STARKVILLE — Larry ‘Luv’ Johnson’s barber shop has struggled financially as the Highway 182 revitalization has torn up streets and forced traffic to back up around his business.
But his balance sheet, he told the board of aldermen during its Tuesday night meeting, wasn’t what brought him to City Hall. When Johnson asked a police officer to help him by keeping the entrance to his business clear, and the officer told him he wasn’t a babysitter, it became a question of respect.
“I’ve been taking up with Starkville (Police Department) with these young kids for 30 years,” Johnson said. “I’ve been telling them, ‘give them the benefit of the doubt.’ Now I need to apologize to them, because if (that officer) talked to me like that, I can imagine how he’s talking to these young Black guys out on the street.”
The Highway 182 Revitalization has been ongoing for more than six months, narrowing the number of lanes and at times blocking traffic entirely. The western phase affecting Johnson’s shop is nearing completion, but it’s still forced him to shut down the cafe side of his business and dramatically reduced the number of clients he and the other barbers in the shop receive.
Johnson says, and the Starkville Police Department confirms, that a verbal disagreement took place between him and an officer March 26. Traffic had been backing up in the afternoon as school got out, completely encircling the Touch of Luv Barber and Beauty Salon.
Starkville police were supposed to help with congestion, but when Johnson asked one of the two motorcycle officers directing traffic to keep a gap open for his customers, Johnson said he responded disrespectfully. Johnson uploaded a video to Facebook later that day of an officer reiterating the sentiment that keeping the entrance clear is not his job.
Johnson told the board Tuesday the interaction changed how he saw SPD.
“I’m sick of it,” he said. “I’m sick of trying to defend Starkville PD when they don’t defend us. It cut deep, real deep. If an altercation had taken place I’d have gone to jail. What would’ve happened to this officer?”
Mayor Lynn Spruill told The Dispatch on Tuesday that the interaction “absolutely (does) not” meet SPD standards for interacting with the public.
“We certainly don’t ever want to put our business or residents in a position where they feel they’re being disrespected,” she said. “…Occasionally things go awry. We do our best to get past that, and people are human. We all respond sometimes in ways we wish we hadn’t. ”
Police Chief Mark Ballard spoke with Johnson after the meeting to apologize and make sure he understood the needs of the business going forward. Since the meeting, traffic officers have been keeping an opening for the barber shop’s customers, though Johnson said that only does so much when customers can barely reach his location in the first place.
“The officer did say, ‘I’m not going to be able to babysit your parking lot,’ and it was the wrong tone for sure,” Ballard said. “… We had two motorcycle officers trying to work with 600 to 1,000 cars in 40 minutes. Frustrated parents are showing up an hour early to get their kids and officers are under pressure to get vehicles through the intersection.”
Ballard declined to identify the officer or confirm whether any disciplinary action had been taken, though he did say the officer in question doesn’t have a history of issues dealing with the public.
“This officer is not one of those officers that’s often complained about,” Ballard said. “That said, given the circumstances I assured Mr. Luv and the board that he will never make the comment of babysitting a parking lot. I think that problem is resolved.”
Johnson said SPD’s issues go beyond this one interaction and that he wants to see broader retraining efforts.
“It’s not about me,” he told The Dispatch on Thursday. “It’s about how I feel he’s treating these young Black males and white males. Black officers and white officers are being disrespectful to people on the street. I’ve been hearing it for years.”
Spruill told The Dispatch after Tuesday’s meeting that “there may be an opportunity for some additional training, some refreshing of interacting with the public.” Ballard, however, contested the idea Thursday that SPD has wider issues interacting with the public and didn’t say there would be any official retrainings as a result of the incident.
“There are things that I will disagree with him about,” he said. “The training of our officers is one of the highest in the state already. We do a tremendous amount of deescalation training. … The wording was wrong. But it is what it is. Human beings are going to make mistakes, and I think that’s what we have there. We’ve apologized, we’ve learned from it and we’ll move forward.”
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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 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
