How an ordinary city in Mississippi became the most dangerous in the USA: in 4 years the number of murders there doubled

On the eve of Thanksgiving, a series of gunfire events took place in Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, bringing the total annual murder rate to over 130, setting a grim annual record for a city that has quietly become one of the most dangerous in the country over the past two years. CNN

Photo: Shutterstock

The killings, like so many other record-breaking things in this year of American gun violence, are not getting national attention.

A local business owner was shot and killed outside a hairdresser while sitting in his car. A few days later, a man was killed and a 13-year-old boy was wounded in the shooting. A 22-year-old young man in a car was shot at at a gas station. A 63-year-old man died as a result of shelling - his death remains largely unexplained.

In the state's most populous city, a former Confederate stronghold that would later give way to thriving black business districts and become the center of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, residents are now grappling with an epidemic of gun violence that surged at the onset of the Covid pandemic. 19 and shows no signs of weakening.

"We've seen lifelong friends kill each other, we've seen a son kill his mother and sister, we've seen crimes based on social factors and the inability of people to live in prosperity," Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said. .

Annual murder rate per 100 people:

• 1995 - 10 in the USA, 50 murders in Jackson.
• 2000 - 8 in the USA, 20 murders in Jackson.
• 2005 - 5 in the USA, 20 murders in Jackson.
• 2010 - 5 in the USA, 22 murders in Jackson.
• 2015 - 4 in the USA, 32 murders in Jackson.
• 2018 - 4 in the USA, 50 murders in Jackson.
• 2019 - 3 in the USA, 48 murders in Jackson.
• 2020 - 6,5 in the USA, 80 murders in Jackson.
• 2021 - 6,5 in the USA, 97,6 murders in Jackson.

Rising gun violence has exposed the city's deep-rooted social and political problems for which there are no easy or lasting solutions. And everyone fighting this wave—urban, law enforcement, religious, and street communities—is contending not only with rising violence, but also with a pandemic that has exposed society's inequities.

According to police, this year there have already been 21 murders by December 150, almost all of which were related to the shooting. The city has a homicide rate of 97,6 murders per 100 inhabitants, 000 times higher than the US (15), most of which is the result of the use of firearms.

By comparison, St. Louis was the country's most dangerous major city in 2020, with 87 murders per 100 people.

“Jackson is now above that level,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of Missouri.

For nearly every major American city, the end of spring 2020 was the start of a historic wave of assassinations. By the end of the year, homicides were up 29% from 2019, the largest increase ever recorded by the FBI since last year. During the summer following the assassination of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, homicide rates skyrocketed across much of the country.

More than two-thirds of the country's most populous cities had more homicides in 40 than last year, according to analysis from more than 2021 major cities, a continuation of the alarming rise in homicide that began with the outbreak of the pandemic in 2020.

Jackson, a close-knit Democratic city in a state that is solidly Republican, broke its 2020 homicide record with 130 — the previous high of 92 murders in 1995, around the time homicides in America peaked.

The city's public institutions, including the police department, parks and social services, faced immeasurable pressure during the pandemic. Earlier this year, Jackson gained national attention when he joined the list of impoverished American cities where unsafe drinking water has been created by collapsing infrastructure.

Mississippi is an open carry state.

It all came to a head in March 2020 when lockdowns began across the country.

The role played by weapons cannot be ignored: city officials, police officers of various ranks noted the ease of obtaining weapons, their openness and availability during times of high stress, as well as the inability of the police to act. The police see guns as a contributing factor to the rise in homicide rates.

Mississippi's gun laws are among the most liberal in the country. In 2013, the state's Republican-dominated legislature made Mississippi an open-carry state, meaning anyone over 18 can carry a handgun or rifle anywhere without a permit.

But in April 2020, Mayor Lumumba was worried that the combination of toxic stress caused by the pandemic and the proliferation of weapons could lead to a surge in violence, so he issued an executive order banning public display of weapons in city premises.

In his address, Lumumba referred to the accidental death of two children a week earlier.

Lumumba watched video from one of the officer's body cameras of the 5-year-old girl being killed and was struck by the entire tragedy - the victim, the victim's family, the officer who found her - and noted that he was the father of a child the same age.

“At that time, I had my 5-year-old child at home ... And this child from the video was doing the same thing as my child: playing on the iPad,” he said.

He gave an order on "the need to protect life and property at a time of great disaster and economic tension."

But this immediately put Lumumba at odds with other government officials who were quick to denounce both the mayor and the politician. The state attorney general asked Lumumba to reconsider his decision. Days after the announcement, the city council condemned the ban with a token vote.

The City Council agreed to ban any further attempts to restrict overt wearing, and the US South Mississippi District Attorney called the ban a "publicity stunt" in a tweet. In June, a federal judge ruled that Jackson could not prohibit the open carrying of firearms.

