The Billy Graham Rapid Response Team (RRT) is ministering in Sumter, South Carolina, after Sheriff’s Cpl. Andrew Gillette was shot and killed while serving a detention order and eviction notice Tuesday morning. Although officers defended Gillette, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, he still died from his injuries.
“Our hearts are heavy to hear of yet another law enforcement officer tragically killed while serving his community,” said Jack Munday, international director of the RRT. “At the invitation of the Sumter Fraternal Order of Police, the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team has chaplains onsite to provide emotional and spiritual care to fellow officers and all of those impacted by this devastating event.”
From Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, RRT Manager of Law Enforcement Relations David Rutledge headed 100 miles south to provide a listening ear in the Sumter community alongside crisis-trained chaplains. This marks the sixth RRT deployment of 2020, and the team will remain in the area through the memorial service on Sunday.
The RRT also responded to the mass shooting at the Molson Coors facility in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and offered emotional and spiritual care to those who attended a vigil Thursday evening. Pulling from its network of 1,500 chaplains across the United States, other chaplains are serving in Spartanburg, South Carolina (tornado); Ponce, Puerto Rico (earthquakes); Pendleton, Oregon (flooding); and Jackson, Mississippi (flooding).
In February alone, RRT chaplains have had the opportunity to witness more than a dozen people receive Christ and pray with nearly 1,200 people.
Please keep all those affected by these man-made and natural disasters in your prayers.
