Chris Lafferty

The Meridian Star sat down recently with Meridian Police Chief Benny Dubose and Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie to discuss crime, public safety and community engagement.

Dubose and Sollie have worked together for at least 30 years, with Sollie joining MPD in 1974, followed by Dubose in 1981. Both retired from the police department before returning to law enforcement in their current positions.

Question: Obviously, your agencies have to communicate. How do you hope to carry this relationship into the next year? Do you have any plans to work together?

Dubose: That’s pretty much a given… There’s a brotherhood there between the sheriff’s department and the police department. We see this jurisdiction as something that we share.

Q: Can you think of an example of how you worked together or how your departments worked together on a recent issue people might remember?

Sollie: We both operate under a grant program to remind the motoring public about utilizing seat belts and not drinking and driving – through public service announcements and through the media itself. But we also work together on the enforcement side – setting up the roadside safety checkpoints for both persons who are impaired and those persons who are choosing not to wear their seat belts.

Quite often, our ‘bad guys’ cross jurisdictional lines – such as just going from the city to the county to commit an offense – and we rely on each other to assist the other agency in apprehending those who chose to commit a crime and are responsible.

Dubose: And likewise, we will have things that occur inside the city limits and we might not have a car nearby and one of the sheriff’s deputies will just jump out and take care of the law enforcement side of it. They’ve assisted us on wrecks with injuries they’ll get out and stand by and even in armed robberies they’re on the scene…

(With the Ole Towne Family Pharmacy) robbery, we had several deputies out there searching the woods. As a matter of fact, I think it was one of the deputies that apprehended the guy. And that was nothing about me calling the sheriff and saying, ‘Hey, can you help us?’ or him calling me saying, ‘Can you help us?’ It’s just a given.

Sollie: And again, because of the community relationship with law enforcement a specific incident I was personally involved in this past year the city had a drive-by shooting. The city dispatcher gave out the description of the car to the city officers – of course I have a city radio and I could hear the description – at the same time Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun, who was riding with me … he had actually got a phone call from the eye witness giving us the tag number and the last known direction of travel.

And as we pulled up to the intersection of 8th Street and 39th Avenue I asked Ward, ‘What kind of car are we looking for?’ and he says, ‘So-and-so vehicle.’ And I said ‘Could that be it?’ And there it was. And we were able to give our location to the city officers, they responded and those four individuals that had just committed a felony drive-by shooting were taken into custody based upon that relationship. That communication. That bridge between the city and the county.

Q: You mentioned law enforcement’s relationship with the community. What is your relationship like with the community? Is there a way you’d like to improve?

Dubose: I think there’s always room for improvement as far as relations with the community. But I think we have a good relationship with the community now as far as getting leads in certain cases. I think the community is trusting law enforcement more these days than maybe they have in the recent past. I think our relationship with the community is pretty good but, like I said, there’s always room for improvement.

Sollie: And you’re always going to have those that have had either bad contacts with law enforcement or have chosen to be on the opposing side of the fence. They’re going to attempt to paint law enforcement in a bad light.

Q: Chief, you said you believe that those have gotten better. Is there something that you attribute that to?

Dubose: We’ve constantly been trying to get the community involved in our law enforcement efforts… That this is not just a job for law enforcement, it’s a community effort to fight crime. If we don’t get the involvement of the community then our efforts are not going to be as good as they should be. In most of our major crimes we get quite a bit of information from the community – some of it’s not good information – but in some cases, in most cases, it is good information.

Q: Is that the same out in the county?

Sollie: (The fatal double homicide in Collinsville on Dec. 8) is a classic example. Had not that citizen said ‘that car is driving dangerously,’ and wrote the tag number down we would not have solved our double homicide as fast as we did. That citizen’s moment of saying, ‘Hey, I need to take this down and notify law enforcement about this car because something’s going on.’ That citizen didn’t know that there had just been a double homicide.

But that citizen’s belief in law enforcement led us to a quicker response, discovery of the crime scene and taking (suspects) into custody. So, again, the community has got to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement or law enforcement cannot succeed.

Dubose: I think the sheriff made a real valid point when he said … ‘the belief of the community in law enforcement’ and I think that the community – not just the city of Meridian but Lauderdale County as a whole – actually believes in the law enforcement efforts of the sheriff’s department and the police department. They’re trying to help as much as they can.

