Jackson Free Press

Sept. 12, 2006

About 8:30 the evening of Aug. 26, residents of Ridgeway Street in the Virden Addition saw the Mobile Command Center roll up in front of Evans "Bubba" Welch's duplex, near the corner of Mill Street. Mayor Frank Melton and his two bodyguards, witnesses say, emerged from the blue-and-white RV, and one broke down Welch's back door.

Melton was carrying a "Walking Tall"-esque stick, they say—not a surprise since he likes to think of himself as a "black Buford Pusser"; he even wrote his thesis on the famous Tennessee sheriff of the 1960s who used a big stick to break up clubs and bars run by the infamous Dixie Mafia. Melton's stick was about 4 feet long, and 4 inches in diameter, they say; one end was wrapped with black electrical tape.

Welch, a diagnosed schizophrenic with a history of mostly petty crimes, came out of the house and sat on the front steps, witnesses say. The mayor immediately started swinging the club, breaking the windows on the front and the sides of the house, then went inside to continue the job. They say he cut his hand trying to knock out remaining glass shards from one of the windows. Witnesses could hear Melton's bodyguards talking about needing to take him to the University Medical Center. The MCC left, but returned in about an hour.

This time the mayor had help. Several young men emerged from the MCC with sledgehammers, going into the left side of the turquoise duplex and knocking holes in the wall, destroying furniture, and pouring paint all over the kitchen. And at some point in the second round of destruction, the façade of the house was either pulled, or fell, to the ground, leaving the front a gaping window into a home with few-if-any possessions or walls intact.

This time, the entourage arrested Welch for contempt of court and possession of paraphernalia, according to court records, which show no drug arrests that evening.

One witness, who asked not to be identified, was in Welch's home days before to borrow a pan. She remembers an intact home, a TV in working order, a wall with no holes, a stove not covered with white paint.

'Shot and Cut'
In media interviews after the Jackson Free Press broke this story on Sept. 1, Melton claimed that Welch, arrested on misdemeanor charges and still held without bond in the Hinds County Detention Center, had drug paraphernalia in the house. And an administration that has to have public crime statistics pried from their tight fists released Welch's arrest record to media—which have ominously reported that Welch has been arrested 18 times with 38 charges. The JFP could confirm about two dozen charges—for non-violent crimes such as several incidents of shoplifting (2004), possession of paraphernalia (2005), business burglary (1993) and violating open container laws (2003). He has only one count of marijuana possession and another for cocaine possession (in 2005). He has never been charged with possession with intent to distribute any drug. His most violent arrest was for domestic violence and resisting arrest in 2001. He had several contempt of court cites for not showing up for court dates. (See full list at jacksonfreepress.com.)

The media haven't reported that Evans Welch is a diagnosed schizophrenic with a history of severe depression who cannot afford medication or treatment for any significant period of time. The Hinds County Chancery Court ordered him committed for treatment to the Mississippi State Hospital after his last conviction—for business burglary in 1999—where he spent two months, according to his commitment file that the Jackson Free Press obtained from the chancery court.

District Attorney Faye Peterson says the 45-year-old man belongs in a mental institution, not in jail.

"A lot of the offenses that he committed were petty offenses, the kind typically committed by mentally ill people. I would suspect that his drug use is a way of self-medicating himself and his illness. I'm not seeing any indicators, in his record and knowing his mental condition, indicating that he was a drug distributor," Peterson says.

"He's mentally unstable, and prison doesn't necessarily cure mental illnesses … if we had more crisis intervention centers working with and monitoring people like this, it would be a good thing," she says, adding that his file suggests he is easily manipulated.

In Welch's Aug. 23, 1999, application for commitment, his mother Louvenia Welch stated that her son was mentally ill and stayed in bed most of the time. "He is easily agitated; he constantly uses abusive language and make verbal threats; he has been shot and cut several times and in jail on a constant basic; he is a danger to himself and other peoples. He cannot take care for himself. (sic)"

Her application said the family could not afford the $287 court cost for the commitment proceeding.

