NEWS

New player introduced in Jackson's fight against crime

Therese Apel
The Clarion-Ledger

On Thursday, the day Jackson hit 55 homicides for 2016, the capital city's top cop introduced a man who will play a major role in the fight against crime for the next two years.

Dan Isom spent four years as the chief of police in St. Louis, and will now serve as a liaison to the city from the Department of Justice's  Violence Reduction Network. The network provides resources and funding to help reduce violent crime in partnered cities.

The VRN program was established two years ago to leverage resources and provide a hands-on approach in cities where the level of violence exceeds the national average.

A website called "24/7 Wall Street" just released a list of top cities in America by 2015 homicide rate per capita and ranks Jackson at number 6. Its information is said to be based on the most recent FBI Uniform Crime Report. It lists Jackson as having 53 homicides in 2015, but JPD stats say there were 58 homicides in the capital city last year. That was still a drop from 2014, in which the city had 68 homicides. However, with roughly 170,500 people in the city, that's around 34 for every 100,000 people.

Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance and Mayor Tony Yarber went to Little Rock, Arkansas, earlier this fall to learn more about the program and to hear U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch make the formal announcement that Jackson had been accepted into the program.

"About an hour ago, we had a crime scene where someone was shot and killed and another individual who was shot and wounded, and so we acknowledge and we have acknowledged that for a city our size our violent crime numbers are too high," Vance said Thursday. "This administration is committed to finding every possible solution we can to save lives and persuade individuals in our city to find other ways to resolve conflict than gun violence."

BACKGROUND: Jackson lands federal money to halt violent crime

Isom said he's met with city officials, been on ride alongs and is continuing to learn of the concerns and needs of JPD. His job will be to help JPD navigate resources available through the federal government to help fight crime.

"It could be training, technical assistance," Isom said. "We talked about grant writing, a number of different areas we think at least at this point we might be able to help with."

Isom said many communities across the U.S. are struggling with violent crime.

"What we're here to do is to see how we can help change that trend," he said. "When I looked at crime statistics in Jackson, in most of the areas, crime is down significantly, so they're doing a tremendous job in reducing crime. It's always very challenging to reduce violent crimes, person crimes, homicides and shootings, so we believe that if we can look at what Jackson is doing and the various resources the federal government can provide, maybe we can provide the extra boost that will start to reduce that trend."

Officials said the program has been underway in Jackson since this summer, though they didn't publicize it until the formal announcement was made. Isom said Jackson city leaders have been very supportive of the program, and Yarber was one of a very few mayors who attended the summit in Little Rock.

"There's been 100 percent cooperation from what we've seen," he said. "To me it appears everyone is at the table from local to state to federal government."

OTHER JPD NEWS

Also taken into consideration in selecting the cities for the VRN is the city's willingness to participate. Vance said Jackson owes its selection in a large part to Greg Davis, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, who he said went to the attorney general's office  to secure a commitment to send help to Jackson.

Vance said some of the cities that were already involved in the program told summit attendees in Little Rock how much the program has helped their police departments.

"There aren't any magic bullets, but what I want the citizens of this city to know is that we're going to pull out all the stops. We're going to do everything we can to minimize the amount of people that get shot and killed in this city and this is certainly a boost to what we've already been doing," Vance said.

"The testimonies of the communities and the chiefs involved in the program have said it had an impact on their police departments, that they have seen changes within their police departments and some have seen changes in crime," Isom said.

Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Former St. Louis Police Chief Daniel Isom will be Jackson's liaison to the Violence Reduction Network for the next two years.