If there was one word on the lips of Columbus Exchange Club members Thursday afternoon, it was “gangs.”
16th Circuit District Attorney Scott Colom, who is running for a third term against Republican Jase Dalrymple, spoke to the club at Lion Hills Center about his office and how it handles investigations, and when he opened the floor for questions he was immediately asked if Columbus has a big gang presence.
The gang question needs to be thought about two ways, Colom said: national gangs and looser-knit local groups.
“You’ve got gangs on the national level, like Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Stones,” he said. “We have some of that, but most of the people (here) aren’t really affiliated in any serious way.”
The problem is the more home-grown variety, he said.
“What we have more of is what I call neighborhood gangs,” Colom said. “You have a group of people who are in a neighborhood who at first are just friends but then begin to classify themselves as a gang informally, but there’s no real organization to it.”
Those neighborhood gangs are often used to recruit people for illegal activity, Colom said.
“We don’t have very many gang members who are trafficking drugs from Chicago or in touch with (Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover),” Colom said. “… We have people like Kenny Armistad who will use the allure of a gang to recruit young people to make terrible decisions.”
Amistad was sentenced to life plus 50 years earlier this year for the December 2020 murder of Frank Edwards, 20. Edwards was fatally shot in the yard of a house on 12th Avenue South.
The majority of drive-by shootings are driven by individual beefs, Colom said.
“They are resolving conflict with each other,” Colom said. “… People are not relying on the criminal justice system to resolve a conflict. They want to take care of it themselves. They are so reckless they don’t care about getting caught.”
The two most prominent shootings this year — outside Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle in July and inside Inferno Sports Bar in May — both happened at places with heavy video surveillance, Colom said.
Four people were shot in the parking lot at BMH-GT, and one was killed and four wounded at the sports bar.
“It tells me that it’s personal and it’s retaliation because they’re not concerned with getting caught,” Colom said. “If it was organized, they wouldn’t be doing it in front of the hospital. You don’t fire shots in a nightclub if you’re thinking of trying to get away with a crime. It’s an inability to think rationally.”
The easy availability of guns just serves as an accelerant, Colom said.
“It’s real easy to get a gun,” Colom said. “In Mississippi you can buy a gun from an individual, and they don’t have to do a background check on you. If you’re of age, they can sell you a gun.”
Guns are almost unbelievably widespread, Colom said.
“When I was young and went to a party, nobody would have a gun,” Colom said. “Now you go to a party, and they all have guns. When young people have guns and they have a conflict, they’re unable to think rationally. They make terrible decisions.”
Brian Jones is the local government reporter for Columbus and Lowndes County.
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