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PSA Encouraging Formerly Incarcerated People To Register To Vote
October 3, 2006
For Immediate Release
For More Information Contact Nsombi Lambright at 601-354-3408
Jackson, MS--The Mississippi Voter Empowerment Coalition (MVEC) has developed a public service announcement encouraging people who have been convicted of misdemeanors and felonies to register to vote or to have their voting rights restored. The PSA features Mississippi rapper Kamizake.
Although state law in Mississippi only identifies ten (10) crimes that take voting rights away {Murder, rape, bribery, theft, arson, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, forgery, embezzlement or bigamy}, there is a wide-spread belief that all felony convictions take voting rights away.
In response, MVEC launched an Unlock The Vote Campaign to educate Mississippians about their voting rights.
MVEC is a statewide coalition whose mission is to end the state law that takes voting rights away from citizens who have been convicted of certain felonies. Organizational members include: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the MS State Conference NAACP, the MS Worker’s Center for Human Rights, Country Oaks Recovery Center, Action Communication and Education Reform, and SPEAR (Southeast Prison Education and Advocacy Restoration).
Download and listen to the PSA here (file is in .wma format)
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SPECIAL EDITION: JACKSON, MS
While Jackson Mayor Frank Melton patrolled the capital city as part of the National Night Out, about 50 people gathered Tuesday for what meeting organizers declared was a "call to action" to protect civil liberties in Jackson.
August 2, 2006 (Jackson clarion-Ledger)
The national American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday accused the city's black mayor of civil rights violations including racial profiling in his crusade to stem crime in Mississippi's capital city.
4. MS - A Mayor by Day, a Lawman by Night: Frank Melton, elected as a crime fighter, takes part in the hunt for bad guys. He also takes some home to save them. Not everyone's applauding.
July 28, 2006 (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
6. Nat’l - Jackson mayor questioned about U.S. Capitol badge
Mayor Frank Melton caused a stir in the nation’s capital Wednesday when congressional staffers noticed he was wearing a U.S. Capitol badge reserved for armed law enforcement.
July 27, 2006 (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
7. MS - Jackson mayor to set curfew on homeless
During an 11 a.m. news conference at City Hall, the mayor made the announcement. Melton did not take any questions from the media. Melton also did not say how much it would cost or how much manpower would be needed to transfer homeless people to the gymnasium.
July 13, 2006 (Jackson Clarion-Ledger)
8. MS - AG asks TV for mayor footage
Mississippi Attorney
General Jim Hood sent subpoenas on Wednesday to three Jackson television
stations ordering them to turn over any videotapes showing Melton carrying
weapons in public. The subpoenas say the videotapes are to be used in an
"ongoing criminal investigation" and that the material can be presented to
his office and ordered news executives to appear before a Hinds County grand
jury on Aug. 7.
9. MS - Hood Threatens Melton
10. MS -
Batman
v. Melton, et al?
Among all the possible violations of the law by Frank Melton that District Attorney Faye Peterson presented to the attorney general recently, the charge of filing a false arrest warrant against Albert “Batman” Donelson was the most serious. Why? Because it’s a felony—and a felony conviction would get Melton removed from office. However, Attorney General Jim Hood ruled that Melton never actually filed a written arrest warrant, despite the mayor’s assertions to the contrary. Thus, Melton was not in technical violation of the law. But, Hood added, Donelson could file a civil lawsuit and claim that the mayor had harmed him.
Donelson says he is planning to do just that—sue Melton. Beverly Jackson, Donelson’s mother, is also pursuing her own case against Melton, her son said. Responding to after-trial rumors that Donelson’s friends and family were threatening Melton, he arrived on the elderly woman’s porch with armed bodyguards, his shotgun, a police dog and TV cameras. Melton challenged the house’s occupants: “Somebody in here threatening me? You all want to threaten me, so here I am, right here.”
June 7, 2006 (Jackson Free Press)
13.
'Batman'
Speaks: The Jackson Free Press Interview with Albert Donelson
April
26, 2006 (Jackson Free
Press)
14. MS - Crime Fighting Questioned
16. MS - Melton's Honeymoon, Part III: Crime and Punishment, Melton Style
November 18, 2005 (Jackson Free Press)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Nat’l - Mayor's tough tack on crime stirs up racial sensitivities
from the August 04, 2006 edition
Christian Science Monitor
By Patrik Jonsson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
ATLANTA--Wielding a badge of dubious origin and a loaded gun, mayoral candidate Frank Melton vowed to clean up crime in Jackson, Miss., with a slick slogan: "Help is on the way!"
So when the mayoral candidate won, he took an unusual step of assisting police with drug stops or standing by at roadblocks.
Mr. Melton's even engaged in racial profiling, critics say. The American Civil Liberties Union cites complaints that people have been pulled over based on their race and searched without cause. The twist: Melton is black.
"The mayor as a black man clearly does not fit the profile of a racial profiler, but what's even more confusing is that he's not a law enforcement officer - and we usually don't think of racial profiling being done by someone outside the law enforcement community," says Richard Forgette, a political science professor at the University of Mississippi.
Gun shots, murders, and robberies have become common in Jackson, a city of 184,000 residents, 70 percent of whom are black. The key reason why Melton beat his opponent with 88 percent of the vote last summer was because he campaigned on cutting the crime rate.
In the first six months of 2006, crime has increased by 26 percent, prompting the mayor to institute a state of emergency in June. He's implemented a strict curfew for teenagers and homeless people.
Melton does have a softer side. He's known to take young charges in to mentor them, and pull city school buses over on the interstate so he can hug the children inside.
Melton says he is a deputized volunteer sheriff, although neither Mississippi nor Texas has a record of his certification. His habit of wearing a sidearm on airplanes has alarmed federal air-control officials.
Critics of Melton's tough tactics say they are an illegal attempt to appease whites in a city that has lost many of its middle-class residents who have given up hope of a resurgence, experts say.
