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The Folks Are Coming
A JFP reader commented on our Web site Tuesday that it is a very different world in which citizens can watch live feeds of a trial on WAPT's Web site and then click to jacksonfreepress.com and comment on it, ask questions and have them immediately addressed by the lawyers obsessed with the site. It is, indeed.
Demand the Facts, Ma'am
The only time Jackson drives me crazy is during local campaign cycles. To be fair, of course, it's not every Jacksonian who goes insane and starts pushing lies and conspiracy theories—it's pretty much the same people every time.
Aloha, Jackson
When we boarded our plane in Dallas bound to Honolulu in January, I'd had only had two hours' sleep. Inevitably, I tossed and turned in anticipation of getting up at 4 a.m.--and then traveling for more than 12 hours. So when I saw the large man I would have to share my other armrest with, I grimaced.
D.I. Your Own Damn Self
One of my favorite responses to the Katrina crisis was a headline—from The Onion, I think—about a man who had decided to just drive a semi-trailer full of ice down to the Coast his own damn self, considering how poorly the Bush administration was responding to people in need.
Mother Nature: First, Do No Harm
"Y'all are just against economic development." That ribbing came from a Levee Board member who shall remain anonymous due to drinks on the table (a pretty good rule for journalists, by the way).
The Power of Now
When I moved back to Mississippi in 2001, I was naïve. I thought I was coming home to write about the past that shamed me as a white Mississippian. I wanted to be a white Mississippian who wasn't afraid to face the past.
Transparency Means Transparency
Well, we tried.
Organizers of a event heralded as a unity event for Mayor-elect Johnson barred cameras at the last minute. This was a mistake and a signal to Johnson to ensure transparency.
Moore Alleges DA ‘Misconduct'
The attorney for Sharrod Moore, who is awaiting his Sept. 15 trial for the Nov. 14, 1995, murder of Jackson police officer Robert J. Washington, is accusing Hinds County District Attorney Robert S. Smith of "prosecutorial misconduct." Smith, they say, used "perjured" witness accounts to get the indictment, has not provided timely discovery documents and alleged a police "cover-up" in the case in a Jackson Free Press interview in May.
Melton's Complicated History with Maurice Warner
One of Mayor Frank Melton's favorite mentees was murdered on Christmas Day. The JFP explores the mayor's history with Maurice Warner.
Phillips Group Close to Jackson Contracts?
The Jackson Redevelopment Authority has chosen a development consortium out of Dallas, Texas, with very close ties to controversial developer Gene Phillips as the developers of the Convention Center hotel, and may hand them the contract to refurbish the Standard Life building shortly, according to The Clarion-Ledger.
Melton Details Jefferson Davis Youth Camp
Mayor Frank Melton abruptly called the Jackson Free Press last week to correct what he thought was misreporting in the paper, in a July 25 story about a camp for boys that he organized. "You know I don't read your paper," he said, "but someone told me that you reported that the city paid for the camp. It didn't cost the taxpayers. I paid all costs out of my pocket."
JUST IN: McAllister, Watkins Snag Standard Life
Developer David Watkins has just informed the Jackson Free Press that the Jackson Redevelopment Authority has chosen a proposal presented by him, Deuce McAllister and Historic Restoration Inc. to restore the Standard Life Building. JRA chose their proposal from three, including one from TCI of Dallas, with close connections to controversial businessman Gene Phillips, a friend of Jackson Mayor Frank Melton. (See post below.) Earlier today, TCI won their bid to develop the $180 million Convention Center hotel.
Wink, Wink: The ShopLocal Scam
When the Jackson Free Press launched our Web site and published our first print edition in September 2002, we immediately started urging our readers to "Think Global, Shop Local." The phrasewhich to us means to be concerned about the whole world but take care of your home city by supporting locally owned businesseswas even the headline on the cover of one of our earliest issues.
Sunday In The Parking Lot With Bullets
A night of cruising went wrong Sunday night for two 21-year-old identical twins from Flora, when a bit of boisterous gun play left one of them dead and the other covered in blood driving around the city with Mayor Frank Melton looking for the people who killed his brother and perhaps wounded two other people.
Why Isn't Gene Phillips Mentioned?
Blog post by Donna Ladd:
Jack Mazurack never mentions controversial developer Gene Phillips in this story today about TCI's plans for downtown Jackson, helped along by City Council yesterday. And then there is this:
McMillin Talks on Irby ‘Conspiracy'
Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin this week fired back at accusers who say he led a conspiracy to go easy on Karen Irby, whose intoxication and high-speed driving killed two doctors and seriously injured her husband, Stuart, and herself after leaving the Jackson Country Club the evening of Feb. 11, 2009. Police reports show that she crossed five lanes of traffic in her black 2006 Mercedes-Benz CLS 500 and hit a Chevrolet Silverado C1500 pick-up truck head-on; it burst into flames, killing Drs. Mark Pogue and Lisa Dedousis.
Goodbye, Mrs. Chaney
It took 41 years, but Fannie Lee Chaney lived to see her home state mete out a degree of justice for the murder of her son, James Chaney, on Father's Day, 1964. She was born Fannie Lee Roberth on a farm in a community called Sand Flats near Meridian. She married Ben Chaney in 1940, had a daughter, Barbara, the next year, and then gave birth to James Earl Chaney on May 30, 1943, as recounted in the book "We Are Not Afraid."
Sharrod Moore Back on Probation ... Sort Of
Dressed in a bright-orange jumpsuit with heavy chains around his hands, waist and sandaled feet, accused cop murderer Sharrod Moore won a victory this morning in Hinds County Court even as he was arraigned a second time for capital murder, with the added charge of armed robbery, for the November 1995 death of Jackson Police Officer Robert J. Washington.
Pack Up and Get Out!
Video still courtesy of WAPT-TV 16
What a week. As our last issue went to press, Mayor Frank Melton was in the middle of a tantrum about alleged "Wood Street Gang" associate Vidal Sullivan going free after a witness recanted his story to the district attorney. By the end of the week, Melton was basking in the Bahamas, and Sullivan was back on the streets as a free man, according to law enforcement insiders and friends of Sullivan who say they talked to him within hours of his brief visit with Melton on Wednesday night.
[In Memory] Florence Mars, 1923-2006
I didn't know Florence Mars growing up in Neshoba County. She was from a different part of town—the side that had old money. I don't have memories of her walking around town in her floppy hat like Sen. Gloria Williamson describes, or driving her little bug around town as former Neshoba Democrat editor Stanley Dearman does. I don't remember seeing her at the Neshoba County Fair. I certainly had no reason to visit the stockyard that she owned, the one that white folks boycotted for awhile.