In a YouTube address announcing the order, Lumumba said he "has no fundamental disagreement with the Second Amendment," but believes that wearing openly leads to "escalating conflict that goes beyond the point of resolution."

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He also cited the stress caused by the economic shutdown, as well as the feelings of fear and intimidation that open wearing provoked. He believed in the idea that taking weapons from people who shouldn't have them would limit their ability to do damage.

The open wearing restriction lasted only a few days and the violence continued to escalate. By mid-July 2020, the city surpassed the 2019 homicide rate. Since then, the violence has not abated.

Community leaders point out that the pandemic has undermined Jackson's already frayed social safety net, saying the pandemic-induced closure of public institutions such as churches, parks and other services has almost certainly contributed to the surge in violence.

Lorenzo Neal, pastor of New Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Jackson, said children who used to play in the park across from his church and sit on his steps to use Wi-Fi are no longer coming, although the parks have reopened. ... In the middle of summer, in the middle of the day, there was no one in the parks. He is concerned about the development of children in times of violence, even if they themselves are not victims.

“It affects how they do in school, how they relate to their families and how they relate to their friends,” he said.

Dramatic demographic changes in the city

Jackson, the predominantly black metropolis in the state with the largest proportion of black residents in the country, has undergone radical changes over the past half century. Over the past two decades, there has been a rapid economic decline caused by population decline and demographic shifts.

These shifts began in the 1970s, when Jackson was given a mandate to desegregate (abolish, eliminate segregation, abandon racist policies) of schools following a 1969 Supreme Court ruling. The case came a decade and a half after Brown challenged the Board of Education, but Mississippi schools were slow to obey until the 1969 decision, which marked a turning point in city life.

Following this decision, Jackson lost 10 white students to nearby suburbs or to new private schools set up by “citizen councils,” segregated groups formed in response to a Supreme Court decision to end segregation in schools. Their membership often overlapped with the Ku Klux Klan, according to Robert Luckett, a historian at Jackson University.

The decision also coincided with a series of blows to black economic opportunities: Lynch Street, a black business district, was closed after police killed two people during anti-Vietnam war protests.

The 70s also saw a recession in the Farish Street area of ​​Jackson, which was once a meeting and trade site for black southerners who were not allowed to go to white-owned stores and one of the earliest sources of black wealth in Jackson.

Luckett says that as the city became more integrated, especially after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, trade began to decline as black residents began to spend their money elsewhere and whites began to move to the suburbs.

By the 80s, many shops on Farish Street had closed, and efforts to revitalize the area had begun inadvertently. The area is now largely abandoned, although it has been the subject of revitalization efforts over the years.

In the 1980s, Jackson changed his form of government from two elected commissioners and a mayor to a city council system with a seven-member council and a mayor. This changed the form of government from one where three people were elected citywide to one in which the city was divided into seven city council districts, leading to greater representation of women and blacks in government and initiating radical demographic changes.

Photo: Shutterstock

The city's population has declined from nearly 200 in 000 to about 1990 in 160. The decline in population over these three decades was almost entirely due to the flight of whites. In 000, the city had 2020% blacks. By 1990, 56% of the city's residents were black.

“The people who left were people who had the means to do so. Not everyone can up and move to the suburbs,” Luckett said.

Power shifts and demographic changes led to the election of the city's first black mayor in 1997—by 2000, Jackson's white population had dropped 16 percent from the previous decade.

Inside City Hall, photographs of previous mayors are lined up along the front staircase, with white mayors on one side and black mayors on the other.

Neither of the two business districts survived until the 90s and 2000s, as did the city center. The Lynch Street section was taken over by Jackson State University, and the other two still have buildings, but many are empty.

Over the years, the city has continued to experience a gradual decline in population and ability to provide and maintain basic services. The decline was long and painful, with stores in the city's only mall closing one after another before the mall finally closed for good in 2018. There hasn't been an open cinema in the city for many years.

Average income in Jackson has also declined rapidly, while neighboring suburban communities have grown wealthier over time. More than a quarter of the city's population lives below the poverty line.

It appears that most of the white people from the city were sent to neighboring Madison County, where the population has doubled since 1990, and it was the only county in the Jackson metropolitan area with a higher percentage of white people in 2019 than in 1990. year.

Community members say that with a lack of social services, jobs, and resources, violence can seem like a viable option for teens.

“No economic growth, no place to work. The only place a young person can work is in a fast food restaurant,” said Timothy Finch, a Jackson crime buster.

“If I can't work, what will I do? I sit at home all day. Time of inactivity leads to idleness, ”he says.
Finch said that he and a friend recently approached two children who were sitting on a brick wall near a park, thinking that they were plotting to either snatch a woman's purse or rob a car. When they approached the children, they almost without hesitation confirmed Finch's suspicions. But he understands their desires.

