Jackson Free Press

As of this writing, Donna Ladd has spent at least 30 hours over two weeks with Mayor Frank Melton in interviews, phone calls, ride-alongs, press conferences and visits at his home to meet the young men he fosters. A good deal of her reporting went into the cover story for this issue, second in a series of interviews and stories on the complicated man who is our mayor.

She has also recounted to me two weekly ride-alongs she's shadowed for two Sunday nights in a row, including the good, the bad and the somewhat silly of what Mr. Melton accomplishes when he puts together a posse and drives around town in his RV. It's these rides that are most disturbing to me, because I think they represent a fundamental way in which Melton is wasting the time of some important people who work for him.

My biggest concern is the fact that the mayor totes Police Chief Shirlene Anderson and Assistant Chief Roy Sandifer along with him on these joyrides in the Mobile Command Unit. On the past two Sundays, those ride-alongs have started in the evening and gone into the morning hours. These people are supposed to be managers, but what they seem to be doing instead is enabling the mayor to have his "pretend-to-be-a-cop" time, during which he checks people for seatbelts, lectures them on drug use, finds legal weapons and chases down leads on five-year-old crimes with which he admits he's obsessed.

First of all, this work could be done by police officers who are real, trained officers of the law—particularly when it comes to maintaining the constitutionality of roadblocks and spot checks, making arrests based on accurate use of probable cause, and giving out tickets or warnings to maintain the peace.

I'm calling to mind the JFP/WAPT poll we commissioned a few weeks ago that overall gave Mayor Melton high job approval marks, but in which 64 percent of respondents said they would rather see the mayor leave police work to the police and spend more time on his managerial duties. To me, that means allocating the resources at his disposal and encouraging the police chief to put cops where they're needed so they can do their jobs.

But, instead, the mayor and his top cops pile into the RV. Not only does the behavior probably do little good to combat crime in Jackson (putting aside for a moment that some of the conversations Melton has with younger people may help set them on a better path), but they create an image that Jackson is so lawless that we need a tinhorn sheriff walking the streets at midnight with a shotgun.

Which brings me to my second point—is the city that lawless? How would we know? The mayor won't tell us. It's way past time for Melton to make crime statistics available to the public—something that he has an obligation to do and we have a right to see. Those statistics should be made available to any citizen—including those who own, operate or work for newspapers or other media outlets, including those he doesn't like—on demand.

So far, that hasn't happened. Apparently we're waiting for a redesign of the city's Web site or some other such nonsense. It's time for more media outlets than just the Jackson Free Press to begin to demand the same scrutiny that those outlets have given previous chiefs in previous administrations. We need those stats to know how things are going—and the mayor needs to make them available now—but we won't get them until media outlets and citizens demand them.

The Clarion-Ledger is particularly out to lunch on the issue of crime. For years, the newspaper—and, specifically, columnist Eric Stringfellow—dutifully recounted the dubious "Most Dangerous Cities" rankings generated by book publisher Morgan-Quitno and noted how high Jackson remained in the rankings, pointing to what that meant in terms of poor policing in the Capital City. Indeed, The Clarion-Ledger, in my opinion, was responsible for a great deal of the hype that crime got in Jackson, even as it fell year to year throughout the 2000s—and in the years since the heinous crimes that obsess Melton.

Newspapers in cities around the country do everything they can to combat the perceptions created by these rankings and would be pleased as all get-out to write an editorial on the progress that their city had made. Not the Ledger. In late 2005, when Morgan-Quitno's rating for Jackson dropped us completely out of the Top 25, Mr. Stringfellow and his editorial cohorts were silent on the issue.

The Clarion-Ledger is the exact opposite of most hometown dailies, touting Jackson's crime failures but ignoring successes, perhaps because only a fraction of their subscriber base (a mere 22,000, according to the newspaper itself) is in Jackson proper.

Or maybe it's just shoddy reporting. In a recent column by Eric Stringfellow, he wrote, "… Sunday evening, when I saw the Police Department's Mobile Command Unit crawling up to the University of Mississippi Medical Center … Melton's 9mm was strapped to his side, he was wearing his black police T-shirt and sporting his baseball cap backwards." He then goes on with a lukewarm indictment of Melton's desire to do Chief Anderson's job.

But the small fact that Stringfellow gets wrong is disconcerting. Donna Ladd was with Melton from the moment he left his house and throughout the entire evening, and she tells me that he at no time had his cap on backward. The shots by our photographer confirm it.

A silly detail? Maybe. But it makes me wonder … was Stringfellow really there, as he suggests he was? If so, how did he get that detail—one he uses to mock Melton—wrong? After all, he is one of the writers who mangled Chief Moore's "perception of fear" quote years back to "perception of crime," which eventually turned into a lesson that would look great in a Journalism 101 textbook.

Maybe the Mayor isn't the only one who should let professionals do the police work—The Clarion-Ledger should allocate serious resources to the crime beat, too. We need professional reporters, mayors, cops, editorialists and citizens getting their facts right on crime in Jackson and then generating some workable solutions.