Q: That’s interesting because we’ve seen other communities where people don’t want to cooperate. So how do you think you fostered that? Where did you gain that trust or where are you gaining that trust?

Dubose: If you look at the nation as a whole, there is a general distrust of law enforcement because of some of the things that have gone on. But I think, in Lauderdale County and, basically, in this part of the country that people tend to trust law enforcement more for some reason or another. Maybe because we have smaller cities and smaller agencies and so forth. People know each other and know the law enforcement community.

But outside of this Southern region I think that people in larger cities, larger metropolitan areas don’t really know their law enforcement people and really don’t trust them. If they don’t know you, they’re not going to trust you. You wouldn’t trust someone you didn’t know. I think (it’s) because they know the sheriff, they know me, they know a lot of the officers (and) they’ve established relationships with us. And we are – both of us – seen in the community quite a bit. We don’t hide in an office and let things just run. We get out there… We try to be a part of our law enforcement team and not be just a chief or just a sheriff.

Q: What are the most pressing crime problems in our community?

Sollie: In the county it’s different than the city because we’re in a rural environment. One of our biggest problems is the property theft off of residential homes. Because of the rural environment the lack of the next-door neighbor eye witness – particularly during the daytime – property crimes are a big problem for us.

Dubose: As far as the city is concerned, property crimes are an issue – but what gets to most attention are the violent crimes, violent acts. That makes the headlines. That seems to be what people perceive as far as the city of Meridian is concerned as being the major problems – violent crimes. Realistically, property crimes are going to be on top. But as far as what catches the eyes and ears of the public it’s going to be the violent crimes they hear and read about.

Q: Is that a perception problem or is that a real problem?

Dubose: It’s a real problem and it’s a perception problem. If people believe it, then it’s a problem. We’ve had eight murders – homicides if you will – in Meridian this year. I was in Memphis (recently) and as I was leaving they were having number 220. Sure we have some issues but in most occasions – if not all occasions – there was nothing we could have done to prevent any of those acts from occurring. But the public seems to think that we should be able to stop those type of actions from occurring.

Q: Should people be afraid to go shopping to stop at the gas station to live their everyday lives?

Dubose: I don’t think people should be afraid I think they should be, regardless of where they are, I think they should be on-guard. Cautious.

Sollie: Diligent.

Dubose: Absolutely.

Q: Do you guys have any recommendations for the average citizen? What should that person be paying attention to? What puts them in a safer environment?

Sollie: If you go shopping, you try to park your vehicle, if you’re going to be in the store after dark, park in a lighted area. If you’re going to come out of the store, already have your key or your key fob in your hand instead of getting out to your car and having to fumble around in your purse or your pocket. Don’t delay getting into your safe zone, which is your car.

Packages left in the car are nothing more than an invitation to steal. The bad guys don’t care how much it costs to replace that windshield or that new car door. They don’t really care if it’s a diamond ring or something of very small value. They haven’t lost anything if it’s of no value. They throw it away and go to the next target.

Q: You guys both mentioned that – no matter if you’re in the city or the county – burglary or theft is kind of that major issue. Is there anything that the average person can do?

Sollie: With today’s technology, more and more residents are getting those outside camera systems that record persons coming onto their property. Either strategically placing it so that it captures a tag number if a car pulls in your driveway or on the four corners of your house to help law enforcement identify – if you become a victim of a property crime – who committed the crime.

Dubose: I think everybody probably needs to take a look at their residential security purposes and deadbolt locks. Make sure the hedges don’t cover the window in any way so that nobody can come in.

Q: How large are each of your departments? How many people are in each?

Dubose: Right now I think we have about 82 officers. We have 110 slots. We are looking at 17 officers that recently tested successfully to come onboard, pending background investigation, within the next 30 days.

Sollie: We have a total of 145 employees. That includes 55 law enforcement. The rest of them fall into the corrections and administrative positions. But when you say 55 deputies, that sounds like a lot.

But then you start segregating them to the responsibilities such as the school resource deputies, the DARE instructor, courthouse security, investigations, narcotics and when you finally get down to the last group of those deputies who respond to the 911 calls for service, we routinely have four deputies for a 12-hour shift for the entire county. Which is extremely low.

Q: Are you hiring as well or are you limited at the moment?

Dubose: He’s waiting on me to hire so he can steal them.

(Both laugh)

Sollie: Well, we currently have just a couple vacancies right now. We’ve got one deputy that’s retiring this month.

