Jackson hits 68 homicides in 2016, a 10-year high
Jackson Police Chief Lee Vance has said the same thing over and over: He's tired of people who can't settle their differences politely making his city look bad.
After 2016 ended with 68 homicides on the books, Vance said it again.
"We still have the same problem we've had in recent years as it relates to homicides. Fortunately, we have very few random shootings, but it comes down to a lack of conflict resolutions on behalf of too many of our residents," he said. "Everyone's got a gun and too many of the people that have them are not afraid to use them to settle disputes, so therefore, until we make improvement on conflict resolution, I'm not sure how this is going to be."
It's a senseless way for people to lose their lives, Vance said, to be shot over an argument or a disagreement.
"People are leaving loved ones behind who are grieving," he said. "And it’s casting a bad shadow over the city and over our efforts to make it safer. Although the average person doesn’t have a great chance above a normal set of circumstances of walking outside and getting shot, when you have so many it gives that appearance that this is not a safe city. Any way you look at it, it’s a terrible set of circumstances for us to have to deal with."
Jackson's 68 homicides in 2016 ties 2014 for the most in more than a decade. Vance said the high number is not because police aren't searching for ways to stop violent crime, which is down in almost every other category. Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics Director John Dowdy said he's met with Vance about how their agencies can work together in the fight against crime. Dowdy said substantial state resources are being poured into the state's largest city.
"It's not for lack of trying. In my conversation with the chief, 99 percent of all violent crime in the city of Jackson is in one way or another connected to illegal drug trade, whether it be a user needing to get money to get his next fix, whether it be turf battles because you came over and tried to sell some dope in my neighborhood," he said. "And it's not just Jackson. Take any larger metro area in the state and you see the same type of trends that you see in Jackson."
Through the years, the homicide rate has gone up and down, dropping as low as 37 in 2009, though it's hard to nail down what the variables are. Jackson Police Department's investigators have a homicide clearance rate that's 10 percent more than the national average while also investigating all the other crimes against persons, Vance said.
"We’re doing a fantastic job but what I’d rather see is us not having to go out and investigate these senseless shootings in the first place," he said.
Authorities say there's only so much law enforcement can do when shootings are usually so personal and specific. The prevention needs to come from the ground up, and community leaders and adult role models need to stress to children from an early age that crime is not the answer, they said.
In December, Gov. Phil Bryant's office spearheaded Operation Silent Night, a campaign involving local, state and federal resources in which 84 felony and misdemeanor arrests were made. Bryant called the operation "an intense intervention of law enforcement in the Jackson city limits." Tragically, that same weekend, a triple homicide claimed the lives of three Jackson men at a pawn shop.
But those initiatives and working with federal partners in various operations helps take criminals off the streets, Vance said. The operations also aim to make Jackson's citizens feel safer. With the assistance of U.S. Attorney Gregory Davis, several projects, including the 2015 120-day initiative with the ATF and the U.S. Marshals, have helped take some of Jackson's worst offenders off the streets by sticking them with federal charges.
"It’s disheartening to see the number of homicides going up, but I don’t think that’s a reflection of the efforts of law enforcement to address the issue," said Davis. "The U.S. Attorney’s office and federal partners have been working with Jackson Police Department on a violent crime initiative that began in June of 2015. The focus of the initiative is to aggressively target the most violent offenders in the city of Jackson, and we have successfully prosecuted a number of individuals we considered to be violent offenders."
Vance said the help of the federal assets has been invaluable, especially with the troubled Hinds County judicial system turning offenders back out at an alarming rate of speed.
"They took some of our really bad apples, real problem people, and we’ve put those individuals into the federal system. When they get convictions in the federal system people might see where an individual got eight, 10, 12 years, and on the surface they might say it’s not a whole lot of time, but when you go into the federal system, if you get eight years, we won’t see you for eight years, which is different than what we see in the circuit court a lot of times," Vance said. "The effectiveness of the federal justice system is a huge weight for anyone to try to fight against, and putting good cases into that has been very effective at helping us get rid of some of our problem children."
Jackson was also chosen for the national Violence Reduction Network in 2016, which gives them two years of direct help from not only federal agencies, but other departments around the country.
Bryant also said that there will be more operations like Silent Night in the future, aimed at putting boots on the ground to visibly saturate the capital city and keep crime down.
"If you are a violator of the law, if you intend to inflict harm upon innocent citizens, if you plan to be involved in the drug trade, or if you are involved in other criminal activity, you should know we will be coming after you," Bryant said.
Contact Therese Apel at tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
Jackson homicides through the years:
- 2016 – 68
- 2015 – 58
- 2014 – 68
- 2013 – 50
- 2012 – 63
- 2011 – 52
- 2010 – 41
- 2009 – 37
- 2008 – 63
- 2007 – 46
- 2006 – 40
- 2005 – 38
- 2004 – 43
- 2003 – 45