The NAACP warns that “separate and unequal policing” will return to Mississippi’s majority-Black capital under a state-run police department
FILE - Derrick Johnson speaks at a community meeting, Monday, Oct. 24, 2022, in Jackson, Miss. Johnson, who lives in Jackson, said at another community meeting in the city on April 6, 2023, that the NAACP intends to sue the state of Mississippi over a law that will expand the role of a state-run police department in the majority-Black city. The measure was approved by the majority-white Mississippi House and Senate. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed it Friday, April 21, 2023. JACKSON, Miss.
But the NAACP said in its lawsuit filed late Friday that these are serious violations of the principle of self-government because they take control of the police and some courts“In certain areas of Jackson, a citizen can be arrested by a police department led by a State-appointed official, be charged by a State-appointed prosecutor, be tried before a State-appointed judge, and be sentenced to imprisonment in a State penitentiary regardless of the severity of the act,” the lawsuit says.
The governor said this week that the Jackson Police Department is severely understaffed and he believes the state-run Capitol Police can provide stability. The city of 150,000 residents has had more than 100 homicides in each of the past three years. According to one of the bills Reeves signed into law Friday, Capitol Police will have “concurrent" jurisdiction with Jackson Police Department in the city. The expanded jurisdiction for the Capitol Police would begin July 1.
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