"He's got a lot of Rudy Giuliani qualities in that there's a lot of lip going along with the action," says Sid Salter, a political columnist for the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. "He has succeeded in the Deep South in a town that has had its difficulties by bringing people together, by communicating with blacks and whites, but ... crime and urban blight and poverty are far more complex issues than Frank deals with in his world. He's like a kid playing cowboy."
Melton says he is fulfilling a campaign promise. In local newspapers, some letters to the editor question Melton's John Wayne tactics while others applaud his crackdown.
His actions have ignited a debate about how much crime there is in the city. After all, like most cities, Salter says, some neighborhoods are safer than others.
The ACLU says Melton's tactics have gone too far. On Tuesday, the group appeared in town to decry those they say are racial profiling.
Melton is failing in his responsibility to protect communities from crime while upholding the dignity and civil rights of alleged perpetrators, Redditt Hudson, an ACLU racial justice manager, told the Associated Press.
The mayor's race "should make him more sensitive to the problems this is creating," King Downing, the ACLU's national racial-profiling coordinator, told the AP.
The mayor fired back: "I want to know what the ACLU wants to do besides criticize," he said.
Generally, racial profiling nationwide has been on the downswing since police forces have come under scrutiny.
The US Supreme Court ruled against racial profiling in 1986. The controversy surfaced again and came to a head in New Jersey in 1999. The New Jersey State Police admitted to having a policy of racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike.
The US District Court for New Jersey ordered that it be stopped, an action that has reverberated through police departments across the country ever since, according to Jesse Lee of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE).
Because "racial profiling is a state of mind, ... it's hard to know exactly what's going on," says Steven Wolfson, a Dallas lawyer who specializes in racial profiling cases. "Blacks can certainly profile other blacks," says he says.
NOBLE usually hears about major profiling issues in American cities. But it's not aware of any accusations from Jackson, says Mr. Lee. "What can happen is that when you introduce new anticrime enforcement without proper education or buy-in of the community, there may be suspicion of racial profiling even when there's no racial profiling going on," says Mr. Lee.
It's more difficult to prove racial profiling charges when the same race is involved, Mr. Wolfson says.
"It's a fact that a white mayor would probably be more inhibited about cracking down on black crime than a black mayor cracking down on black crime," he says.
2. MS - ACLU decries Melton tactics: Meeting organizers urge people to resist illegal searches
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
August 2, 2006
Greg Jenson/The Clarion-Ledger
While Jackson Mayor Frank Melton
patrolled the capital city as part of the National Night Out, about 50
people gathered Tuesday for what meeting organizers declared was a "call to
action" to protect civil liberties in Jackson.
"Rights are being violated daily by the mayor and the police, and that is something we have to take notice of," said Mississippi American Civil Liberties Union board president Sheila Bedi. "These crime-fighting tactics don't work. They don't make us safer."
The meeting, hosted by the ACLU, centered on the crimefighting strategies of the first-term mayor and what rights people have under the Constitution to protect them against illegal searches.
For his part, Melton said criticism from the ACLU and the Jackson chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was "off-base" and counterproductive for a city beset with violent crime.
"We have 26 people that have been killed here in Jackson this year," Melton said. "We have 300,000 killed across America every year, 81 people a day. The majority of them are African American. It's time to do something different, and I want to know what the ACLU wants to do besides criticize. Besides that, to hell with them."
The federal government estimates the number of murders in the United States at slightly more than 16,000 a year, with African Americans making up about 47 percent of victims.
Since taking office a little more than a year ago, Melton has engaged in a campaign directed at reducing crime in the city. Melton regularly takes part in police patrols, cruising the streets in the Jackson Police Department's Mobile Command Unit, which he keeps parked in the driveway of his north Jackson home.
Along with alleged violations of civil rights, event organizers accused the mayor and Jackson police of racially profiling citizens. Derrick Johnson, who campaigned against Melton last year, said the fact Melton is black may be clouding the issue for some people.
"I can't imagine what this room would look like if the mayor's name was Kane Ditto," he said, referring to the former mayor, who is white. "What is taking place in this city is a travesty. ... And the silence is deafening."
The Mississippi ACLU said it has received five formal complaints of civil rights violations regarding Melton from city residents.
Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes, a vocal supporter of Melton, attended the meeting at the request of organizers. Stokes said he believes there needs to be dialog between the city and the civil rights community.
"Both sides have valid points," he said. "What we need is a meeting of the minds. Let's get both sides together."
Nathan Coe, a 22-year-old Jackson State University student, attended the meeting but said he saw points on both sides.
"It's a thin line when you are playing with civil liberties," he said. But Jackson's crime problem must be addressed, he said.
Jackson resident Michael Burns, who also attended the meeting, said his family has been the victim of overly aggressive tactics by Jackson police. In June, six police officers showed up at his mother's Midtown home in response to an argument between his 15-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old family friend over breakfast cereal, he said.
Burns said the disagreement was not violent or criminal, but police so upset his mother that she had to be taken to the hospital. Burns said his family was targeted because of where they live.
King Downing, the ACLU's national racial profiling coordinator, said the mayor's habit of stopping cars and searching people violates their civil rights, even though those people give their consent. The mayor is not a police officer.
"Each person who was stopped without consent had a right to say no, but if you speak to those people it becomes clear that they did not know they had a right to say no," Downing said.
Downing encouraged residents to "strongly assert their rights."
Along with the civil rights groups, Melton's high-profile tactics have raised the hackles of officials such as Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson and 2nd District Rep. Bennie Thompson. But Melton said he is staying within the law and refuted claims that he is guilty of racial profiling.
"We don't create the crimes. We go where the crimes happen," he said. "It's black-on-black (crime). It's time to tell the truth, and it's time to deal with it. I'm not going to play games with them. These are people who look like me who are being killed every day. It's time to put our foot down and do what we have to do."
