Jackson Free Press

Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Winston Kidd this evening issued a temporary restraining order for a state gun law that would have taken effect July 1.

The law amended an existing statute to clarify that carrying weapons in plain view without a permit is legal. At a press conference yesterday, Hinds County District Attorney Robert Smith said he would seek a temporary restraining order against the law.

Kidd heard arguments from opponents of the law as well as attorneys from the state. He set a July 8 hearing date to determine whether to extend the TRO.

If you're in Jackson tonight and you hear gunfire, don't worry.

It's not the sound of voter-ID proponents celebrating the dismantling of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

It's not the beginnings of the Republic of New Afrika's armed insurrection.

It's just members of the Jackson Police Department shooting guns. JPD will be testing new equipment that detects gunfire, WLBT reports.

The technology, called The Shot Spotter, senses whenever a gun is fired and notifies emergency personnel, who will respond to the shot.

Officers will test the system tonight at 7 p.m. with live rounds, but will not fire bullets into the air. Even if the system works, JPD encourages residents to continue reporting gunshots in their neighborhoods.

In a near unanimous 7-1 decision announced earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court decline to rule in Fisher v. University of Texas.

This summer, Hinds Community College will hold classes for people who want to finish their General Education Development (GED) high-school equivalency.

Jackson television station WLBT is reporting that JPD Chief Rebecca Coleman has resigned.

The 61-year-old Coleman has served as a JPD officer for 24 years.

Mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba said at a WAPT/Clarion-Ledger debate at Mississippi College's School of Law that, if elected, he would replace Coleman.

Coleman told WLBT her plans are to "take it easy for a while," do some traveling and volunteer work.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood's office sent out the following news release this afternoon:

Jackson, MS—A Hinds County resident has been arrested a second time for depraved heart murder, announced Attorney General Jim Hood today.

Tracey Lynn Garner (formerly known as Morris Garner), age 52, of Jackson was arrested Thursday (June 13) by Investigators with the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office Consumer Protection Division Intellectual Property Task Force, with assistance from investigators with the Attorney General’s Cyber Crime Unit, and charged with one count of depraved heart murder.

Garner has been indicted in Hinds County on the recent charges involving the death of a Selma, Alabama resident while Garner was performing a buttocks augmentation. The indictment alleges that Garner, on or about January 13, 2010, “did kill Marilyn Hale…by means of injecting a silicone substance into the body of Marilyn Hale, thereby committing an act eminently dangerous to others and evincing a depraved heart.”

Garner was arrested at his home where he was under house arrest facing charges in another depraved heart murder case involving the death of Atlanta Georgia resident, Karima Gordon, who also allegedly received injections of a foreign and possible counterfeit substance during an illegal buttocks augmentation performed by Garner at his 1020 Peyton Avenue address in Jackson.

“Our intellectual property task force is involved in these cases to investigate the possibility that the substances injected into the victims were a counterfeit version of silicone,” said Attorney General Hood

The Attorney General encourages anyone who may have received a buttocks or breast augmentation from this defendant to please notify the AG’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-800-281-4418.

If convicted of these crimes, Garner faces up to life in prison. As with all cases, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The case is being investigated by Lee McDivitt and Richie McCluskey of the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division Intellectual Property Task Force. Prosecution of the case will handled by the division director, Assistant Attorney General Patrick Beasley.

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The East Mississippi Correction Facility, which recently became the subject of a class-action lawsuit, is getting a new warden.

Management and Training Corporation, the Utah-based private company that operates the prison for the Mississippi Department of Corrections, released the following statement:

EAST MISSISSIPPI CORRECTIONAL FACILITY WELCOMES NEW WARDEN

Jerry Buscher Named New Warden

June 13, 2013 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(MERIDIAN, Mississippi) – Management & Training Corporation (MTC) is pleased to announce Jerry Buscher has been named new warden of the East Mississippi Correctional Facility effective June 17, 2013.

Warden Buscher will replace Warden Frank Shaw. Mr. Buscher spent more than 25 years with the Illinois Department of Corrections, most recently serving as executive chief to the director. He also served as warden multiple times, regional deputy director, and operations security director.

“Warden Buscher brings decades of experience to East Mississippi,” said MTC Senior Vice President of Corrections Odie Washington. “We are confident he will continue the pattern of excellence established at the East Mississippi facility.”

Warden Frank Shaw will take over operations at the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility in Woodville, MS.

Mr. Washington added, “Warden Shaw has done an excellent job of creating a safe, secure, and clean facility. In the last 11 months alone, Warden Shaw and his staff were responsible for a 74 percent reduction in offender on offender violence and a 60 percent reduction in use-of-force incidents. He has been instrumental in making significant improvements at the facility since MTC first took over in July 2012.”

