The person in charge of rooting out corruption inside the Hinds County Sheriff's Department is Marcus Wright, a former Jackson police officer and bodyguard to late Jackson Mayor Frank Melton.
WAPT reported this morning that Wright will head the department's Internal Affairs division.
If Wright's name sounds familiar, it's because in August 2006, then-Mayor Melton, Wright, another bodyguard, Michael Recio and a group of young men went to a house on Ridgeway Street and cleared the home's occupants at gunpoint. The crew proceeded to destroy the duplex's facade and interior fixtures with sledgehammers, neighbors told the Jackson Free Press, which broke the story.
Melton claimed later that the duplex was a drug house, and he and the bodyguards beat state charges for the incident in 2007.
Wright eventually testified against Recio and Melton, who died in 2009, and pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor conspiracy in a different trial. He received a $500 fine, and a judge sentenced him to a year of probation, during which he could not work in law enforcement.
Reached by phone this morning, sheriff's department spokesman Capt. Joseph Daughtry said the department isn't commenting on personnel issues.
Daughtry, who said Wright would not be a high-ranking member of Sheriff Tyrone Lewis' administration, seemed irritated by the attention the appointment was receiving from the media and questions about Wright's ties to Melton.
"Frank (Melton) is dead," Daughtry told the Jackson Free Press. The WAPT report included an interview with District 5 Supervisor Kenneth Stokes, who defended the duplex destruction.
"A lot of times you want to give people a second chance," Stokes told the TV station. "I'm hoping that the sheriff is giving Marcus that second chance, and that it will be used in a positive manner."
Jackson City Councilman Chokwe Lumumba, a frequent Melton critic, hadn't heard about Wright's hiring until a reporter contacted him this morning. Although he believes Melton and his bodyguards acted inappropriately in demolishing the Ridgeway home and for their role in shutting down the Upper Level nightclub in Feb. 2007, he isn't going to second-guess Lewis, whose candidacy Lumumba supported.
"I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt," Lumumba said.
Read the Jackson Free Press' Frank Melton coverage here: http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/index.php/melton/
View a gallery of the duplex destruction here.
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