A Columbus Police Department officer shot and killed Ricky Ball two months ago today.
The event shook Columbus, sparking an outcry that lasted weeks. Though some questions about what happened during the confrontation remain unanswered, the shooting and resulting public furor have served as a catalyst for a number of changes for city personnel and policy changes as the investigation continues.
What happened
At 10:08 p.m. on Oct. 16, CPD officers Canyon Boykin, Johnny Branch and Yolanda Young, who were riding in one car together, attempted to pull over a vehicle near 22nd Street North and 15th Avenue North. Former Police Chief Tony Carleton said the officers, who were members of CPD’s special operations group, initiated the stop for careless driving, no light above the license plate and lack of insurance.
Ball was a passenger in the vehicle. He fled the stop on foot, according to authorities.
What happened next is still unclear.
CPD officials have said a “scuffle” ensued as officers attempted to detain Ball. The struggle ended after an officer shot Ball. Authorities, citing the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation’s ongoing investigation into the incident, have not said what led to the shooting.
Lowndes County Coroner Greg Merchant said Ball was shot once in the upper body and once in the lower body.
Officers lost sight of Ball and found him about 10:30 p.m. roughly a block and a half away, between two houses on 14th Avenue North. CPD later reported that narcotics and a handgun were found near Ball’s body. MBI is conducting forensics analysis on the weapon and the narcotics to determine if they had been in Ball’s possession.
The handgun, a Taurus 9mm, was one of seven firearms stolen from a CPD officer’s home on Fourth Street North, according to CPD. The handgun, along with another firearm, was stolen on Aug. 5. Five other weapons were stolen on Sept. 14.
Ball was taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle where he was pronounced dead from blood loss at 11:12 p.m.
CPD identified the driver of vehicle with Ball in it as Shannon Brewer. The city has repeatedly denied claims that circulated in the community that Brewer was a police informant.
In addition to the three officers, a civilian identified as Alisha Stanford was riding in the police car, without authorization, at the time of the stop, according to authorities.
‘It’s going to be a long process’
Little new information has emerged since CPD released details on the incident at the end of October.
MBI has not released information, and Mayor Robert Smith said the city regularly makes contact with MBI to check on the investigation’s status. Smith said officials checked in last week, but MBI was not ready to release any new details.
“It’s going to be a long process,” Smith said. “What the citizens have to realize is when you ask an outside agency to perform a duty for you and assist you in a situation like this, it’s time consuming. You have to give them a chance to complete the investigation. Some (people) wanted it to be completed in two weeks, but it doesn’t work like that. In the beginning when I asked the representative from MBI how long the process could last, he said it could last from four months to six months.”
Smith said the Oxford FBI office will conduct a review of the incident after MBI’s investigation. He also said he reached out to the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the incident about three weeks ago, but has not received a response.
Ward 4 Councilman Marty Turner said he hoped to see things move faster.
“I think things are going a little slow,” Turner said. “I know the investigation is going on. But, the more facts come out and the more updates we get, people feel better. A lot of people still are mad.”
Turner mentioned some frustration at the difficulty he’s had making contact with MBI. He said citizens have expressed the same frustrations to him.
MBI spokesperson Warren Strain has not answered numerous calls from The Dispatch in the weeks since the shooting.
Turner said he planned to begin posting numbers to contact MBI on social media soon to encourage more people in the community to try to reach the agency.
“We need to overwhelm them because they cannot ignore everybody,” Turner said. “They are a government entity and they have to answer to the people. I know it’s Mississippi, but Columbus is part of Mississippi and they’ve got to answer to Columbus.”
Kamal Karriem, a former councilman who’s been active in encouraging the community to seek answers after the incident, also said he’d like to see more communication about the incident.
He called on Smith to seek a timetable for new information from the investigation, to help rebuild trust.
Personnel changes
City officials began efforts to right some wrongs in the weeks after the shooting.
On Oct. 30, the Columbus City Council fired Boykin for body camera violations, having an unauthorized civilian in a patrol car and for violations of the city’s social media policy for posts that were derogatory toward African Americans, women and disabled people.
The council suspended Branch and Young for 30 days without pay, followed by six months’ probation and mandatory police training.
Under CPD policy, officers are supposed to activate their body cameras before any interaction with the public. None of the three officers activated their cameras before or during the shooting, and Smith said Young never activated her camera at all.
The council formed a special operations group review committee to review the actions taken by the unit in the six months prior to the Ball shooting. The group did not view any footage from the Ball shooting, but Smith said they did review footage from earlier in the day.
“We do know that Ms. Young didn’t have her (body camera) on at all,” Smith said. “Boykin and Branch — pretty much every stop they made, they had the cameras on. But then when you get to the stop with Ball, neither one of those two had the camera on.”
All three officers are appealing their punishments to Columbus’ civil service commission.
The committee made a series of recommendations to the council at Tuesday’s council meeting, most related to body camera policies and punishments for violations. All six of the recommendations, including the formation of a citizen’s oversight board for CPD, were approved by the council.
Smith said he met with Carleton in the days after the shooting to disband the special operations group. He said the unit was a good idea, especially in response to citizen concerns over a spate of shootings earlier in the year. He said the officers may have gone beyond the scope of what the council expected when they approved the group’s creation.
The special operations group may return one day, with different officers and a more focused mission, Smith said.
The city is also seeking a new police chief in the wake of the Ball shooting.
Carleton resigned from the position Nov. 12, nearly a month after the incident and now works with Oxford Police Department’s training division.
The city received applications from 25 candidates by the Monday afternoon deadline. A police chief search committee will review qualified candidates and recommend finalists to the council. Capt. Fred Shelton is serving as interim chief as that process continues.
‘I didn’t want Columbus to become a Ferguson’
Public unrest over the shooting manifested several ways after the incident.
Community groups organized several marches. Hundreds of citizens showed up to the two council meetings after the shooting to voice complaints. More attended a town hall-style meeting with city officials at Hunt School on the Monday following the shooting.
During that meeting, residents leveled some pointed criticism toward city officials. Even so, Smith said the meeting was productive.
“As mayor, I didn’t want Columbus to become a Ferguson,” Smith said. “When you give people a chance to vent, even if you might not satisfy them, at least they can feel better when they get the opportunity to release hostility that they have, whether it’s toward the city or the police department. It wasn’t all hunky-dory there. It got a little ugly at times.
“Still, in the long run,” Smith said, “I felt better afterwards just sitting there listening and not getting into rebuttals with them. If they asked something I’d explain it or get the proper sources to explain it from the police department.”
Turner, who was vocally critical of the council and CPD in the days after the shooting, said he felt the city handled the outrage well, for the most part.
“The city was in an uproar and no one knew what to do,” Turner said. “They brought in extra police for the march. White people thought they were going to riot and break into the stores…none of that happened. This is Columbus — it actually is the Friendly City and I know Columbus to be the best city in Mississippi. That’s what I’m striving for.”
A petition for a grand jury investigation is continues to gather signatures in the community.
Kamal Karriem, who’s headed the petition effort, said organizers will continue to seek signatures until District Attorney-elect Scott Colom takes office in January. At the Hunt School meeting, Colom said he was open to allowing a grand jury investigation into the shooting.
Karriem said he was pleased with the community’s response to the shooting.
“Contrary to some other places in various parts of the country, there have been no violent protests,” Karriem said. “I think people have been patient enough to wait on the process.”
Alex Holloway was formerly a reporter with The Dispatch.
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