Meridian Mayor Jimmie Smith is speaking out about crime in the Queen City and the city’s efforts to stop it.

“I understand the citizens of Meridian are concerned about this problem,” he said in a press conference Tuesday. “And we’re concerned about it.”

Throughout the half-hour press conference, Smith fielded questions from concerned citizens about crime and what the city is doing to stop it. 

Part of the problem, Smith said, was that the Meridian Police Department has been chronically understaffed and lacking stable leadership. After going through several police chiefs in a year, he said it would take time to bring focus and cohesion back to the police department.

“We had five police chiefs in one year, and that tore up our police department,” he said. “And so we’ve got to rebuild it.”

Smith, a former law enforcement officer, also called for a return to community policing. Police, he said, need to get to know the people in the community, and the community needs to know the officers who protect it.

“We’ve got to make sure we are doing community policing,” he said. “That’s going down every street and every avenue, making sure we know the community and the community knows us. That’s part of community policing, and I want to get back to that.”

Efforts to hire more police officers and incorporate new tools and technologies into MPD’s capabilities are continuing, Smith said, with 10-12 new officers hired and more in applications being reviewed.

If MPD is going to put a stop to crime, however, it must have the help of Meridian’s community, Smith said. Law enforcement alone, he said, is not enough to solve the problem.

“We need everybody’s help, everybody in the community. We need people who are willing to say, ‘I saw something. I know something,’ It’s just that simple,” he said. “If that doesn’t happen, we can’t fight crime like we need to.”

Community engagement is vital

Project Safe Neighborhoods, an initiative to reduce violent crime created by the U.S. Department of Justice in 2001, echoes Smith’s call for community support. The PSN Blueprint, created for law enforcement agencies wanting to start their own PSN program, cites community engagement as one of its four core elements.

“Meaningful engagement between and among communities, law enforcement, prosecutors and other stakeholders is an essential component of an effective violence reduction strategy,” the PSN Blueprint reads. “Absent community trust, support, and legitimacy, violence reduction strategies are likely to have only short-term, limited, or no effect, and may create divisions between law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and the communities they serve.”

The blueprint calls for law enforcement to meet with stakeholders in the community to “listen, learn, gain perspective, increase mutual understanding, and to collaborate around shared values of justice and improving public safety.”

The Meridian Police Department will be rebuilt, officers will return to community policing and criminals will be caught, Smith said. But, he said, it will take time, and it will take the community supporting police and reporting crimes when the occur.

“If we want our community safe, we’ve all got to take a part in it,” he said. “Not just the police, but the public as a whole.”

Mississippi leads in gun violence deaths

Meridian’s struggle to curtail crime and gun violence is not unique in the Magnolia state. Data from the CDC on gun violence deaths puts Mississippi at the top.

In 2020, the most recent data available, Mississippians died from gun violence at a rate of 28.6 per 100,000 people, the highest of all 50 states. The state has been in the top five states for gun violence deaths since 2014.

In 2019, Meridian saw an increase in the number of violent crimes, the first increase in over a decade. Data from the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program show the number of reported violent crimes –which include murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – in Meridian decreased from 250 in 2009 to a low of 155 in 2018. In 2019, Meridian reported 181 violent crimes and a high of 14 murders.

Property crimes in Meridian – such as burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson – also declined since the early 2000s. In 2019, the city reported 1,475 property crimes as opposed to 2,269 property crimes in 2009.

The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program did not include 2020 data for Meridian, and 2021 data is not yet available.