Q: Has it been difficult for you to find recruits?

Dubose: Finding them is really not a problem. Keeping them is a problem. But since the (city) council gave our officers a pay raise we anticipate that we will be able to hold onto them longer because we are now competitive with other agencies in the state.

Sollie: I have, as I said, two workforces: the detention side and the law enforcement side. On the law enforcement side we’ve been fairly steady over the last few years. On the corrections side, or the detention side, we’re constantly having two to five employees come and go every month. It’s not that high of a paying job and there’s a tremendous amount of stress.

When you put 250 plus bad people in a confined area and you’re responsible to provide them their safety as well as maintain control of the facility, it’s a tremendous amount of stress. And quite often these people come into our workforce with unrealistic expectations of the demands.

Q: So when you do hire, what are some of the qualities you look for in a potential deputy or officer?

Dubose: I look for their motivation. Why do you want to be here? Some of the individuals that come onboard think that the first day on the job they’ll be working major crime scenes and doing CSI-type stuff and don’t really have an idea of what they’re getting into as far as law enforcement. I interviewed one of the candidates – one of the 17 that I mentioned earlier – and one of the questions I had was, ‘Why do you want to be a police officer?’ and she said, ‘For the action!’ That wasn’t really something I wanted to hear.

Because in some cases when you run up on the action you might create the action… I don’t want our officers to have to deal with any actions as far as that’s concerned. They’re looking for kicking down doors and car chases and that kind of stuff. That’s not what I look for.

Sollie: As part of our hiring standards on the law enforcement side the candidate has to go through a psychological evaluation. A battery of testing as well as a polygraph testing. And we’ve had a number of candidates not reach the level of employment on one of those two evaluations.

Q: (Mayor Percy Bland) was on the radio the other day and mentioned domestic violence being a problem. Is that a big issue here?

Dubose: We have our share of domestic violence cases but again that’s one of those things that we can’t prevent – we can only respond to. But I think that over the last few years since the domestic violence laws have been in place that we’re having a pretty good effect on maybe cutting down on the cases a little bit. People realize what can happen as a result of an arrest from domestic violence.

But one of the things that… I’d like maybe to see a little bit more of is that when you think of domestic violence, you think of male-on-female assaults and that’s not always the case. It might be female-on-male. But I think since we’ve been enforcing the domestic violence laws that we have an effect on the occurrence. When the family member decides to strike or assault or whatever the other family member then we are there after-the-fact.

Q: Do you see numbers go up or down on that? Or stay the same?

Dubose: I think people are more aware of it now and it’s not as acceptable as it was years ago. When it was acceptable there wasn’t very much that was done about it because we depended on the victim of the domestic violence to sign affidavits against their significant other. And now the officer is allowed to charge the other individual – the aggressor – in this case.

(It) takes a little bit of the pressure off of the victim who actually has to maybe go back to living with them and being with them and whatever the case may be.

Sollie: As Benny says, with the law changing and being modified over the years it’s gone from the officer responding, telling the victim ‘we need to go sign an affidavit’ and having the aggressor arrested to where the law now leaves the officer who responds, if there’s evidence to indicate a domestic violence situation, shall make an arrest.

So it puts the officer in a position of documenting as much as possible and making the determination that it is probable cause or reasonable suspicion to make that arrest. Which prevents the situation from escalating to more violence or possible death.

Q: Is it an issue of being out in the county and maybe having someone on the other side try to get to response on the west when they’re on the east or whatever?

Sollie: What I tell every grand jury that comes through our department, ‘The two biggest complaints that I get is why did it take your deputy so long to get here and why is you deputy driving so fast?’ And it is difficult with having four to five deputies if multiple of them are tied up on a domestic violence and you have another one come in. You always try to have that extra set of eyes and that extra set of hands to assist in separating the two parties and try to deescalate it… So, in the county, it is difficult.

Q: In that same interview the mayor also mentioned that there’s a gang issue.

Dubose: Definitely.

Q: What is that issue and how could it be defined and does it extend out into the county?

Dubose: That’s a nationwide issue and will be for some time to come. You have groups of individuals who identify with a certain sect or gang or whatever you want to call it and they commit criminal acts whether it’s drugs, burglaries, assaults, what have you. They are an issue. The thing is, unless it’s changed in the last couple months, it’s not illegal to be in a gang. It’s the activity that the gang members participate in that’s illegal.

