STARKVILLE — “See something, say something,” Ward 7 Alderman Henry Vaughn called out to the crowd at the Oktibbeha County branch NAACP’s program “Become a Village maker” at J.L. King Memorial Park Tuesday night.
In regards to the recent violence over the past month in town, Vaughn said one of the biggest problems is people who see something suspicious but don’t report it to police. They “just let it go on.” He encouraged the audience to speak up whenever they see misconduct or wrongdoings.
Tuesday’s program saw community members gathered to discuss juvenile delinquency in Starkville. Oktibbeha NAACP President Yulanda Haddix, who spearheaded the meeting, said its purpose was to connect with the community and find ways to eliminate crime committed by area teenagers.
“Crime isn’t an individual problem,” Haddix said. “It’s a community issue. We want to be village makers, not village takers. The idea is to inform the people of the available things in the community.”
Mayor Lynn Spruill said she cares about all areas of Starkville, including the part of town where the program was being held — not far from where two fatal shooting incidents within one month claimed three lives. The city has also seen recent incidents of violence in other areas, including an April 20 shooting at McKee Park where no one was injured.
“We are doing our very best to address the issues that have come about and created this situation,” Spruill said. “We have had an event in the northside of Starkville, we’ve had one in the middle of Starkville, and we’ve had one on the south side of Starkville. No one is immune from having problems in their neighborhood.”
Assistant Chief of Police Henry Stewart said for as long as he has been working with Starkville Police Department, he has never seen gun violence this severe.
He said more officers will be out patrolling the streets within the upcoming weeks.
“We are targeting neighborhoods of areas that the crimes are in,” Stewart said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before where gun violence has escalated.”
Haddix, Spruill, the Starkville Board of Aldermen, the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors, and more community members have been holding meetings to discuss a plan of action to buckle down on juvenile crime. The next meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. May 10 in the Starkville High School auditorium.
Addressing problems
Tuesday’s meeting examined issues that could be causing the spike of crime in the area. Vaughn and Spruill both said a large problem is the lack of parent oversight.
“When you can let your child stand in the house and pose with a gun and then allow them to put it on Facebook, where’s the parent?” Vaughn said. “It’s got to start at the homes.”
Pastor Ronnie Tucker of Beth-el Missionary Baptist Church said community members have created a parenting program to help people “become better parents.” This program will be held the second and fourth Saturdays of each month at Peter’s Rock Family Worship Center and cover topics such as discipline, managing problem behavior and parenting styles.
“We believe that parenting is essential to bring a revolution to our communities,” Tucker said. “If we can get our parents enhanced, improve the skills of our parents, help them to do better, then our city will be better as well.”
Spruill said she always will propose a juvenile curfew to the board of aldermen. It would run from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Monday through Thursday and midnight to 6 a.m. Friday through Sunday.
“The reality is, a 15-year-old has no business being out on the street at 3 a.m. unless they are going to work or with a parent or something along those lines,” Spruill said. “That’s an approach we want to take with this.”
Spruill also said the city will consider condemning some buildings in Brookville Garden Apartments for consistent violence and uninhabitable living conditions. Stewart said gunshots were again reported at these apartments Monday night. Spruill said while people who commit these disturbances are typically people who do not live in the area, the responsibility falls back on the landlords and property managers, and if they will not take action, the city must step in.
Community comments
Teresa Hawkins, a resident who attended Tuesday’s meeting, thanked the officials present for their service to the city. She then criticized them for not truly presenting procedures going forward to prevent gun violence and crime.
“I don’t want to stay in this whirlwind,” Hawkins said. “We need to start somewhere, and I look up to my leaders to lead me, to lead us, to lead this community, my family. I want to know the plan of action because I haven’t heard a plan of action.”
Spruill rebutted saying government is limited in its role, but city officials are trying to engage where they can such as addressing parenting problems, increasing policing, trying to initiate a juvenile curfew, looking at an exploratory committee for a potential juvenile center and creating summer programs for children at parks in the area.
Another resident, Cathy Rodriguez, questioned why J.L. King Park does not have baseball games and other events that take place at other parks like McKee.
“This is a beautiful park,” Rodriguez said. “Why are there no baseball fields, t-ball fields? Your children would play out here if they had something to do. They can’t get to McKee Park or Moncrief Park. Why don’t we have these things for children in the nearby neighborhood to play on? … If things are not scheduled here, then people aren’t going to come out here.”
Spruill said every park has features that the other parks do not — for example, J.L. King has a splash pad, and Moncrief Park has a swimming pool.
“I don’t think it’s limited,” Spruill said. “I think it’s got lots of options. We can’t have everything in every park. That’s just a fact. We have limited money.”
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