When Sean Tindell was appointed commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety in May 2020, communication between his department and local law enforcement agencies had deteriorated.
But when Columbus Police Chief Joseph Daughtry called Tindell in June following a string of shootings, the MDPS Mobile Enforcement Team showed up to help.
“Chief (Daughtry) called me and we sent about 30 of our folks here to spend a weekend in the city of Columbus, trying to assist local law enforcement, whether it comes down to traffic offenses, getting guns off our street or getting narcotics off our street,” Tindell told members of Rotary Club of Columbus on Tuesday.
Tindell helped establish the Mobile Enforcement Team in 2022, a combination of officers from Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, Mississippi Bureau of Investigations, and Mississippi Highway Patrol units that responds to law enforcement agencies’ needs across the state.
Daughtry, who was at the Rotary meeting, commented afterward on the effectiveness of Tindell’s support.
“I was able to contact him and tell him I needed some help,” Daughtry told The Dispatch. “He sent 15 troopers, and I think 20 MBN and MBI agents, and we were able to saturate the city for two days straight. We were able to take four or five guns off the street and we made 18 DUI’s that night.”
In addition to explaining the collaboration with CPD, Tindell described changes to MDPS since his appointment that have both strengthened the department and restored relationships with local law enforcement after years of distrust.
“I’ve attended just about every police chief conference and every sheriff’s conference,” Tindell said. “Some of them, I felt like I needed to wear a bulletproof vest myself, because they were pretty upset with the Department of Public Safety in a lot of arenas. We had turned off our radios so they couldn’t communicate with us. We had to open those lines back up.”
In addition to opening communication lines and establishing MET, Tindell also focused on restaffing MHP and eliminating the almost 10-year backlog at the state medical examiner’s office.
Tindell said MHP has been understaffed for years, affecting their ability to respond to emergencies. He said in 2013, the number of troopers across the state dropped as low as 400, while the department’s ideal number is 650.
The current number has risen due to annual trooper academies, which started six years ago and will continue for the next four years. Currently, Tindell said there are about 500 troopers on the road, but some areas are still stretched thin.
“I was at Troop J this morning, visiting the troop commander,” Tindell said, referencing the MHP district based in Hattiesburg. “ … Over a nine county area, we have four troopers working the road in this district. That’s not enough.”
Though Columbus has its own crime lab to run drug, fingerprint and ballistic analysis, the state crime lab is the only option for many local law enforcement agencies. The backlog has been affecting investigations for agencies across the board.
Tindell has also been working to fix an almost 10-year backlog in the medical examiner’s office at the Mississippi Forensics Laboratory.
“Our medical examiner’s office that does autopsies in every homicide across the state, when I got there we had a backlog of autopsy reports that went back to 2012,” Tindell said. “ …Families that had lost a loved one waiting on autopsy reports that when I got there were eight or nine years old.”
MDPS contracted doctors from surrounding states, like Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Florida to take on part of the cases. The department is now working crimes as they come in, rather than wading through years of old cases.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 48 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
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