Q: Is there a larger of those issues that is more prevalent to Lauderdale County than another part of the country or is it all of the above?

Dubose: I think it’s a case of all of the above. The gangs are there to make money and whatever they can do to make the money that’s what they do.

Q: Now, is there a part of law enforcement that can prevent some of those activities?

Sollie (Showing a photo of gang members posing together): They call themselves the Mossy Oak Gang. Did you notice the gun? A couple of years ago they were identified because they wore Mossy Oak camouflage clothing.

Q: That can be half the people that you see in town.

Sollie: It causes problems for law enforcement. A number of years ago it was wearing white t-shirts or khaki pants or whatever clothing or color description they affiliated with. They did that to make it more difficult for law enforcement to identify someone who has committed a crime because the victim said, ‘He was a white male wearing a green shirt.’ Well, there’s a whole lot of white males in gangs wearing green shirts. It makes it more difficult to identify them in the environment.

Q: What’s the attraction there for them?

Sollie: A lot of people say it’s the belonging.

Dubose: Money. Recognition. The attention. Things that maybe they’re not getting. The sheriff and I work with our officers and one of the lessons that we’ve taught is that everybody needs to feel like they belong to something. They want attention. Recognition. Whatever. And they want to feel loved. These recruiters of the gang, they offer that.

Q: Is that a police effort or issue to try to stop that or is that some sort of social issue that needs to be taken care of someplace else?

Dubose: I think that it’s a social issue. I don’t know if it’s something that will be taken care of.

Q: By the time they get to you it’s too late?

Dubose: By the time they get to us…. yeah. They’ve already committed themselves to that lifestyle. And they’re not ashamed to let you know who they’re affiliated with they’re proud of it. It doesn’t only affect or attract people from low-income or low socioeconomic status or whatever it can affect kids from ‘I-got-all-the-money-in-Meridian’ families.

Q: A lot of what we’re talking about is not the happy-go-lucky going on of the town. What brings you guys back every day to work to tackle this stuff?

Sollie: Being that guy at that moment. To make a difference. To be that guy that changes a flat tire for an elderly person or that guy that assists a child that’s choking. Unfortunately, sometimes we’re that guy that has to intervene and bring somebody to jail. Just being at that moment at that time to make a difference.

Dubose: I was told when I was first hired that once it gets in your blood, it stays in your blood. And it’s in my blood that’s all I can tell you. I don’t love all aspects of the job but just one little thing. One phone call from a citizen saying, ‘thank you’ or ‘tell that officer thank you for what they did’ – that makes a big difference.

And not just in my daily activities but in the officer’s on the street. Because they get the usual why aren’t you out there arresting rapists and robbers instead of giving me a ticket that type of stuff and they hear that on a daily basis. But when somebody from Texas writes in ‘I would like to thank this officer but I don’t know his name he helped me do this or he assisted my wife and stuff’ that makes a difference. That makes a difference.

… What I would like to see happen in Meridian is I would like to hear the dogs howl again. Let me explain that. When I was growing up when a police car or siren would go off all of the dogs in the neighborhood would start howling like wolves. But now, I guess they’ve gotten used to it. They don’t make a sound because it’s like a daily activity. But if we could get Meridian and Lauderdale County back to where the dogs start howling again, I think we will have achieved a great deal. Will we ever achieve that, I don’t know. But that’s one of my goals.

Q: People tend to believe things used to be better, no matter what. Do you agree that things used to be better.

Dubose: Things used to be different.

Sollie: I’ve been doing this since 1974. And people ask me how have things changed. And I tell them the first name. That those people that we have to put in jail the last names have stayed the same. It’s just the first names. It’s generation after generation after generation.

Q: Do you think that’s a human thing? Or is that specific to here?

Sollie: I don’t think that’s a problem unique to Meridian or Lauderdale County. (laughs)

Dubose: I don’t know. Years ago people used to say they used to sit on the front porch or go to bed with the doors unlocked. People, especially younger people, weren’t as mobile. Now, 15- 16-year-olds have their own cars and it’s been that way for several years. When I was growing up many, many years ago, I was lucky to have a bicycle.

We got more mobile. Technology’s gotten here, social media, Facebook, all that type of stuff. People used to write letters. But that’s why I say things are different. And I think some of those differences might contribute to why things are the way they are now.