Jackson Free Press

There's never a slow news week in Jackson, Miss., and last week was no exception. Here are the local stories JFP reporters brought you in case you missed them:

1. Rep. Alyce Clarke, D-Jackson, offered an amendment to establish equal pay for men and women working for any kind of employer in Mississippi, public or private. The amendment passed by a bi-partisan vote, but the future of the bill its in is in jeopardy.
2. Ward 4 Councilman De'Keither Stamps proposed a change to Jackson's ordinances that would decriminalize possession of user-level amounts of marijuana.
3. Lawmakers filed thousands of bills in the 2018 legislative session, and now just hundreds are left for the Senate and House to debate in coming days.
4. Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba wants to develop a contract compliance office to oversee City contracts.
5. Sandy Middleton, executive director of the Center for Violence Prevention in Pearl, wants specialized services for child victims of trafficking and more law-enforcement training.
6. On Friday, Jan. 26, nine local law enforcement officers who work in Hinds County graduated from week-long mental-health training to help them on the job.
7. Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba says the City of Jackson will not back down from its anti-profiling ordinance, which the U.S. Justice Department, under Jeff Sessions’ lead, has taken issue with.
8. Last week, two Jackson police officers shot at 21-year-old Crystaline Barnes during a traffic stop in response to a report that Barnes may have forced another motorist off the roadway, but JPD is so far only providing vague information about the deadly incident as well as whether its use-of-force policy for moving vehicles meets national guidelines.
9. Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith’s domestic violence trial has been delayed again, and will take place in March 2018 in Rankin County.
10. Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, wants school-board members to all be elected the same year in districts where boards are elected. His "Nonpartisan School Board Election Act" would make school-board elections the same year as statewide elections.

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