An evaluation screening form in the file also showed that Welch had been admitted for psychiatric care several times from 1994 to 1996 at St. Dominic's, University Medical Center and Baptist Hospital, and that he was "not taking—can't afford" his current medication for schizophrenia. It stated that he was "not sleeping, thinking things that are not true." He denied drug abuse, but admitted drinking beer and whisky excessively "to help him sleep." He also showed signs of paranoia and had "tactile hallucinationsԗthinking that things were crawling on him.

'He Had a Mind Problem'
Welch, born Nov. 28, 1960, started getting in trouble as a child, says his 71-year-old mother, Louvenia Welch. She and his father, Willie, describe a troubled young boy frustrated by his inability to keep up with his peers.

"He was always a sad little boy," she says. "He had a mind problem, and folks around him always took advantage of him. I remember when he was 8 or 9, and some strangers carried him off for days using him to sell sweet potatoes, and I didn't know where my boy was. People have always used him like that."

Welch's frustration sometimes manifested in irascible behavior. His commitment application describes a boy with a tendency to destroy school property, "defiance of authority and rules," and who was "kicked out of school because of bad behavior, fighting, disobeying rules." A young Welch was first "arrested" in 7th grade for "trying to steal pickles and cookies." He soon dropped out of school.

Welch says her son's arrest record is misleading, pointing out that his actions weren't violent. Even with the "domestic violence" charge, she had called the police to help her with one of her son's episodes, and it was logged as such.

Welch also has served time in Parchman for parole violations—he has a tendency to wander and forget—and he's also carried a sharp tongue against authority into adulthood, where it likely met Melton on Aug. 27.

The mother said her son's inability to judge character has gotten him in trouble repeatedly—and probably did at his $160-a-month rental home that nightmarish night on Ridgeway. "He thinks he's got friends, but they ain't his friends. They (drug dealers) just use him to death. Even when he was in jail (in 1999), they were using his house," she says.

Pearl resident Minnie Rhodes, who owned and ran the property before selling it to its new owner Jennifer Sutton less than three years ago, had Welch as a tenant at that time. She said it is not unlikely that Welch was using drugs and boarding other drug users.

"I wasn't around him enough to make an assessment, but his mother told me that when she visited him she had seen people leave the house when she would go up to the door, and she said, 'Ms. Rhodes, you know my son is not right mentally, and he's easily led, and if there's any drug dealers in the area they can sway him and use him.' I said, 'I think that's exactly what's happened.' But whether it's him or my cousin or whoever, if he's breaking the law the police have a right to take them in, but the house didn't do anything. Why tear it up?"

The House Clifton Built
Minnie Rhodes comes with her own storied history involving the property. She says her deceased husband, Clifton Rhodes, built the now shattered house and its neighboring building "with his bare hands" in 1962.

"At that time, Virden Addition was just another suburb," says Rhodes, who with her husband owned more than 100 units of property throughout the Jackson area during the 1970s. "Those two houses on Ridgeway. There was nothing there. Just a shell. He built those houses from the ground up."

Rhodes lost her husband to prostate cancer in 2003 and still aches for Clifton. With no living relatives in Jackson beyond a daughter, she finds herself eyeing her husband's old handiwork on Ridgeway Street with a ferocious air of protectiveness.

"I know I sold the property, but it's something my husband built. It's a piece of him and his work, and that man loved his work," says Rhodes, who considers the recent damage an attack on her husband's memory.

"My husband dedicated long hours and love to that little house, and when he (Melton) tore it up, I went over there and saw that overhang out in the yard and, I tell you, there was no way to describe it. Clifton had built that, and now it was all torn open. I know to Frank Melton it was just a house, but to me it was more than that," she says.

Rhodes easily recalls the years when she was a great fan of Melton's brash, outspoken behavior. Melton came off as a slapdash doer, and Rhodes says she respected that about him.
"When he was on (WLBT's) 'Bottom Line,' I'd stay up late, even if I had to get up next morning, just to hear him. I was one of his biggest fans, and when he was elected mayor of the city of Jackson, I just jumped up and down. I felt like celebrating. I was behind him 100 percent. But I've watched him closely, and to me he's just getting deeper and deeper and deeper into having no respect for the law," Rhodes says. "It's sad that he's hurt so many people."