As for the meeting, Melton warned the organization not to interfere with police business.
"I hope they don't obstruct justice and give people the false information, because if they do, then we will be focusing on them, and we'll come after them," he said. "I'm sick of these organizations that are not dealing with the issues."
Houston Chronicle
By SHELIA BYRD, Associated
Press Writer
10:17 AM PDT, August 1, 2006
JACKSON,
Miss. -- The national American Civil
Liberties Union on Tuesday accused the city's black mayor of civil
rights violations including racial profiling in his crusade to stem crime in
Mississippi's capital city.
The accusations against Mayor Frank Melton and police are based on
complaints from people who say they were pulled over on the basis of their
race and searched without probable cause, the
ACLU's national racial profiling
coordinator, King Downing, said at a news conference.
"For me
to leave my office and come into one of the states means that there is a
very serious problem," said Downing,
who is based in New York. "There are problems here that it's going to take
the attention of the nation in order to solve."
Downing said the mayor's race should make him "more sensitive to the
problems this is creating."
However, Melton said in an interview Tuesday that he wasn't interested in
the ACLU's complaints against him or
the police, and denied he had violated anyone's civil rights. ‘
"We have
26 people that have been killed in Jackson this year. We have 300,000 people
killed across America each year. The majority of them are African-American
and it's time to do something different," Melton said. "I want to know what
the ACLU wants to do besides criticize."
Melton took office last July after winning 88 percent of the vote on a
tough-on-crime platform.
Melton declared a state of emergency last month to attack the city's
escalating crime problem, basically adopting a stricter curfew for teenagers
and homeless people. He also continued his practice of riding with police
officers on patrol or at roadblocks.
The city's population of 184,256 is nearly 71 percent black, and 23.5
percent live below the poverty level.
Since his election, federal authorities have told him to quit packing his
pistol on commercial airline flights, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood
told him to stop wearing police gear, and Faye Peterson, the district
attorney in Jackson, has said the mayor was breaking the law by
impersonating a police officer.
Melton criticized the ACLU's plan to
hold meetings in Jackson to inform residents of their rights if they're
stopped by police.
"I hope they don't obstruct justice and give people false information
because if they do, then we'll be focusing on them and we'll come after
them," Melton said.
4. MS - A Mayor by Day, a Lawman by Night
Frank Melton, elected as a crime fighter, takes part in the hunt for bad guys. He also takes some home to save them. Not everyone's applauding.
The Los Angeles Times
By Richard Fausset
July 29, 2006
JACKSON, Miss. - Sometime before sunset, Mayor
Frank Melton roared into a Kroger parking lot in the ungainly box-on-wheels
that has become his signature vehicle.
Technically, it's known as a "Mobile Command Center" - a tricked-out RV that
was once used for SWAT team operations. Tonight, Melton was riding shotgun
in the thing, with cop cars in front and TV news vans behind.
As the entourage rolled to a stop, an onlooker asked the mayor what he was
up to.
"I'm gettin' ready," he drawled, "to raise hell."
Melton hopped out of his RV and sauntered into the store for some grape
soda, a 9-millimeter Glock on his hip.
The soda was for the poor teenagers Melton would pick up a few minutes later
and load into the back of the RV, giving them a chance to see a little
excitement on a Wednesday evening. The Glock was in case the mayor ran into
trouble on his primary mission: hunting down Vidal Sullivan, 33, a former
murder suspect who was wanted on a kidnapping warrant.
"How you doin', Frank?" the Kroger security guard asked.
"No bullet holes," said the mayor, strolling toward the soda aisle. "You
know how it goes."
A Wild West-style manhunt, a rolling media spectacle, an improvised field
trip for inner-city youth: It was, in many ways, a typical night on the town
for Jackson's mayor.
When he was overwhelmingly elected last summer, Melton - a wealthy former TV
executive who briefly headed the state narcotics bureau - promised to do
something dramatic about crime in this Deep South city, which has been
battered by decades of white flight and black poverty.
His methods, and his message, have been anything but subtle. At his first
City Council meeting, he passed out cowboy hats. Hours after his
inauguration, he embarked on the first of his nighttime crime sweeps.
A year later, Jacksonians are used to the excursions. Melton leads them
three times a week in a bulletproof vest, heading up roadblocks, conducting
searches, looking for bad guys.
It is one of the more unusual displays of mayoral power in any American
city, and it is certainly unlike anything anyone has seen in Mississippi's
capital. People here are so frustrated with crime that even some of Melton's
targets think he's on to something.
"He's all right," said Jermaine Butler, a 34-year-old former gang member,
just moments after Melton had confronted him and asked if he was holding
drugs. "He's just doing his job."
Not everyone agrees. Civil rights leaders have accused Melton - who is black
- of racial profiling and possibly violating due-process rights. The state
attorney general has warned him to leave police work to sworn officers,
concerned that his strong-arm tactics may jeopardize the admissibility of
evidence gathered in searches.
Journalists have wondered why he has to keep that fancy, city-owned Mobile
Command Center parked behind the gates of his house. One family accused
Melton of harassing them on a late-night outing and recently filed an
intent-to-sue notice against him and the city.
Some are still scratching their heads over the monthlong "state of
emergency," which ended this week. Melton had hoped to bring in the National
Guard to fight crime, until the idea was dismissed by the governor's office.
Instead, the declaration mostly resulted in an earlier curfew for teenagers.
Jackson Police Cmdr. Tyrone Lewis says crime decreased during the state of
emergency, although he could not produce statistics to back that up. Others,
however, are wondering whether the broader strategy is doing any good:
Recent police statistics show that major crimes are up about 15% over last
year.
"All he wants to do is play cops - just ignorant stuff," said Hinds County
Dist. Atty. Faye Peterson, who has been feuding publicly with Melton. "It
looks good, but it's not effective law enforcement."
