Police Chief Motivates
By Brian Cronin
“God will lead us in the right direction if we let him.” Chief Demings cried out.
Police Chief Val B. Demings took center stage preaching the word of God like a preacher at Sunday Mass, encouraging the student body and everyone else who attended the public service to get involved with community involvement through Christian based values.
Respected, spiritual, and motivational speaker, Police Chief Demings, invited by Faculty Advisor for Campus Crusade for Christ, Joe Marek, to speak about leadership and how God should influence our lives. The event also celebrated African American History month and honored Christ. Chief Demings is the first woman Police Chief in Orlando with well over 25 years of service to the community. Very well educated and much loved by her co-workers, she is a woman of faith.
Lights went down at 1 pm on a crowd of 80, when a loud voice emitted from the podium, “To God be the Glory for the things he had done.” Shortly after being introduced on Wednesday, Chief Demings turn the podium in the Performing Arts Center on the East campus of Valencia Community College into a preachers stand on a Sunday morning exulting and praising the word of God. The mood in the Auditorium was energetic with a few outbursts of applause.
After praising God, Chief Demings continued with her story. She enlightened the crowd with stories from her rookie years, the boundaries she had to breakthrough being a black woman in a predominant white male occupation, and having the courage to lead both mentally and physically in dire economic times, all the while inserting a few Bible scriptures that support her life story.
Ending her personal story, she took a few questions from the audience. An audience member who did not identify himself asked, “What will best help law enforcement to be better?” Chief Demings replied, “In law enforcement we need three things to better ourselves leaders in the community, well trained professional police, and citizen involvement and support.” Another question was fielded, “Will you incorporate the local churches and their following to help out the police?” She responded with a gleeful yes and went on to say, “The Orlando Police have instituted Operation Amoral where church goers and police go to the worst parts of town for forty days and pray.” Surprisingly, this actually worked she said. There was no crime in the area when these groups were present.
As the crowd was exiting, the audience explained. Jennifer Bittel said, “I am very motivated, it was encouraging to hear a woman succeed and understand that God was with her through all the challenging times.” Then Veronica Villalobos stated, “The part that touched me the most was when Chief Demings talked about her mission trips to other countries and the way children are treated in third world countries.”
Chief Demings continues to praise God for all of her achievements and ask God to grant her mental and moral strength so she can do her best at the job she is most passionate about. She eagerly invited all to volunteer and, “fear nothing, be a leader, [and] don’t let boundaries stand in your way.” Her primary concern is to reduce violent crime here in Orlando through Christian based law enforcement.