The home's new owner Jennifer Sutton is a single mom who Rhodes describes as "never having missed a payment." Rhodes says Sutton has regularly paid over the monthly price and was three-quarters of the way through her total payments when Melton allegedly struck.

Rhodes says Sutton is working in an industry that is not kind to women.

"Being a landlord in her part of town is no job for a woman," Rhodes says. "Not these days. These days drugs are making the job dangerous, so I have to admire Jennifer's will."

Sutton, who works full time in the health industry, agreed that it wasn't easy keeping property up while working full time.

"I work most of the time, and I can't say I'm around to watch things 24 hours a day, but I believe my houses are clean," she says. "I do what I can to keep them up and keep drugs out of them, but I can't watch them all the time."

Sutton lives only a few streets away from the Ridgeway property, in a home overhanging the Livingston Road railroad tracks. It is a house inundated with houseplants and buried beneath the shade of large oak trees.

The landlord said she went into the real-estate business in the hopes of helping make ends meet, and explains that profits are slim in a high-upkeep neighborhood like Ridgeway. She faces a very unique new setback now: home insurance in her neighborhood does not cover city officials with sledgehammers.

"You can't get insurance on property like this," Sutton said. "You have to have liability in case somebody's hurt, but you can't get insurance on something like this. It'll cost so much it'll eat whatever profit you make."

No Thanks, Frank
Sutton said Melton has since offered to pay for the damage himself. City employee and Melton sidekick Stephanie Parker-Weaver has been spotted on the property with what witnesses describe as a private contractor, possibly making an assessment of the repair costs.

But Sutton said she has no need of Melton's generosity at this point, believing that a civil suit is more fitting for the situation. Her attorney Dennis Sweet III has locked antlers with the mayor in the past, including in a lawsuit involving a child's drowning at Melton's YMCA on Farish Street, for which Melton paid a hefty out-of-court settlement.

Rhodes expects that a suit against the mayor will be successful—especially since Melton made a point to gather as many witnesses as possible to the Aug. 27 demolition.

D.A. Peterson says that if the accusations are true, Melton could be charged with up to three felonies—from malicious mischief, to helping a minor to commit a felony, to conspiracy—carrying up to $10,000 in fines and 20 years in prison. Regardless of whether charges are pressed, he can take it directly to a grand jury; the next one convenes in October.

Attorney General Jim Hood is also investigating the Ridgeway Street violence; his investigators were on the street over the last week gathering detailed eyewitness accounts, according to neighborhood residents.

Hood issued a letter of warning to the mayor earlier this year regarding Melton's impersonation of a police officer and his tendency to carry guns where firearms are restricted, warning that "you will be prosecuted" if Melton were to violate a Mississippi law.

The question now may well not be "if," but "when?"

_________

Evans Welch's criminal charges

8/27/06
Contempt of Court
Possession of Paraphernalia

6/1/05
Possession of Paraphernalia

11/1/05
Possession of Cocaine
Possession of Marijuana

09/08/04
Contempt of Court
False Pretense

8/30/04
Shoplifting
False Pretense

3/13/04
Shoplifting
False Pretense

8/19/03
Contempt of Court

4/15/03
Violation of traffic ordinance
Open Container

12/18/01
Domestic Violence (called in by parents)
Resisting Arrest

10/31/00
Contempt of Court

2/8/00
Trespassing

4/22/98
Violation of Probation

2/26/98
Violation of Probation
House Burglary

5/30/97
Violation of Probation

01/08/95
Contempt of Court
Disorderly Conduct
Shoptlifting

9/16/93
Shoplifting

5/26/93
Business Burglary (2 counts)

Note: Authorities tell us that some of these charges may be repeats of the same charge.