In Melton's mind, Jackson - a city of 180,000, 70% black and largely poor -
has failed to benefit from the safer, more bureaucratic approaches to
criminal justice espoused by his predecessors.
"It's time for something different," he said. "I don't know if it's going to
work out or not, but I have to make an effort…. I couldn't live with myself
as a human being if I didn't try."
The strategy is part of a bigger crusade that predates the election.
Melton's most cherished achievements as a private citizen were remarkable -
and similarly unorthodox - acts of personal initiative. He points to the 55
boys he says he has taken out of the ghetto and raised in his gated mansion.
And the 150 college tuitions he says he has funded through his foundation.
And the 70-plus funerals.
Melton says he has known Sullivan, tonight's fugitive, for nearly two
decades. He met him the way he seems to have met half the poor black kids in
Jackson - by walking the streets as a sort of freelance father figure.
Melton says he has helped many of those kids. Sullivan, he says, "is one of
the kids I missed."
The
caravan rumbled off the freeway in a whir of sirens and lights, and headed
toward Wood Street, one of the most dangerous and desperate sections of
Jackson. It is also the home of the Wood Street Players, the street gang
that authorities think Sullivan belongs to.
Melton stopped to pick up five teenagers sitting on a picnic table in a
park.
"Come get your asses over here and come to me," he said.
Melton is a diminutive man with brushed-back hair and a thin, elegant
mustache in the manner of Duke Ellington. He is also a swim instructor, and
he tends to treat young men with a P.E. instructor's mix of gruff
authoritarianism and towel-snapping bonhomie.
Before becoming Jackson's second black mayor, he earned a reputation as one
of its most generous philanthropists, especially through his involvement
with the YMCA. He was also known for his brash local TV editorial program,
"The Bottom Line," on the NBC television affiliate he once managed. Much of
his commentary focused on getting tough on criminals.
He hugged the teens, and they piled into the back of the RV, grinning.
This group, Melton explained, was part of a new crew that was going to clean
up Jackson. He said he had put more than 200 youths on the city payroll but
many more, like these teens, were being paid out of his own pocket. He
figured the work would keep them out of trouble.
"I put them in the business," he said, as the RV rolled on. "It's a
beautiful story."
Wood Street was lined with houses in need of paint; families crowded weary
porches. The mayor hopped out with tonight's mob - police officers in flak
jackets, journalists, TV cameramen, the teenage work crew.
Melton pointed to a weedy vacant lot. Mow that this week, he told the crew.
He walked into a house and was greeted by Ida Caldwell, a 75-year-old in a
housecoat. A leak in her roof was rotting the ceiling. Fix that too, the
mayor told the crew.
Melton told the woman someone would be coming around to take her down to the
private University Club for supper.
"You just go eat whatever you want to eat and charge it to my account," he
said.
"Thank you, Frank."
Melton walked back out to the street and turned his attention to finding his
fugitive. He took aside a tattooed man with hard eyes and a white
undershirt. They had a heated conversation some distance from the TV
cameras. Then the man stomped off, agitated.
"That's Maurice," Melton said, describing him as another former murder
suspect who had recently been acquitted. "I raised Maurice. He'll deliver
[Sullivan] to me."
The denizens of Wood Street looked on as if this kind of thing happens all
the time - because it does.
Many
Jacksonians are happy to see someone out in the streets where the trouble
is.
"Oh, he's great," said Kimberly Green, 24, as she sat on a Wood Street
porch. "The last mayor, he never came out and did stuff like this."
"He's got people's attention about the crime issue," said Jay Schimmel, the
owner of Schimmel's, a gourmet restaurant in the gentrifying Fondren
District. "The normal way of doing things hasn't yielded results."
Jackson, Mississippi's largest city, was burned by the Union Army in 1863,
but it retains hints of its antebellum past: A plaque on the white-columned
City Hall notes that it was built by slaves. These days, the central city is
a sleepy place, and residents have been impatient with its modest strides
toward urban renewal - especially compared with other Southern cities like
Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta.
Civic leaders say some of the problem is the poor reputation the city earned
during the civil rights era: This is where the Freedom Riders were arrested
in 1961, and where, two years later, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was
murdered by a white supremacist.
Jackson also has been hobbled by white flight since 1970, when the U.S.
Supreme Court forced Mississippi schools to integrate. From 1980 to 2000,
the white population in Jackson fell from 52% to 28%.
But during last year's mayoral campaign, the main issue was crime. Incumbent
Harvey Johnson Jr. - Jackson's first black mayor - argued in the primary
that it had decreased since he took office in 1997. The statistics largely
bore him out.
For many voters, however, that wasn't enough: According to the FBI, the
violent crime rate in 2004 was still about 50% higher than the national
average.
Melton charged that the old regime was painting an overly rosy picture of
Jackson and pointed to vast tracts of urban blight.
It was a message that resonated with Jackson's remaining whites, but also
with inner-city blacks impatient over the continuing chaos in their
neighborhoods. After defeating Johnson in the Democratic primary, Melton won
the general election with 88% of the vote.
"Frank was really elected by the black have-nots," said Mark McCreery, a
businessman and political consultant who volunteered on the Melton campaign.
"And what did he talk about? The fact that everybody should have the right
to be safe in their homes and their neighborhoods."
Now all
the mayor had to do was wait for Maurice to deliver the fugitive. In the
meantime, Melton pointed the caravan in the direction of the Christian
Brotherhood public housing complex. Moms sat on stoops, men hung around in
oversized football jerseys, and little kids rode bikes in circles. The sun
had begun to sink.
The mayor jumped out of the RV, cops and cameras behind him, and walked
toward a group of kids. They scattered.
"Oh, don't go running," he yelled after them. "You gonna talk to me."
Melton homed in on one young man.
"What's up, big guy?" Melton said, putting his arm around the boy. "Why are
your eyes red? Just tell the truth. What was it? A blunt? About an hour ago?