Also during Warden Shaw’s tenure at the East Mississippi facility, his team was responsible for developing 45 educational and vocational classes for inmates including Adult Basic Education, GED, literacy, anger management, life skills, computer technician, and facility maintenance. More than 700 offenders currently participate in these programs.

Mr. Washington said, “We know Warden Shaw will do an equally effective if not better job of operating the Wilkinson facility—that’s why we made the decision to relocate him.”

With the addition of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, which MTC will begin operating on July 1, 2013, MTC will partner with the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) in operating all four of its privately-run facilities.

“MDOC has been a tremendous partner. They have provided effective monitoring of these facilities and have been extremely supportive of MTC’s initiatives to enhance and improve the conditions at prisons,” said Mr. Washington.

MTC has also recently announced the addition of Vice President Marjorie Brown who will oversee MTC’s new Mississippi/Florida region which includes the following facilities:

East Mississippi Correctional Facility Walnut Grove Correctional Facility Marshall County Correctional Facility Wilkinson Correctional Facility Gadsden Correctional Facility (Quincy, FL)

Vice President Brown was most recently MTC’s senior medical director. Ms. Brown has an MBA, and has been in corrections for more than 34 years. She served in many leadership positions including deputy director of a major correctional system for nearly a decade, state administrator of MTC’s medical operations in Tennessee, and warden.

Mr. Washington said, “Marjorie will …

Construction to replace a 90-year-old water line and three feet of Yazoo clay began today on West Street between Woodrow Wilson Avenue and Marshall Street.

The construction has forced the close of both southbound lanes from Woodrow Wilson Avenue to Millsaps Avenue, and one northbound lane in the same area. The city is suggesting vehicles over 12 feet wide take another route. Traffic is being detoured to State Street.

West Street sidewalks are also closed from Woodrow Wilson to Millsaps Avenue. Those sidewalks will be replaced during the process, but are not safe while construction is going on.

Neighborhood streets near the construction zone could be subject to closure as well, as crews will need to replace the water lines at each street as they get to them.

A press release from the city says the closures are expected to last two or three months. Once the work on the southbound side of the street is completed, similar restrictions will be put in place for the northbound side of the street.

I got my hopes up today when I saw an item on a city council workshop meeting agenda about a tax increment financing (TIF) for a hotel project in downtown Jackson. We've heard rumors for weeks the city is close to a deal with a hotel management group to build and open a much-needed convention center hotel.

Unfortunately, this wasn't it.

The city council meeting didn't happen because there weren't four members present at 4 p.m., but mayor Harvey Johnson Jr. stuck around long enough to fill us in on that item.

"This is not the much-anticipated convention center hotel," Johnson said. "This is another much-anticipated hotel down on West Street at the site of the old Mississippi Valley Title building. ... It's a good project, it's an exciting project, but it's not the convention center hotel."

Westin Hotels has apparently bought the old MS Valley Title building, and plans on tearing it down to put in a hotel at the same location. Details on the plan are not available yet, but the agenda item to be voted on by the city council at tomorrow's regularly-scheduled 10 a.m. meeting calls for the city to provide tax incentives not to exceed $1.75 million to the hotel group.

The mayor added that they are in talks with a hotel group about the convention center hotel project, and that hopefully they would have something to say about that before the end of the month, which is his last day in office before mayor-elect Chokwe Lumumba takes office on July 1.

"We just need to figure out exactly what we need to do to make sure of what the city's portion of the deal would be, and try to get some indication from them that that proposal would be acceptable," Johnson said. "Then they can move ahead with some financing. At that point, we'll pass some kind of resolution of support or something along those lines."

Hopefully the city council will get a quorum tomorrow, because I'd sure like to hear more about the deal.

The city of Jackson hosts the Jackson Utility Management Project Jobs Fair Wednesday, June 12.

You know, Harvey Johnson told the JFP once that The Clarion-Ledger was still institutionally racist, and doesn't even know it, and they have done little—consistently, any way—over the years to prove that it's not true. After Lumumba's historic (whether you like him or not) win, THIS was the front-page news story this morning. And we can all be pretty positive that it wouldn't have been there had Johnson or Lee won the election.

Beyond the negative slant, it is filled with Eason's analysis of whether he thinks the mayors can get along with the emphasis on Lumumba. I went and looked at it because I saw a lot of people complaining about it on Facebook, and I see why. There is a good story to be done about regional cooperation, but this ain't it. And it's bad timing, to boot. The question I keep asking about their city reporter is: Does he have an editor!?!

Of course, if you scroll down and read the comments, you can see who such a piece is likely pandering to. Shudder.

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Gov. Phil Bryant stepped in it yesterday when he blamed working mothers with the challenges in education. Since then, we've seen people posting tributes to their working mothers on social media. We'd like to collect them here, as a tribute of sorts to the amazing women who have built America, both from the nursery and the workplace. Click below to read one of my tributes to my mother who had to work at factories to put food on the table while she helped me lift myself up however she could. She was remarkable, and I miss her dearly.

