Bishop Arnold Harris’ son, 33-year-old Santonio Rochelle, was shot and killed in Durham on November 7.

Harris says he runs a ministry in the area of Durham that has been most-heavily impacted by fatal shootings in recent years, and that his son was influential in starting that work.

“He gave me the vision,” Harris says. “He birthed the vision into my mind. I prayed about it. I wanted to do it, but you have to listen to your children.”

Harris says, while he knows his son wasn’t perfect, Rochelle was working to reach out to members of the community who were involved in violent acts in an attempt to help bring them out of that world.

“You’ve got to realize that your kids, a lot of kids know both worlds,” he says. “They know the goody two-shoes world and they know the thugs and the gang. And just with the gang statistics you know the friend of the gang is the one that would get killed first before a gang member. So just the association with gang members could wipe them out.”

Harris says that he promised his son that he will continue the work to try and help bring those in hard-hit areas out of violence through God First People Second Church on Main Street in Durham and other outreach programs that Harris organizes.

“Your kids, when you get a chance to minister to them, keep them positive, redirect them in the church, redirect them in other positive boy’s clubs or other programs, it helps them,” he says. “That’s my goal.”

Harris says that consistency is key in changing the culture of an area that sees an increase in violence, as Durham did in 2015.

“It takes the consistency of community leaders, consistency of the police, consistency of family members and people training and teaching,” he says. “Everybody might not take their child to church, but you have to educate them. You’ve got to get them something positive.”

Harris says that it is going to take increased effort from the community and police to solve the issue of crime in Durham.

“Of course you have some people that feel like I’m a snitch if I talk and if I speak,” he says. “And then you have people that will speak if the police just do more investigations if they get out and they talk more. You’ve got people who are just tired of it, who are just fed up with it. Lost kids and lost relatives have affected us as a whole. I do think there is a distrust but that can heal.”

Despite all of that, Harris says he still holds out hope.

“If Durham starts really caring about Durham, then Durham can make a difference,” Harris says. “Because Durham was a beautiful city and it’s still a beautiful city.”

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