And you're 18?"
The boy confessed to smoking marijuana. The mayor said he wouldn't bust him,
because he was being honest.
"If you want something to do, I can put you in Public Works," Melton said.
"I don't want to lose you. Fair enough? If you ever need help with that
problem, call me."
Melton grew up in Houston's historically black 5th Ward neighborhood. His
mother and father raised him with a stern hand, keeping him out of trouble
and setting him on a path to college. He worked his way up at a regional
broadcasting company, becoming a manager and part owner. That career brought
him to Jackson in the mid-1980s. It also made him wealthier than he could
have ever imagined.
He says it is a sense of guilt that drives him to walk the streets in search
of lost kids, to invite them to live in his mansion with the indoor swimming
pool and home theater straight out of "MTV Cribs."
He and his wife, Ellen, raised two children and sent them to college at the
University of Texas. His wife lives in Texas too, at their second home.
Melton spends most of his time these days in the Jackson mansion with seven
young men he is raising. He calls each of them "son."
"It's just what I do best," he said.
It was dark now, and still no Sullivan. So the caravan kept rolling. Melton
smoked a cigarette and waved to the people ambling up the sidewalks. You
watch how they respond to me, he said.
The pedestrians waved back, some enthusiastic, some bemused.
"Hey Frank!"
The mayor traded ribald jokes with an older woman looking for a boyfriend.
He took a tattered business card from a man with chipped teeth who was
looking for a job hanging drywall. On Lamar Street, he told a young man
named Corey to stay out of trouble.
"I can't search you in front of the media," he said to Corey, as the cameras
rolled. "They'll make a big deal of it."
He stopped another teenager ambling down the sidewalk in an oversized Tupac
T-shirt. "Pull ya pants up on ya ass," Melton said. "Get them pants up."
He spent a half-hour sitting with homeless men in an empty lot downtown,
asking them how he could help solve their problems. He stopped at the house
of a single mother named Linda McCloud, who was worried about her teenage
son.
"He wants to do right," McCloud said. "But all of his friends are either on
drugs or want to sell drugs."
A TV reporter caught up with Melton and asked him for an update on the
Sullivan manhunt. We're still looking, the mayor told the viewers at home.
The caravan rolled on. The teenage work crew watched "Black Hawk Down" on
the Mobile Command Center's widescreen TV. The mayor stopped a few teenagers
and sternly informed them they were out past curfew. Two of his officers
arrested a man with a crack pipe in a motel parking lot.
But still no Sullivan.
It was almost 10 p.m. The mayor was ready to call it a night.
The
morning after the manhunt, the Jackson Clarion-Ledger led its front page
with a police story - but it wasn't about Vidal Sullivan's capture.
Officers had arrested two other young men for failing to appear in court on
armed robbery charges. One had been living at Melton's house. Both had
attended a barbecue there a few days before, their faces captured by news
cameras.
This may be what worries Melton's critics the most: his complicated personal
ties to some of the troublemakers he has sworn to get off the streets.
Peterson, the district attorney, is still angry that she had to drop a
murder case after court documents showed Melton was paying the rent of a
former gang member who was her key witness. On Monday, a potential informant
Melton had put up at a motel here disappeared after allegedly stealing a
car.
"He'll tell you he's trying to save some of these kids, but they're felons,"
said City Councilman Marshand Crisler, a former Marine MP.
"He's concentrating his efforts in the wrong places."
Melton says he doesn't like to give up on young men just because they have
made mistakes. And, he notes, he is providing a paternal role, the kind that
many people believe to be sorely lacking in black America.
"There comes a point," he said, "where it takes a man to teach a boy to be a
man."
Vidal Sullivan was arrested three days later in a second manhunt. This one
was conducted by five U.S. marshals.
5. MS - Mayor: Officers accused of assaulting suspect to remain on force
July 28, 2006
Jackson Clarion Ledger
By Chris Joyner chris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton said he will not fire three Jackson police officers caught on camera allegedly assaulting a handcuffed suspect.
Officers Tyree Jones, 28, Donald Gater, 42,
and Keith Burnett, 40, are accused of hitting Michael Black, 18, following a
standoff and foot pursuit in April. The incident was videotaped from WLBT -
Channel 3’s helicopter and broadcast.
Melton said he would make a full public statement at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at
City Hall, but he said they would remain with the department.
The mayor said the evidence supports firing the officers, but he decided
against it “when I look at their tenure and the situation.”
“I’m not going to ruin their careers for a thug,” he said, referring to
Black. “Why was he on the street in the first place?”
Contributing to his decision was the service of Burnett, who has been with
the department for 15 years and has an “impeccable record,” he said.
Police Chief Shirlene Anderson confirmed last week the officers had been
sent termination notices. She said the officers would be working in a
“non-enforcement capacity” until they left the department. Melton said he
talked to the chief about his decision.
“Ultimately the decision rests with me. I get paid to try to make the right
decision,” he said.
Melton said Anderson’s decision to fire the officers was in line with
department policy.
“I’m not really overruling the chief,” he said. “I’m overruling the policy.”
6. MS - Jackson mayor questioned about U.S. Capitol badge
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
July 27, 2006
By Kathleen Baydala kbaydala@jackson.gannett.com And Chris Joyner chris.joyner@jackson.gannett.com
Mayor Frank Melton caused a stir in the nation’s capital Wednesday when congressional staffers noticed he was wearing a U.S. Capitol badge reserved for armed law enforcement.
Melton and Marcus Ward, the
mayor’s chief of staff and city lobbyist, were in Washington to discuss a
$29 million funding request for the city with staff who work for 2nd
District Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
“One of the staffers who was in meeting with the mayor inquired about the
law enforcement badge that he (the mayor) was wearing and asked whether he
was armed,” Lanier Avant, Thompson’s chief of staff, said. “The mayor said
no.”