Previous Commentsshow

Nice pic!

pikersam

Sep 12 2006

JFP, I could just cry! I will NEVER again trust a media source before YOU. You have been, and I have NO doubt, will continue to be, the front runner in bringing this story to the public. Thank goodness for your honest, hard hitting and fearless coverage! It makes a world of difference!! I was soo afraid that this story was going to be ignored. I called the CL the Mon after the sledgehammering. My father called for 3 days after that with updates. I emailed TV news, but it wasn't until the JFP broke the story, that the rest of the media took notice. I have NO doubt that there are reporters in the media that would have jumped on this story sooner if they'd been given the 'go ahead'. News managers need to read their emails from the general public, and take their 'tips' seriously. I know it must be a difficult job, but this 'tip' seems to me to have been to have been too dangerous to be taken with 'a grain of salt'. Thanks JFP!!! YOU ROCK!!!!!!!

JAR

Sep 13 2006

Truly tragic.

Rob

Sep 13 2006

Now that's TRUE AND REAL investigative reporting! Thanks again JFP. You've probably done more to save the city of Jackson than you may realize.

Joerob

Sep 13 2006

Great job Donna and Adam. The interview too, Adam. If Kenny, Blunson, and Tillman can read these stories and still support Pimping; then, I give up on them.

Ray Carter

Sep 13 2006

The following is from the CL "In the early morning of Aug. 27, Melton and the young men later turned up at The Upper Level Bar & Grill, and several of them allegedly tussled with the nightclub's manager." I find the use of the word "tussled" to be quite odd indeed. My kittens have been known to tussle with each other in the laundry basket. My kids tussle with each other in the yard. But during their tussles, I've never witnessed one my children (or my kittens) being assaulted while in handcuffs. The CL qoute makes it sound like Melton's young thugs and the manager of the Upper Level had a friendly pillow fight while they were waiting for their hot coco to cool off. I suppose the next report will be about Melton "tinkering with the structure" of Evan Welch's house.

BelhavenResident

Sep 13 2006

Agreed, BelhavenResident. I'm a stickler for language, and I really, really hate these meaningless words that a lot of mediocre news stories use. What's really bad about them is how they hide bias ... or the plain truth ... way too often. Ironically, so-called "objective" reporting is rife with words and phrases that influence the reader. This is a big lesson in media literacy—that is, getting readers to question what they're reading in a more sophisticated way. Doing so is vital to the maintenance of our democracy. Not to be dramatic. ;-)

DonnaLadd

Sep 13 2006

Note that I have added the list of Evans' charges right under the above story, so scroll up to see them.

DonnaLadd

Sep 13 2006

Adam and Donna, Great Story!!! This is the kind of reporting that this community deserved and needed for many many years. The CL is so busy putting a spin on everythin that you can not tell the truth from a lie. They (CL) have entirely too many political irons in the fire and it is a fact that they seemingly set out to destroy.

justjess

Sep 13 2006

All, here are more explanation of Evans Welch's arrest record. As it was explained to me by authorities, his last felony conviction was in 1995 for business burglary. He pled guilty and got seven years, and a mental evaluation was ordered. In 1998, he violated his probation and was given two more years on the business burglary charge. There was much concern about his mental state, including from arresting officers, and he could not get the help and services he needed at the Hinds County Detention Center, so he was put on a waiting list for the Mississippi State Hospital; it would be two months before he could get a bed there. I hope this clears up any confusion that may be circulated about what he's been charged with and when. I'll provide more info as I get it.

DonnaLadd

Sep 13 2006

Check out this Associated Press story today; "partial destruction"? I wonder if the reporter bothered to go to Ridgeway Street and see this disaster site for herself: Melton, a brash former television executive, is under scrutiny for alleged abuse of power, including his possible role in the alleged beating of a nightclub manager and the partial destruction of a duplex in a city neighborhood.