Previous Comments

ID

72018

Comment

Todd writes: I’m calling to mind the JFP/WAPT poll we commissioned a few weeks ago that overall gave Mayor Melton high job approval marks, but in which 64 percent of respondents said they would rather see the mayor leave police work to the police and spend more time on his managerial duties. In all fairness, is this what the poll said...? The three options were whether Melton should resign permanently, resign temporarily to play cop, or leave police work to the professionals. So what the 64 percent number really says is that a majority of Jacksonians don't want Melton to resign to do police work, not that they object to the way he's doing it while still in office. I mean, a good chunk probably do, but I don't think this particular poll tells us that. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-04-13T14:27:45-06:00

ID

72019

Comment

I agree, Todd. But I wonder why his two top real cops tolerate actions they know are violative of the constitutional rights of the citizens? It seems to me that one or both would have some influence on him. These actions embarass them, too. And if he somehow goes down for this, what effect will it have on them? I wouldn't practice lawlessness just because my boss does.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-04-14T14:35:27-06:00

ID

72020

Comment

Tom -- Good point. I argued from the specific to the general, there, which might not be fair given the original question. When we put together another poll we should ask a more general question about people's desire to see him playing cop vs. driving his desk in City Hall. Ray -- My guess is that they'd be more worried if they stayed away while he rides around in the JPD RV...?

Author

Todd Stauffer

Date

2006-04-15T18:47:02-06:00

ID

72021

Comment

It's very disheartening to see our mayor acting far worse than he accused the previous administrations of acting in the past. By his own admissions, his priority is crime. His methods are not consistent with being a city leader. He is an administrator, not a police officer. I thought that the mayor's job is to formulate, co-ordinate, and make sure that his goals for this city's progression are met. His job covers so much more than crimefighting but he is stuck without any concept of what else is going on. He is not qualified to solve the issue of crime. Just because he knows the thugs by name does not make his the all powerful authority on the subject. It only means that he can give more information to law enforcement to bring some resolve to these problems. His pigheadedness is turning to be a liability rather than a solution. On each of his arrests, the courts have said NO. I would think that he should look in the mirror and see where the problem is instead of pointing a finger at those who do not agree with him. He has given us superplan after superplan about revitalizing the city. All of it has been a bunch of bull. In one of his interviews, he said that he hated the job, it was not what he expected. Later in the same interview he said that he plans to run for re-election. There is an old saying.........fool me once shame on you, fool me twice and shame on me.

Author

lance

Date

2006-04-16T07:55:39-06:00

ID

72022

Comment

Word on the street is that FM is doing what the criminals wanted. Has it occured to anyone that these acquittals are by design? the street talk is this is playing out as it was designed, get those people off who turned themselves in to FM so he could win support of a certan group. This man doesn.t give a d*** about anyone but himself. If you look at all he has done there seems to be some truth to the street talk. these people don't vote but they can help others get votes. I find it hard to believe that he didn't know giving money and housing to potential witnesses was not going to effect their testimony and cause the jury to have to acquit those accused because the witnesses were tainted.

Author

jada

Date

2006-04-17T10:30:21-06:00

ID

72023

Comment

Jada, the thing that has struck me as bizarre is reading the archives of the news stories of when Mr. Melton was "bringing in" some of these guys for the crimes. It seemed to cross *no one's* mind, including the reporters, that his methods could mean that less admissible evidence was being collected, or would later be allowed before a jury. No one bothered to ask the question (other than the current police chief, who The Clarion-Ledger ridiculed for it). That is one of the main reasons that I have declared them the worst daily in the U.S. They don't ask questions that need to be asked on behalf of the people. Maybe the answer will be good enough, but how the hell do we know if they don't ask in the first place!?! And the truly sad thing is that even if much of the "street talk" about Mr. Melton is NOT true, then the bad reporting has fed into the rumors and innuendo, because so little has been dispelled over the years. He even says that.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-04-17T10:36:29-06:00

ID

72024

Comment

Wow, Jada. Frank is perplexing but I'd need some proof to belive this.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-04-17T10:38:45-06:00

ID

72025

Comment

I will add to Ray's comment by saying that I am not saying I believe that Street Talk. But perceptions are important, and they seem to be running rampant.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-04-17T10:43:22-06:00

ID

72026

Comment

I don't really believe it either but I have been taught that when a lot of people are saying the same thing there is some truth to the rumor. This one is kind of heavy for me not to give it more than a passing thought. These are the kind of things that happen when you are branded a liar and untrustworthy. Only FM knows the truth and we know that he will never tell.

Author

jada

Date

2006-04-17T10:49:36-06:00

ID

72027

Comment

I must admit Jada I wondered when Frank first announced his intentions to run for mayor what kind of man could brazenly think he could take on such job within government and bring about prompt and enduring change without having to go through the red tape that everyone else has to. I know then he was either brillant or crazy. I haven't seen any evidence or brillance or arguably much reflecting good average intelligence. I have seen plenty that makes me wonder if he's crazy though. I think Todd is probably right about why the top brass at the police department follows along on the crime rides. There is no way either could sleep knowing Frank is in the streets with all those guns and Frank's strange and peculiar mindset.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-04-17T11:07:05-06:00

ID

72028

Comment

I meant evidence of brillance.

Author

Ray Carter

Date

2006-04-17T11:08:12-06:00

ID

72029

Comment

Good point Jada. Street talk does have a lot of merit sometimes. The only problem is that people are not too quick to speak except in tight circles. It has been long rumored about Frank's ties with the criminal element. I think that he (Frank) is brilliantly crazy. It would be far fetched to offer an opinion that Frank had planned for this to happen this way all along, but if you look at the issues closely that might be very close to being very true. We all know that arresting low level criminals don't solve much. The big fish can always get more "foot soldiers". The key to solving problems can be paraphrased by saying "kill the head and the body will take care of itself".

Author

lance

Date

2006-04-17T14:33:39-06:00