It’s the House of Representatives’ policy that anyone who receives that type
of badge must first present credentials and be armed, Avant said.
The incident created an uneasy atmosphere in the congressman’s office, Avant
said.
“We’ve never had a mayor come in the office with one of those badges on,” he
said. “To be quite honest, it sends a very uncomfortable signal to folks
because a lot of people don’t come to work expecting to be around firearms.”
Melton’s spokesman Tyrone Lewis refused to comment on how the mayor received
the credential or whether the mayor was armed while inside the Capitol.
“We’re not going to respond to that,” he said. “I’m not even going to call
(Melton) about that. ... We don’t see that it is very much of a story.”
7. MS - Jackson mayor to set curfew on homeless
July 13, 2006
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton said today he’s planning to amend the city’s emergency proclamation to include a 10 p.m. curfew on the homeless, beginning Friday.
Melton said he would instruct
police to pick up vagrants who are out after 10 p.m. and take them to
Champion Gymnasium at Lynch and Hattiesburg streets.
Melton said he’s doing this to address crimes involving homeless people.
Today’s Clarion-Ledger reported that some businesses are moving out the city
because of problems with the homeless people.
During an 11 a.m. news conference at City Hall, the mayor made the
announcement. Melton did not take any questions from the media. Melton also
did not say how much it would cost or how much manpower would be needed to
transfer homeless people to the gymnasium.
On June 22, Melton installed a state of emergency intended to curb juvenile
crime. Since then, he has extended it four times.
8. MS - AG asks TV for mayor footage: Melton claims he can't abide by laws that restrict where he carries guns
June 22, 2006
The Clarion-Ledger
Jackson Mayor Frank Melton said Wednesday he cannot abide by the law if it restricts where he can carry his guns.
"I want to follow the law. What I'm telling you is that I can't live like that," he said. "I do have the right to protect myself."
That might become a problem for the mayor.
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood sent subpoenas on Wednesday to three Jackson television stations ordering them to turn over any videotapes showing Melton carrying weapons in public. The subpoenas say the videotapes are to be used in an "ongoing criminal investigation" and that the material can be presented to his office and ordered news executives to appear before a Hinds County grand jury on Aug. 7.
Melton, now almost a year into office, said he was unaware the subpoenas were going to be served but said he was not concerned about appearing before a grand jury as long as he is allowed to plead his case. "If they want to indict me, that's fine," he said. "We'll take it before a jury."
Even if he is indicted, the charge likely would be a misdemeanor. Public officials in Mississippi can only be removed from office if they are convicted of a felony.
Hood's office would not comment on the subpoenas, but last week spokeswoman Jan Schaefer said the attorney general had opened a new investigation into Melton after receiving a complaint from someone in the news media.
Last month, Hood concluded an investigation into Melton's crime-fighting tactics by sending the mayor a letter outlining 19 places where state law says citizens cannot carry firearms. Those places include public parks, courthouses, police stations, schools, bars, passenger terminals of airports and churches.
Melton routinely wears a holstered pistol in public while participating in police-style maneuvers with the Jackson Police Department. Before being elected mayor, Melton often was similarly armed as director of the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, despite not having a concealed weapons permit until last month.
The mayor, who has two JPD detectives assigned to his personal security, said if a gun battle broke out, he would want to return fire and protect his entourage. "If they are willing to die for me, I've got to be willing to die for them," he said.
Melton has said his life is in danger and that he receives regular threats from criminals such as drug dealers and street-gang leaders. However, no one ever has been charged with threatening the mayor, with the exception of a woman Melton said had a romantic obsession with him.
Melton said he and Hood will have to come to an agreement that allows him to carry his two handguns. Jackson's city ordinance forbids anyone who is not a member of the police force or a law enforcement officer from carrying a firearm in a public park, government meeting, political rally and local sporting events.
"I'm not another citizen. I am the mayor of Jackson," Melton said. "It's appropriate that I have a chance to protect myself."
The subpoena instructs television stations to turn the tapes over to Don Bartlett, an investigator in the AG's public integrity division, which investigates corruption by public officials.
WLBT-Channel 3 will hand over its tape, news director Dennis Smith said. Smith said footage already has been broadcast as part of a recent news item. "It's not like it's something that's a big secret or a story that we're still working on," he said.
When the issue arose, Smith said he reviewed the tape himself. The tape shows the mayor and his bodyguards stopping in a public park during a crime sweep late last week.
"It appears he (the mayor) has got a sidearm in the park while he's talking to some guys," Smith said.
The AG's office requested access to the tape on Tuesday. Smith said he responded that the station would require a subpoena.
"That's just our standard policy," he said. "We want to make sure that we have documents showing it is an official request."
Smith said he does not know who reported the incident to the AG's office but believes that person is not a member of his staff. "I asked my staff, and they indicated to me it was another station," he said.
Rick Russell, news director for WJTV-Channel 12, said his station will not comply with the order.
"It's too vague," he said. "We have no way of finding all the video we have of Frank Melton carrying a weapon."
Bruce Barkley, news director at WAPT-Channel 16, said he could not discuss the subpoena. "Our policy is we can't disclose any details of any subpoena we get," he said.
The subpoena also directed the recipients not to disclose its contents because doing so might compromise the investigation. Russell said that also was unclear.
Melton said it is "unfair" for the media to register such a complaint and that it holds him to a different standard than other public officials. He also said he believed the investigation is retribution from Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson, with whom the mayor publicly has feuded with over the failed prosecutions of reputed gang leader Albert "Batman" Donelson and other alleged gang members.
Peterson said she was unaware of the subpoena, although she did provide video footage from a news channel showing the mayor in public with several weapons during Hood's first investigation of Melton. Peterson said it sounds as if the new subpoena covers more territory than what she provided.
"He (Hood) may know exactly what he is looking for," she said.