DonnaLadd

Sep 13 2006

hinds county landroll query has that property parcel 421-330 as being built in 1950... just another detail that may deserve looking into. maybe a good story on how bad our local record keepers are?:)

guywithanidea

Sep 13 2006

It seems that The Clarion-Ledger finally got hold of Evans Welch's commitment file, and reported that he was schrizophrenic -- nearly two weeks after Adam's story above. Why the delay? Nothing new in the story that I could find, except it had Frank Bluntson contradicting himself about the "crackhouse." But it is good that the Ledge decided to tell its readers about this vital detail. No interviews with Welch himself, though.

DonnaLadd

Sep 25 2006

Here is a pretty interesting story in today's WSJ on how police are training for dealing with Schizophrenics. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115923660989073902.html?mod=hps_us_pageone if link don't work, say so and I'll do a cut and paste job.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

You have to be a member. Can you post some money quotes (no more than a quarter of the article, though)?

DonnaLadd

Sep 26 2006

With 'Reality Visors,' Officers Try New Tack To Face Mentally Ill In Sensitivity Classes, Police Get Taste of Schizophrenia; Asking, 'Have You Eaten?' By GARY FIELDS September 26, 2006; Page A1 MESA, Ariz. -- The black visor wrapped around police officer Johnny Lopez's head made him look like a comic-strip character. As he peered at a computer screen, he felt his brain filling with murmurs and whispers calling him worthless and crazy. "They're after you," said one voice. Hallucinations flitted in and out of his line of sight. Mr. Lopez and a group of 30 police officers from the Phoenix area were undergoing a simulated schizophrenic episode. It lasted just five minutes, but the officers were clearly relieved when it was over. One officer ripped off the headset broadcasting the voices. "This would drive me crazy," said Sgt. Barbara Alexander, "if I had to listen to it all the time." HARROWING BUS RIDE The officers' taste of psychosis was supposed to give them new perspective on an increasingly common part of their work -- dealing with mentally ill people on the streets. The problem follows the shuttering of state-run mental-health facilities a generation ago. Prisons helped pick up the slack. The Justice Department estimates that about 330,000 of the nation's 2.2 million inmates are mentally ill. When released, they usually end up back in prison, in part because of a lack of outside treatment options. Traditional police training runs counter to the tactics sometimes needed in encounters with sick people. Young recruits in police academies, for instance, are taught to take immediate command of unstable situations by shock and awe, issuing loud commands. Mentally ill patients often react adversely to that. A Los Angeles study found that between 1994 and 1999, officers there shot 37 people during encounters with the mentally ill, killing 25. Now, hundreds of police departments nationwide are trying to change their approach. In San Diego, officers are paired with mental-health professionals on some calls. In Arlington, Texas, all patrol officers and new recruits are given training that ranges from identifying symptoms to knowing what services are available. Some departments direct calls that appear to involve mentally ill people to officers with special training. The training began here in 2001 and was patterned after a program created in Memphis, Tenn., following the fatal shooting there of a mental patient by local police. Five years later, about 1,000 officers have been trained, and now even 911 dispatchers and some detention officers are getting some instruction. The program here is one of the largest in the country. Gary Fields Training for Phoenix police officers includes using sensory visors to experience symptoms of schizophrenia, tackling written tasks while listening to multiple voices, and taking part in symptom identification exercises.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

