Mayor Robert Smith announced his intention at Tuesday’s city council meeting to create a task force of a “cross section” of Columbus residents to help police address crime and related issues.
Smith said he has talked with several residents and plans to call on volunteers to form a Concerned Citizens Crime Prevention Task Force to work with Columbus Police Department to find ways to address crime.
“We could sit down and strategize and come up with some plans (to where) we could get input from the community, to where we can get some buy-in,” Smith said during the meeting.
Smith pointed out there have been three shootings in Columbus in the last few weeks, one of them fatal. The homicide occurred on 11th Avenue South the night of Dec. 30 when suspects in a vehicle got into an argument with someone standing in the front yard of a residence and shot at multiple people, sending one man to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle and killing 20-year-old Frank Edwards. Though investigators have located the vehicle the suspects were in, they have not arrested anyone in the incident.
The week before, early in the morning of Dec. 25, suspects shot at the side of the McDonald’s located on Alabama Street after becoming involved in an argument over payment with restaurant employees. One employee was injured by broken glass when a shot hit the restaurant window. Police later arrested Antwan Roland, 18, and are seeking two other suspects in the shooting.
The final shooting Smith referenced occurred Saturday night on Shannon Street in East Columbus. Police Chief Fred Shelton told The Dispatch a stray bullet entered a home on the street and struck a resident, who was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle with non life-threatening injuries and later released. No suspects have been arrested in that case.
Smith said he wants to form the task force partly in response to those incidents, as well as other older or more minor crimes around the city. He said he hopes to form a group of about 15 residents from all over Columbus to work with Shelton and officials in the Criminal Investigation Division.
“You’ll have a diverse group of people across the city,” Smith told The Dispatch after Tuesday’s council meeting. “… The purpose of it is to get input from people in the community, see what we need to do to talk to our youth and come up with some type of … game plan as to what we can do to help decrease crime.”
Smith said it will be different from previously formed neighborhood watch groups because it will focus on all of Columbus rather than one particular area. He added he hopes the task force will focus on more issues than just solving crimes.
“A lot of the causes of the crime have to do with unemployment, poverty, parental neglect, low self-esteem, domestic violence, alcohol and drugs,” Smith said.
He said he hopes to have volunteers reach out to him on the City of Columbus Facebook page or call his office so he can come up with a plan for who will be on the task force and when members will meet “hopefully by next Monday.”
While council members said they hadn’t known about Smith’s plan prior to his announcement, they thought it was a good idea.
“Ain’t nothing wrong with trying to develop a relationship inside the community, because (citizens can’t) help you when cases arise and things happen within the city,” Ward 2 Councilman Joseph Mickens said. “People are more (apt) to talk to you if they see you in the community a lot, and you talk to the community. I can see that as a plus.”
Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box, in whose ward the Saturday night shooting and McDonald’s shooting occurred, agreed.
“I know (city administration is) just concerned about the violence and stuff that’s going on, not just in Columbus but throughout the country,” Box said. “I think we need to kind of get together and talk about some things. Maybe we can slow this stuff down a little bit.”
Ward 1 Councilwoman Ethel Stewart said she hopes the task force deters crime by giving citizens an outlet to communicate with law enforcement.
“Usually if people who are to be mischievous and commit a crime, it’s (more likely to be a) citizen or resident that will hear of it or have a child or grandchild that will hear of it,” Stewart said. “You just don’t publicize things that you’re going to do in front of law enforcement, so if you get the citizen(s) and you get law enforcement, you get together, you work, you put the word out there … I think it will hopefully, not catch someone, but discourage people from committing crimes within neighborhoods.”
Downtown roundabout near completion
In other business, Smith said City Engineer Kevin Stafford told him earlier this week the roundabout being built at the intersection of Main and Second streets downtown is nearly completed, and that the intersection should be open to traffic again by Friday.
“There’ll be some signage that’ll probably need to be added, but (Mississippi Department of Transportation) is OK with it, the contractor is OK with it,” Smith said.
The roundabout was planned as a traffic calming measure to slow down drivers traveling in and out of town at high speeds, since roughly 60 percent of the accidents along the corridor happen at the intersection, Stafford said in July.
Construction began in July after the city council approved the $761,000 project in April. The Mississippi Department of Transportation is responsible for 80 percent of the cost, or $668,000, while the city covers the remaining $172,000.
Phillips Contracting of Columbus is working on the roundabout, and Neel-Schaffer Engineering is in charge of conducting inspections and testing at the site.
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