9. MS - Hood Threatens Melton
Jackson Free Press
by Adam Lynch
Photo by Brian Johnson
June 7, 2006
Weeks ago, District Attorney Faye Peterson forwarded information to Attorney General Jim Hood’s office requesting that he investigate accusations of possible misdemeanors and felonies committee by Jackson Mayor Frank Melton, including numerous unconstitutional vehicle and home searches, carrying unlicensed guns and impersonating a police officer.
Melton exuded complete confidence in Hood’s
conclusion before Hood even gave it, telling the press the investigation was
“over” before Hood started examining Peterson’s concerns and weeks before
Hood rendered a decision. On May 31, Hood announced to reporters that
Peterson’s concerns against Melton were too difficult to bring before a
jury, but that he had warned the mayor to be careful to follow state and
federal law.
Melton immediately claimed victory, saying Hood had given him good “advice”
in a meeting before the press conference. The daily media reported that Hood
had found that Melton “broke no laws,” leaving the district attorney stunned
that Hood had told the media something different from what he told her—which
was that he was going to “warn” Melton, not simply give him “advice.”
Indeed, in a May 26 letter that the JFP got from the attorney general’s
office Friday, Hood had warned Melton in no uncertain terms not to continue
his questionable habits. “After reviewing allegations that your conduct in
several particulars has exceeded lawful authority, our career prosecutors
have identified several criminal statutes of which you need to be aware.
Should sufficient, credible evidence arise in the future of any subsequent
violation of the criminal statutes set forth herein, you will be
prosecuted,” he wrote.
In the letter, Hood made it clear to Melton that the mayor’s statutory duty
to enforce laws “does not convey authority upon a mayor to act as a law
enforcement officer” without proper training and certification. The AG found
that Melton has no such training, despite his frequent public claims
otherwise.
Hood told Melton that stopping pedestrians and vehicles without probable
cause does not violate a particular state law, but may violate federal
criminal law. “Since you are not a law enforcement officer, you do not have
qualified immunity and may have subjected yourself to both federal and state
civil lawsuits by the person whose property was searched,” he wrote, adding:
“Police work should be left to the men and women who are trained to do that
work.”
In a May 20 letter to Peterson, Hood explained that charging Melton with
criminal violations might not bring prosecutions—yet. “[T]he defenses
available to the possible criminal charges and the uncertainties of some
pertinent statutes would make it difficult to convict” the mayor for
carrying unlicensed guns, parading around in police garb and stopping school
buses. In 1999, Commissioner of Public Safety Jim Ingram wrote a letter for
Melton saying his life had been threatened, and he just filed for a gun
permit—long after declaring that he had one.
In a lengthy interview with the JFP on Friday (see page 14), Hood explained
that he had been tougher in the letter than in the press conference because
he believed he should “do unto others” by not eviscerating Melton in public.
He also explained that state laws tie his hands a bit, containing gray areas
that “you can drive a truck through,” thus making it difficult to convict
Melton of the laws he may well have violated.
Still, Hood made it clear that the mayor has been going too far—and that if
he continues on the same road, Hood’s warning letter would be “Exhibit A” in
charges brought against him. That is, he had been warned.
Hood also gave Melton a list of 19 places where he is forbidden to carry
guns—many of them places where Melton routinely carries weapons in shoulder
and leg holsters. Hood added, “[Y]ou may not stop and/or board any school
bus without the permission of state or local school officials. … If you have
blue lights in your personal vehicle, then they should be removed.”
In the May 26 letter, Hood bolstered Peterson’s statements that Melton’s
evidence-gathering techniques are inadequate and, in fact, can hurt
prosecutions. He wrote to Melton: “You should also bear in mind that the job
of a prosecutor is an uphill battle. Overcoming the presumption of innocence
and proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt are rarely easy in the best of
cases. You do no one any favors by handing issues to defense attorneys on a
silver platter.”
The attorney general emphasized to Melton that Police Chief Shirlene
Anderson has the sole authority to direct the operations of the police
department. “While the Chief may certainly act on information or suggestions
you offer, she is in charge—not you,” Hood wrote. At the end of the letter,
he told the mayor that his presence during police operations had helped
raise the profile of crime-fighting in Jackson, and he is free to be there
with the chief’s permission; “however, it is ill advised for you to actively
participate in the operations.”
Additional reporting by Donna Ladd.
[Ed. Note:
Read the attorney general’s letter to the mayor.]
Jackson Free Press
by Adam Lynch and Donna
Ladd
Photo by Renee Reedy
June 7, 2006
Among all the possible violations of the law by Frank Melton that District
Attorney Faye Peterson presented to the attorney general recently, the
potential charge of filing a false arrest warrant against Albert “Batman”
Donelson was the most serious. Why? Because it’s a felony—and a felony
conviction would get Melton removed from office.
However,
Attorney General Jim Hood ruled last week that Melton never actually filed a
written arrest warrant, despite the mayor’s public assertions to the
contrary. Thus, he said, Melton was not in technical violation of the law.
But, Hood added, that didn’t mean that Melton was off the hook on it—the
remedy could be civil. That is, Donelson could file a civil lawsuit and
claim that the mayor had harmed him and sue for damages.
Donelson himself said last week that he is planning to do just that—sue
Melton.
“Enough is enough,” Donelson told the Jackson Free Press. “He’s saying that
I killed eight people, but he can’t even name the eight people. It’s time
for him to name the eight people he’s talking about.” Then he had a message
for Melton: “The word is double jeopardy, dummy.”
Indeed, Melton has said repeatedly to the JFP and others that Donelson has
killed at least eight people. “They actually pulled the trigger and killed
people,” Melton told the JFP on April 6 about Donelson and friends. The
mayor could not, however, name those he believes they killed besides Aaron
Crockett, Harrison Hilliard, Reginald Versall or Keon Perry.