Please add your tributes below.

I guess it's no surprise that Gov. Phil Bryant told The Washington Post that education went to pot when women started entering the workplace: We're guessing he's a fan of FOX News, and they've been hawking that meme, Melanie Tannenbaum blogs at Scientific American. Even thought it's news to us who never look at FOX News, apparently they've been arguing this issue there of late, with a bunch of men blaming working mothers for behavioral and educational problems, even though serious research shows otherwise. Imagine.

Tannenbaum writes:

[W]hen looking at samples where the families were on welfare, children whose mothers worked while they were very young (1-3 years old) actually performed significantly better on measures of overall achievement and had significantly higher IQs , although there were no differences when it came to performance on formal achievement tests. On the contrary, when looking at samples where the families were not on welfare, there were no differences in overall achievement or IQ between the children whose mothers worked and did not work during their early childhood years, although higher SES children whose mothers worked while they were young actually did slightly worse on formal achievement tests.

What if we look at whether or not the child is coming from a single-parent household? Same story. Children who lived with single mothers performed better on measures of overall achievement and IQ if these single moms worked while the kids were very young. Children who lived in two-parent households, on the other hand, showed no differences in overall achievement or IQ, but did worse on formal achievement tests if their mothers had worked.

And what about behavioral problems, like externalizing behaviors (aggression or impulsivity) or internalizing behaviors (depression or anxiety)? After all, if lower-income children whose parents work outside the home have higher IQs but also have higher rates of depression and anxiety, that’s still a problem, right?

Sure, it would be a problem — if that were the case. But it’s not. Once again, the pattern is the same. Children who lived with single mothers who had worked outside of the home while the kids were very young actually exhibited significantly lower rates of overall behavior problems, significantly lower rates of aggression and impulsivity, and marginally lower rates of depression and anxiety. Children from two-parent households showed no such difference in overall behavior problems, aggression, or impulsivity, though they also showed lower rates of depression and anxiety. So, across the board, when mothers worked outside of the home where their babies were very young, it didn’t matter if they were single mothers or members of a two-parent household. Looking across a wide variety of racial and socioeconomic groups, studies either found no relation between employment and behavioral problems, or they found that children whose mothers worked while they were young actually had fewer behavioral problems and better academic outcomes than their counterparts whose mothers stayed at home.

The data keep telling the same story, no matter how you …

Verbatim statement, just in:

National Organization for Woman, Mississippi Insists Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant apologize for statements against working mothers

The Mississippi Chapter of the National Organization for Women condemns the comments Governor Phil Bryant made regarding working women and working families being the cause of education problems in Mississippi.

His statement places all responsibility on mothers and none on the state. It disregards the impact of racism and integration in the decline of Mississippi's historically underfunded schools. It conveniently takes away any responsibility from the Governor and his failure to focus on jobs, healthcare, states economy, and equal/adequate funding for schools.

Rather, the Governor and GOP-controlled House and Senate have been focused on abortion restrictions, guns, school prayer, and immigration.

The Governor is missing the economic reality of the lives of many Mississippians--where both parents have to work, they do not choose to work. Even if women are not economically forced to work, we have the right to make a career without being made scapegoats by state officials who are not doing all they can to create great schools.

If Governor Bryant is sincerely concerned about having a Mississippi where one parent can stay home-if they choose-then we urge him to focus on statewide policies that make that possible. We encourage him to support policies like state-funded childcare so families can afford to have one person work. We encourage him to support raising the minimum wage, so one job/one parent can support a family. Lastly we encourage him to support medicaid expansion because healthy kids are able to learn better and kids need healthy parents.

Policies like these matter just as much if not more than if a child's mother has a job. Governor Bryant you can not blame Mississippi mothers for the state not doing its job.

The campaign to elect Chokwe Lumumba as Jackson's next mayor just posted a video of rapper Ludacris endorsing Lumumba for mayor and urging Jacksonians to vote today.

You can see the video here.

The secret, underground Quentin Whitwell write-in campaign could be doomed if they don't get an emergency endorsement from Chingy in the next hour.

Yes, he did. The Washington Post is reporting that our esteemed governor, Phil Bryant, blamed working mothers for the problems in the education system:

Bryant was participating in a Washington Post Live event focused on the importance of ensuring that children read well by the end of third grade. In response to a question about how America became “so mediocre” in regard to educational outcomes, he said:

"I think both parents started working. The mom got in the work place."

Bryant immediately recognized how controversial his remark would be and said he knew he would start to get e-mails. He then expanded on his answer, saying that “both parents are so pressured” in families today. He also noted that America seemed to be losing ground internationally in regards to educational outcomes because other nations began to invest more in their own school systems and make progress.

And folks are worried about Chokwe Lumumba's views.