Police Chief Reggie Burgess & Community Leader Mekei Gray on
“Law Enforcement & Community Relationships”
Air Date: Saturday, Feb. 13, 2022

“The experience with police officers is so important because people will say, ‘Oh, I don’t like the police, I don’t need the police, but there’s a point in time where we do.’… If we’re gonna hold law enforcement accountable, we gotta hold our communities accountable… You can’t sit in your neighborhood and know that this is going on and not saying anything.” – Mekei Gray

 

“Why should we allow people from other places to come into our community and tell us what to do to better our communities. Come on, we can do that better ourselves.” – Chief Reggie Burgess

This week, The Chef sits down with leaders representing both ends of the police-community relationship: city of North Charleston Police Chief Reggie Burgess and North Charleston community leader Mekei Gray. Chief Burgess outlines the results of his department’s recent audit and why regular interaction with the communities they serve is essential to their success. Mekei Gray brings the flip side of the story, recounting how she was transplanted into a neighborhood with no relationship to its local police and how building that bridge has been critical to seeing a change in crime rates and the general safety of the area.