The next week, Melton called the JFP to say he had filed an arrest warrant
to keep Donelson in jail. Days later, on April 13, Donelson was released: He
could not be legally held under Melton’s alleged warrant.
“I did the best that I could. … Based on the Constitution of the United
States, I had no choice but to release him,” Melton told the Jackson Free
Press that night.
Melton said he had learned that Donelson could not be held because the
two-year statute of limitations for a conspiracy charge had run out, and he
did not wish Donelson’s attorney to have to file a writ of habeas corpus to
get him released. “That would be a waste of taxpayers’ money,” he said then.
In her letter to Hood, Peterson was concerned about the arrest warrant that
Melton said publicly he had filed against Donelson. Hood, though, could find
no phony arrest warrant to investigate, despite the mayor’s announcement of
its existence. Thus, Hood could not pursue felony charges against somebody
for merely being a liar.
“I saw the thing. Frank showed it to me in his house. But he never filed
it,” said Randy Harris, a local attorney who represented Donelson.
“(Melton’s) excuse was he wanted to protect the identity of the person who
had made the affidavit, which was kind of silly because it was Christopher
Walker,” who was a potential witness in Donelson’s trial who Peterson would
not put on the stand because of financial assistance Melton had provided
him, which tainted his credibility, she said.
Harris said he was confounded by his client’s continued detention in the
Hinds County jail, days after the state had found him not guilty and
dismissed other charges against him.
“I think the trial ended on a Friday. Then the D.A.’s office was considering
whether to (dismiss) the other two murder charges against him. That took
about two or three days. We had a meeting with the judge in Raymond, where
they told the judge that’s what their intentions were. And that probably
lasted until Wednesday. Then on Thursday, apparently, this new arrest
warrant was—heck, I guess given to the sheriff or something, because they
kept him in there. I was wondering why on that Thursday he was still being
held, only to find out Frank had gotten a judge (Judge Houston Patton) to
sign an arrest warrant for him,” Harris said.
Peterson and Hood said Melton never actually filed a written affidavit. Hood
believes Judge Patton may have gotten an oral affidavit instead from a
police officer with Melton. Peterson said Melton got the judge to sign off
on a bench warrant.
“They may never have filed an affidavit but, yeah, they’d filed that bench
warrant. Now whether he filed that bench warrant with the municipal court
and all, that I don’t know, but I know one doggone thing: he took it over to
that sheriff’s department, and the sheriff honored it,” Peterson said.
In any case, Hood said the false warrant was poor foundation for criminal
charges but more likely to draw a civil suit.
Donelson said he plans to file suit very soon, and both Harris and Peterson
say he likely will have a strong case. “Yeah, I’m going to sue him. It’s
coming. (Frank) knows it’s coming,” Donelson told the JFP.
Beverly Jackson,
Donelson’s mother, is pursuing her own case against Melton, her son told the
Jackson Free Press. Responding to after-trial rumors that Donelson’s friends
and family were threatening Melton, he arrived on the elderly woman’s porch
on April 9, with armed bodyguards, his shotgun, a police dog and TV cameras.
Melton challenged the house’s occupants, saying: “Somebody in here
threatening me? You all want to threaten me, so here I am, right here.”
Donelson’s mother checked into the hospital afterward with heart trouble.
“I’d like to just get away from all this and move on and stuff, but I’m not
about to let his ass off the hook,” Donelson said.
“That man caused me heartache and pain for five and a half years.”
Melton, who recently said he has another witness against Donelson but has
not revealed the name, did not return calls for this story.
11. MS - Melton's Mile-High Gun Club
by Adam Lynch
Photo by Darren Schwindaman
June 7, 2006
“I do not carry guns on planes, I carry two guns,” Melton told WLBT
reporters on May 28, admitting that he had carried a weapon on almost every
commercial flight for years.
U.S. Transportation and Security Administration spokesman Christopher White
confirmed that the mayor has taken guns aboard commercial flights.
“We did learn that he has been on a commercial
flight with a weapon and we don’t advise he do that,” White said.
Melton denied to The Clarion-Ledger that the U.S. Transportation Security
Administration has contacted him. White would not comment outright on
Melton’s denial, but did say Melton is complying with the TSA’s request.
“He has since gotten on an airplane, and he has removed his weapon,” White
said. “Now we are aware that he does travel with two law enforcement
officers, and we obviously have no issue with authorized individuals flying
armed.”
Carrying an uncertified weapon aboard a commercial airline is a federal
offense. Sheila Wilbanks, secretary with the office of U.S. Attorney Dunn
Lampton, would neither confirm nor deny whether there was a federal
investigation into Melton’s behavior.
Melton has not divulged how he managed to convince airport security to let
him onto a plane with guns, but Jackson International Airport Federal
Security Director Larry Rowlett said the decision basically comes down to
the good sense of whatever clerk is handling the ticket terminal of that
particular airline.
“Passengers check in at the ticket counter with their credentials. Once they
show their credentials to the airline, the airline gives them a form they
fill out saying they are a law enforcement officer and that they have viewed
the ‘Law Enforcement Officers Flying Armed’ presentation,” Rowlett said.
“After that, they’re ushered down to the exit lane, and the airport police
check their credentials and (the form), and they’re on their way.”
Melton is not a certified law enforcement officer. He also does not have the
kind of specialized training required of U.S. air marshals, who must pass
rigorous tests regarding discharging weapons inside the delicate environment
of a commercial airliner. It is unclear whether his bodyguards have such
training.
“My question is: Do Marcus Wright and Michael Recio have the training?”
demanded local NRA instructor Cliff Cargill. “We know that Melton isn’t a
certified law enforcement officer and would not be eligible for the special
training to go on board a plane carrying a firearm in the first place, but
do Michael Recio and Marcus Wright have it? If they have gone through that
training, that paperwork would be on file with the Department of Public
Safety. If they haven’t, then they’re putting the public at risk. That, to
me, is a lot of the issue.”
Cargi