In Mesa, officers learn to use softer, more conversational language less likely to agitate someone who is mentally ill. They also learn about psychiatric disorders and listen to firsthand accounts from mentally ill patients. A student at Arizona State University told the officers he had heard voices "every waking moment" for nearly 10 years. "It wasn't about the weather. They say your life's not worth living, kill yourself," said the student who asked not to be named. "The voices told me to kill a friend once. I told him. It made him nervous." The student was quickly peppered with questions. "What words really piss you off?" asked Phoenix police Lt. Mark Hafkey, echoing the thoughts of other officers there. "Nutcase," responded the college student. "I had an officer call me that." He added that while he was suffering a breakdown, trying to use physical force with him would only escalate a situation. Questions that make him focus his attention are best. " 'Have you eaten? Have you seen a case manager? Are you on medication?' Those questions bring me back to reality," he said. Two of the officers instructing the classes, Nick Margiotta and David Beauchamp, went on patrol later that evening through Phoenix neighborhoods with a high concentration of homeless residents, some of them mentally ill. Both men do much of the outreach for the program. Over the next several hours, they patrolled areas and conducted home visits with a number of mentally ill residents to make sure that they were attending therapy sessions, getting medical care and taking their medication. They urged the homeless mentally ill to move to shelters and voluntarily accept help for their illnesses. Because there is little bed space for the mentally ill outside prisons, the two officers see the stops as pre-emptive visits to head off potential crimes. They even drive some patients to doctors' visits. Mental-health advocates like to see officers involved but worry that governments are shifting the responsibility for caring for mentally ill people to the criminal-justice system. Police officers are also wary of their new role. "Doctors, lawyers and now mental health professionals -- they want us to be everything," says Chuck Canterbury, the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents more than 300,000 street level officers. He supports the training but cautions that the public "cannot expect or anticipate law enforcement will be mental health professionals." The training shouldn't change how police react when confronted with life-threatening situations, he added.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

The first visit of the night was with a regular who frequents places near the airport, including a bank where he has parked five grocery carts of trash and trinkets. Wheelchair-bound because of a leg infection, he tried to outrun the patrol car when he spotted the officers, until Officer Beauchamp got out. The officer had tried several times to get the man into a shelter, but he refuses because he doesn't want to give up the grocery carts and one of his prized possessions, a 20-year-old stuffed animal. Later, they ran across another of their former contacts, a schizophrenic pushing a grocery cart. He became agitated when he heard one of the officers describe him as homeless. He has in fact been homeless for 27 years and said, "I don't want to be off the street." Phoenix police officer David Beauchamp urges a mentally ill homeless man to seek medical help and stay at a shelter. Normally officers stay together in a show of force, but here Mr. Margiotta stayed several feet away, but within sight so the man wouldn't feel overwhelmed. At another stop, the officers spotted an emaciated man sleeping on a grate behind an electrical-supply business. Mr. Margiotta hung back while his partner approached the man gingerly and talked to him softly. "Hey, we're not here to cause you any problems. We're just checking on you. You alright?" he asked. Both officers noticed that the man had begun twitching and hitting his leg -- a sign, Mr. Beauchamp said, of mental illness and stress. "He's calibrating himself, doing that to keep himself on an even keel. We're making him uncomfortable." His partner took a step back, giving the man more space and assessed his situation. Both realized the big toes on each of his feet were gone, probably the result of diabetes. It was difficult for him to walk. He carried no ID, but said his name was Smith. He said he was 30 but appeared to be in his fifties or sixties. Not once during the 20-minute encounter did he look at either officer, even as they reassured him repeatedly that he had done nothing wrong. Because the man wasn't suspected of a crime and didn't appear to be an immediate danger to himself or others, the police couldn't take him into custody or order him to get a psychological assessment. The man reluctantly agreed to cooperate with social service and mental health groups if the officers contacted the organizations. Write to Gary Fields at [email]gary.fields@wsj.com[/email] from Wall Street Journal. front page, 9/26/06

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

Why use "softer, more conversational language" when you can go around swinging a big-a$$ stick? Thanks for the these postings, Kingfish.

DonnaLadd

Sep 26 2006

Also, is this no more than a quarter of the full WSJ article? Be sure you're not violating fair-use here, please.

DonnaLadd

Sep 26 2006

There was also alot of multimedia stuff with it and a link you could click on that would give you a simulation of the training in the visor itself. I could've posted more.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

The question is: You did not post more than a quarter of the text of the article itself, right? If so, I need to delete part of what you posted. It has nothing to do with multimedia.

DonnaLadd

Sep 26 2006

no. there was more to it I could've posted. I included the cites at the beginning and end of post though to be safe.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006

Now, after reading that, i'd like to know how our police handle such individuals and are trained for it. It validates alot of what Ali and others have written on here and also ties in to the panhandling issue. I won't get into THAT discussion here but this one had several applications to different discussions we've had here.

Kingfish

Sep 26 2006