Via The Church of Critical Thinking comes this story about the Detroit Police Department instituting an allocated hour of prayer to prevent crimes in the city:

The department held its first day of prayer, allotting an hour Monday at each of the department's 13 precincts.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings participated at the 11th (Davison) Precinct, which patrols the neighborhood where four children and their mother were battered to death Thursday.

Their message: There was nothing that police could have done to prevent the deaths -- or the deaths of the three people at a party on the city's west side Sunday. The change, the mayor and chief said, must come from the community and with God's help.

There was nothing the police could have done to prevent the deaths?

How about this as a novel idea: The time the cops in all 13 precincts spent holding hands and mumbling to the sky might have been better spent actually patrolling neighborhoods.

Ya think?