Reports and studies on crime in Meridian will shape the implementation of a state-wide crime initiative in Lauderdale County and determine its level of success.

U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst announced on Tuesday that Meridian would be the fourth site for Project EJECT in the state, following Jackson, Moss Point and Hattiesburg. Other cities will be added in the upcoming weeks.

Previous research from Mississippi State University-Meridian and ideas from the Meridian Leadership Council, a monthly meeting for Meridian stakeholders, will influence the direction of EJECT in Meridian. 

Hurst, with the U.S. Southern District, unveiled the crime initiative in Dumont Plaza to nearly 100 people, which he said was the largest crowd he’d seen during his EJECT tour.

“Meridian is special to me because I grew up 18 miles west of here,” said Hurst, a native of Hickory in Newton County. “This is where we went to the movies. This is where we went to the mall. I remember cruising up 8th Street,” Hurst said. “It was a remains a prosperous town with a proud people… the citizens of the Queen City simply want what we all want: a safer community.”

EJECT, or empower justice, expel crime together, first launched in Jackson in Dec. 2017, followed by Hattiesburg and Moss Point in recent months. Hurst said that Meridian had been selected for the initiative because of high violent crime rates.

In 2017, according to Hurst, Lauderdale County had 194 incidents of violent crime, which was 75 percent higher than the Mississippi average and 30 percent higher than the national average.

“By announcing the expansion of Project EJECT, we hope to combat the increase of violence with more justice,” Hurst said.

Specifically, Hurst said that Chet Kirkham, an assistant U.S. attorney, would be a Jackson-based attorney who acted as a liaison between his office and District Attorney Kassie Coleman.  

“The idea is to bring in federal resources and federal prosecutors specifically to work with local authorities,” Kirkham said. “We can all coordinate and figure out the best way to affect a drop in crime.”

Coleman and Kirkham said that some cases could be transferred to federal court, such as a parole violation like firearm possession. 

Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie pushed the U.S. Attorney’s office to respond to an increase in firearm possessions by previously incarcerated people. He said that five years ago, only 50 people were arrested for that charge. In 2018 his office had arrested 95 people on that charge, he said. 

“These individuals chose to re-arm themselves and re-victimize the citizens of this county,” Sollie said.

Coleman used an example for transfer in broad terms: a man convicted of using a firearm in an aggravated assault who, while out on bond, had been arrested for new charges. Both times, the man, who had a previous felony conviction, had been charged with possession of a firearm.

“What they’re offering to do is take the cases through the federal court if they meet the criteria through their expedited system,” Coleman said, noting that federal court had a strict 70-day wait versus the uncertainty of the state court. “What I have agreed to do is ‘No pride in authorship.’ If they can take these cases and take more time with them and get them through the system quicker… if they take the case federal they will go through their own grand jury, own prosecutor, own public defender so it will never touch our docket.”

In a system like the 10th Circuit Court, where the backlog means some cases take years to resolve, this can move certain cases faster, Coleman and Kirkham said. 

“Any time you can move a case to our court system there’s going to be a faster moving docket,” Kirkham said. “The docket does move quickly.”

While previous Project EJECT press conferences had focused on the “EJECT” part of expelling those accused of crimes, Hurst and Dana Nichols emphasized the proactive aspects of the initiative on Tuesday.

“Project EJECT is not just about arresting people and prosecuting people,” said Nichols, the special agent in charge at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives at the New Orleans Field Division office. “This program includes opportunities for support services and training.”

Nichols said that EJECT had programs for those with a criminal history seeking to change and those who still choose otherwise.

“The choice is yours,” Nichols said.

Hurst said limited resources prevented the southern district from assigning a federal prosecutor to every city.

“In looking around the state, we determined that some communities may need more help than others,” Hurst said. “And frankly, with Meridian, the people are welcoming to us and want to make a change.”

Looking at broader trends

Whatever the results of the EJECT crime initiative, Amanda Cook, a criminology professor at Mississippi State University – Meridian, will be watching. 

“I envision my role in this as analyzing arrest data and looking at what the real problems are,” Cook said. “Police departments and (others), they don’t think about it as data – it’s record keeping. They can pull out, ‘There was X amount of this crime in this year.’ But we can take it a step further than that and look at actual trends.”

Cook has looked at broader trends of crime in Meridian since 2015, and meets monthly with the Meridian Leadership Council to discuss community ideas with other stakeholders. Hurst recognized her studies as one of the resources to be used when implementing EJECT in Meridian.

“One thing that we see in Meridian is a lot of fear of crime and then sometimes the data may not necessarily back up that fear,” Cook said. “Yes, there is crime in Meridian. Yes, it is higher than we would like for it to be… one thing I would like to do is find a way to measure the fear of crime in the community and, with projects like this, look at that fear of crime (over time).”

But Cook said that it takes more than the actions of one office to make a dent on crime statistics – or the perception of crime.

“We can’t arrest and prosecute our way out of this,” Cook said. “But if everybody can contribute, instead of complaining, I think it will take us a long way.”