At the law enforcement and community relations forum in Lilburn Thursday, something was notably absent: law enforcement.
A state legislator and two county commissioners were on hand to talk to the hundreds of Gwinnett residents who wanted to discuss the state of police relations. But Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway, whose September statement that "all lives matter" sparked the discussion, was not there.
Neither were police chiefs for the county or any of Gwinnett’s cities with their own forces.
"They said they had prior engagements," said Latabia Woodward, one of the founders of Unify Gwinnett, a community group that formed in response to Conway's statement, and who organized the forum.
Members of the audience questioned the absence as they asked for a citizen review board for complaints about police conduct. The diverse, largely black crowd asked about individual issues and commented on racial profiling. One woman said it was hard to separate herself and her son from people like Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old in Cleveland who was killed by officers while he was playing with a toy gun.
But county leaders said the issues people were responding to were in other parts of the country — not Gwinnett.
“I believe we have the best police department in the United States,” said Gwinnett Chairman Charlotte Nash. “I’m not sure what we’re trying to reform. I get that we all have our biases, and we’re trying to work on that. Our officers do not engage in racial profiling. It is not taught; it is not tolerated.”
The crowd broke out into murmurs following her comment. Koi Fisher, who lives in Norcross, said it was “quite disarming” that leaders were not aware of the community’s concerns.
“Gwinnett is not exempt,” she said. “Every city, every county, every state has issues.”
Both Woodward and Nash said the forum showed the need for additional education — about the issues that residents actually face, from the activists, and which areas of law enforcement commissioners have control over, in the county’s case.
“We clearly needed to strengthen public trust,” Woodward said. “Engagement in Gwinnett County is an issue, particularly in communities of color. A lot of us do not feel part of the community in which we live.”
Nash said she thought it was an "important conversation to be having." The issues people raised were important, she said.
But Richard B. Haynes, pastor at the Salem Missionary Baptist Church where the forum was held, said people in attendance should not only murmur — especially when there were leaders in the room who could do something about the community's concerns. In addition to Nash, county commissioner Lynette Howard and state senator Curt Thompson, D-Tucker, attended the event.
Haynes asked Nash and others to acknowledge the pain and frustration that people had expressed.
“We’ve got some issues in this county, there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “All I want is to hear from leadership we’ve got some stuff we need to fix. …If all lives matter, black lives matter. I don’t want us to get so tangled up in how we say it that we forget the real issue of it.”
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