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Council members want to take action to address violence

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As the month of January ends, there have been five homicides reported in Jackson in four incidents.

The shooting at Red Dog Saloon on Jan. 4, the shooting at Slim Chickens on Jan. 21, an unresponsive child that succumbed to what was later diagnosed as blunt force trauma on Jan. 22 and the shooting on Hardee Street on Jan. 24 that killed a 15-year-old girl and her unborn child.

As all nine members of the Jackson City Council met for their monthly work session and agenda review on Thursday before their City Council meeting on Tuesday, members of the Council wanted to discuss the issue of violence, particularly with youth, in the city.

An hour before the work session, Mayor Scott Conger did a Facebook Live broadcast from his office and addressed the killings and reminded the watching public that arrests had been made in all cases, indicating JPD has their top suspects in each case behind bars.

Jackson Police Assistant Chief Derick Tisdale represented law enforcement at the meeting and engaged in discussion with various members of the Council for a few minutes.

He fielded questions about increased patrolling in certain areas after shootings happen, and he also fielded a question from Richard Donnell about equal efforts of law enforcement in different areas of town.

"It feels like when there's a shooting in a park in North Jackson or a shooting in a restaurant, more people are concerned so more is done by y'all than if a shooting were to happen in a park or a restaurant in East Jackson," Donnell said.

"I can tell you that's not the case, sir," Tisdale said. "In fact, we've got data and historical information that suggests more crime happens in other parts of town, so there's more patrol in those areas."

Council member Candace Busbee, who works for Madison County in the juvenile courts, wants to know what is being done, what could be done and who all is involved.

Johnny Dodd, who's the vice-mayor and was technically in charge of the meeting, gave a suggestion of how he stays on top of things in his district.

"When there's an incident - a shooting or something - I usually try to get there to know what's going so that when someone has a question, I can answer it the best I can," Dodd said.

Busbee discussed the number of local children she works with at work as a counselor with juveniles brought into custody. She got emotional at one point, discussing how the situation appears to be out of control to the point of maybe those who want to help need to give up on an entire generation of children and focus on the younger ones coming up after them.

"What I hate is there's at least three groups working with youth in this city, and none of them work together," Dodd said. "One of the groups is mainly white people, the other two are Black and the different races can't come together in this city for some reason."

Busby expressed frustration with churches who don't appear to do much in the community to help the situation.

"Now there are a lot of pastors in this city - Black and white - who are involved with the youth outside their churches, because I've worked with them," Dodd said.

Busby said she wanted to see more for the youth to do.

"It's good that we've got things for younger kids to do with their parents, but there's not much for the youth," Busby said. "They need something that will occupy them and keep them from feeling like they need to be in a gang."

While no one came up with an obvious resolution, the council members said they wanted to continue the discussion to see if any possible resolutions could be determined in the future.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news