“They have nothing to do,” he said. -Being in Jackson, man, it's almost like being in prison. The only difference is that instead of being in your zone or in your cell all day, the whole city is a cell... Just like in a big prison, no one does anything.”

It may take hours for the police to respond

Jackson's decline has also weakened his police force, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the problems facing the department.

The police department was affected, as was much of the city's infrastructure. The city recently raised the starting salary for new police officers to $ 30 a year.

As the city's population declined and its tax revenue declined, the department shrank from over 520 officers to around 290 in 2021. Another 20% of officers are eligible for a pension. And although the department's budget includes up to 350 officers, it is difficult to keep up with the depletion of manpower, to attract and train new recruits.

The city competes with higher-paying departments in neighboring neighborhoods that have grown as Jackson's contracts have been awarded. These communities make up about two-thirds of the total population of the metropolis. They also have fewer crimes and fewer calls for help.

Because Jackson is so large and the police force so small, it's not surprising that calls take hours to answer—one major incident can involve three or four officers in a precinct where only a dozen officers can work, and the calls pile up. And when residents call 911 and an officer doesn't show up for hours, it breeds mistrust.

The police department recently opened a new command center, but due to staffing issues in the department as a whole, it is difficult to meet basic public safety obligations, let alone make full use of the new technology center.

Trust in the “credible messenger” program

While Jackson's understaffed police force can certainly play a role in reducing crime, the mayor says they cannot be solely responsible for the city's ongoing crisis.

Organizers, advocates, and policymakers are all emphasizing advocacy and community-based solutions for long-term, sustainable reductions in violence.

“Every district will be organized by someone, right? It will be organized either by a positive force or a negative force,” Lumumba said.

Programs like this once existed and flourished in Jackson. The National Youth Sports Program, which ran in 200 colleges for children in poor areas, allowed children to be with their friends every summer and created continuity and stability in their lives at a time when violence tends to rise.

The program also guaranteed children at least one FDA-approved meal each day at camp, but in most cases, staff also guaranteed children a hot breakfast and afternoon tea.

“After five weeks the children were crying, knowing it was over. That’s how connected these programs are to the kids and the staff that we hired,” said Rochelle Taylor, who served as president of the program.

It ran from 1969 to 2005, and when funding seemed to run out, a local newspaper asked about her needs: “Senators need to realize how important this program is to the well-being of so many young people. It will be more expensive for society to terminate the program. ”

Now initiatives in Jackson are focused on violence interruption, a tactic that uses known community members to de-escalate conflict before it escalates into violence. The success of these programs varies. At the local level, respected residents can help negotiate a truce or otherwise stand in the way of warring groups. But this has not yet led to a complete, sustained reduction in crime throughout the city.

Strong Arms of JXN, a community-based organization created by Benny Ivey and Theron Moore, aims to help children at an early age. The program is affiliated with the People's Advocacy Institute, a non-profit community outreach organization in Mississippi.

Ivy became the leader of the Simon City Royals, a Chicago-based gang that is now one of the largest white gangs in the Mississippi prison system. Moore killed a man in 1998, was convicted when he was 17, and was released on parole after the US Supreme Court ruled that compulsory life sentences without parole was unconstitutional and the state Supreme Court ordered a new hearing for sentencing.

Strong Arms of JXN is a program of “credible messengers,” a term used to describe violence interruption and other community outreach on the streets. Such methods can be controversial because they rely on someone's criminal or gang history to attract the attention of young people who are either flirting with or actively participating in crime. The group's activities range from museum tours to court-ordered after-school programs.

These programs have a difficult road to success. It's not just about communicating with children - they need a wide range of support from agencies, often with different goals, including juvenile courts, police stations, hospitals and schools. But once that trust is established, the relationship can last for years.

What Strong Arms of JXN now has a foothold is the approval of Judge Carlene Hicks, whose court refers some children to the program.

“It didn’t take much convincing for me to want to cooperate,” said Hicks, who has sanctioned the program in juvenile detention facilities and as an intervention program for teens who have been arrested.

Every child in her jurisdiction who is considered an adult has experience in child protection services, Hicks said. Old trauma turns into bad behavior, and juvenile delinquents can turn to more serious violent crimes.

credible messenger

As community organizers work on long-term solutions, Jackson City officials are struggling to find something to stop the violence happening right now.

In early November, Lumumba convened an interagency summit for community leaders to discuss solutions, but the event was closed to the press and the public. Since then, community leaders have held several more forums in city parishes.

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Shortly before Christmas 2021, the Strong Arms of JXN received the keys to a former community center in South Jackson that was not in use. It will serve as the home for the program.

Ivy, one of the co-directors, said he has already ordered a PlayStation and other gadgets to make the place attractive to teens.

"We're excited. This area has been hit harder than any part of the city in the last few years, and that's where we want to be anyway," Ivey said. - I don't believe in coincidences. I believe God gave us this place."

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