TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- Mayor Andrew Gillum, Police Chief Michael DeLeo and other community leaders addressed ways to build trust in the community in light of recent events nationwide.
For a couple of hours Friday, music took a back seat on the airwaves of Heaven 98.3 and 1410 AM, as they chose to talk about issues affecting the country, including the relationship between the police and the public.
The station worked with other radio show hosts to organize the talk, saying they believe hearing from police is a critical part in building community trust.
DeLeo said that though the public may see negative posts about police on social media, it's not fair to paint all law enforcement with the same brush.
"Just because there's maybe one bad police officer in the department doesn't mean that the other 800,000 police officers across the country are bad," DeLeo said. "If there's one bad teacher in a school, that doesn't mean that whole school is bad."
"We need to have conversation and get together before anything can happen," said Judy Mandrell, host of Real Talk with Judy. "To me, it was saying, 'I am willing to sit down with the community to find out what's important to the community.'"
The radio station says the talk went so well that it's already planning a community forum to answer even more questions from the public. It also wants to host a unity event where pastors all around Tallahassee are invited to attend. The station estimates 15,000 people listened to the talk.
