Last week surely produced bad feelings between McComb and Pike County, but everyone must take a deep breath and figure out how to work together.
If local residents cannot agree on ways to join forces and start taking the fight to the people who are causing so much violence and trouble, then nothing will change.
I think the public has had three or four years of nothing changing when it comes to gunfire and shootings. So it’s time to try new things.
That had to be the thinking of Pike County supervisors, who went public on Monday with a letter to McComb officials. The board suggested that the city hire off-duty sheriff’s deputies for extra work in McComb until the police department fills its patrol vacancies.
The catch was that the county wanted the city to pay the off-duty deputies — and pay them the time-and-a-half overtime rate at that.
Maybe the county’s reasoning was that the city is saving money by having its own jobs unfilled, so it could put that money to work through deputies on Sheriff Wally Jones’ so-called Metro Unit.
The county’s proposal didn’t go over too well with McComb Mayor Quordiniah Lockley. A day later, at Tuesday’s city board meeting, Lockley said it felt like the county was trying to bully the city.
He said McComb residents and businesses also pay county taxes, so the city shouldn’t have to pay for an extra police presence. And he said any deputies working in McComb should be under the direction of the city police chief, not the sheriff.
On the next day, Wednesday, Jones took matters into his own hands. As sheriff, he has the right to send his staff anywhere in Pike County, and he sent them into McComb.
Deputies, narcotics agents and even helicopters were on hand. It must have been like the movie “Goodfellas” on the day Henry Hill got shadowed and busted.
So here we are. The best thing is for tempers and egos to ease, and then the city and county must start talking about what to do in McComb to stop the gun violence.
A few points to consider:
• First, acknowledge the problem in McComb. I live in the city and can hear the gunfire. Everyone can hear it.
• I got an email Friday from a Black friend. “I’m grateful for the operation,” the note said, referring to what Jones did.
• The mayor said this week that McComb makes up 35% of Pike County’s tax base. I am speculating here, but I suspect that the city’s share of gun violence in Pike County is a much larger percentage than that. Something needs to done to reduce it.
• The mayor was correct when he said the city’s property owners already pay county taxes, so it’s wrong to ask them to pay the full cost for any extra deputies. But the city does have a bunch of police jobs open and so it has unspent money available. Use it.
• Meanwhile, who paid for Wednesday’s show of force in McComb? I suspect it was the sheriff’s department, and I suspect this wasn’t their last visit. That says they’ve got wiggle room in their budget, too.
• After a Summit police officer was shot and killed this summer, county supervisors agreed to raise property taxes to help the sheriff’s department. It should not take the death of an officer to give law enforcement the tools it needs to be safe on the job.
• Why are there so many unfilled jobs in the McComb Police Department? I don’t have exact figures, but McComb’s police pay can’t be too much different from competing law enforcement agencies. If pay is not the problem, what is? Why have there been so many police chiefs in the last several years?
• A complaint from Selectwoman Tabitha Felder-Isaac at Tuesday’s city board meeting illustrates the disconnect that must be overcome.
She said every time the sheriff’s department comes into McComb, “they target the Black community.”
To state the obvious, McComb’s population is about 71% Black. But more specifically, it is not White people firing the guns, and it is not White people being wounded and killed.
• I believe the city and county already have discussed how they can do something about crime in McComb, but nothing has come of it. Last week’s back-and-forth might provide the opportunity to get more serious about the problem.
This can be solved. There are answers. Right now, the one thing we need is some good negotiators.
