Jackson Free Press

Last issue, the Jackson Free Press told you about SafeCity's attempt to make parts of the city into what one JFP reader called on our Web site, "Baghdad by the Pearl." The "watchdog" group wanted to create some sort of bizarre, gerrymandered "green zone" situation that, essentially, would have allowed the Mississippi Highway Patrol and Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith (who is also a state employee) to run our law enforcement.

Predictably, Sheriff-Chief Malcolm McMillin said "no way," as he explained in the last JFP (while, in only the way he can, offering to deputize highway patrolmen if they'd just volunteer).

The language of the original bill—and then a reworked version offered when the first one got out—was stupid, racist and unconstitutional. It was filled with the kind of hubris that Mayor Frank Melton has displayed when he has indicated that the U.S. Constitution doesn't apply to him because he has devoted his life to Jackson, blah, blah, blah. It's truly remarkable to think that SafeCity thought they had the right to write a bill that would punish crimes in certain parts of the city—the white, businessy parts with Jackson State thrown in to throw off the Jim Crow look of the thing, we'd guess—more severely than in other parts. And these guys thought they had the right to tell judges how they could sentence and put people on probation for crimes in those areas.

Sound like Frank Melton, anyone? Remember his vows to tell the judges how to do their jobs?

We're not implying that Frank Melton wrote this bill, but the mindset that elected Melton to supposedly scare all the "thugs" out of Jackson in 90 days did. These are naive people who see no problem dividing the city into "us" and "them," and who name organizations stuff like OurNeighborhood, implying that they are more about building walls than tearing them down. They believe that waving a big gun around, or getting a rural legislator to sneak a bill through the Legislature without talking to Jackson leaders about it, is somehow going to make their city "safer."

And they somehow believe that scaring the dickens out of potential businesses and running people and the tax base off by turning the city into a police state—a la Melton's ridiculous "state of emergency" ploy of 2005—is going to help the city thrive and solve our problems.

Uh, attitudes like that caused them in the first place.

Since the SafeCity scheme went public, members like to change the subject and have not issued a public apology. Instead, the group's leader blamed the short legislative session and vowed to try again next year. They should be warned, though: The troops are gathering against their divisiveness. It's time to let it go.

Previous Comments

ID

76267

Comment

They are even madder that their choice for Chief of Police - McMillin isn't going to play into their crummy politics like they thought he would when they worked behind the scenes to get him in as Chief. LOL! How they expected a man of integrity to throw out the rules, and the Constitution, for their narrow minded agenda is beyond me? How much you want to bet that the money raised from this years Bite Out of Crime goes to one of the "other" Metro area law enforcement departments over anything for Jackson!

Author

pikersam

Date

2008-03-05T19:01:00-06:00