community safer place for everyone.

He calls it Basketball After Dark, and its goal is to give the youth a place to go and grow and build a relationship with law enforcement.

“We can’t do without the community, it is important. The public is the police and the police are the public. We can’t do our job without them. We have to have that cooperation. We don’t solve cases on our own. We have great detectives, but we need the community to come forward and help us,” said North Charleston Police Deputy Chief of Patrol Karen Corday.

The series of events where officers are meeting with the local community continues in the upcoming period too. According to NCPD officials, the next event of its type is called National Night Out and is set to take place early next month on November 8 in Park Circle.