Charges 'Silly,' Political, Says Attorney

Jackson Mayor Frank Melton's attorney said the fiery, first-term mayor would not resign and called three grand jury indictments handed down Friday "silly" and "politically motivated."

Melton, 56, turned himself in to authorities at the Hinds County Courthouse shortly past noon, after a specially convened grand jury indicted him on five felony charges related to the Aug. 26 partial destruction of a west Jackson duplex, along with three gun violations, one of which is a felony. If found guilty, Melton faces up to 50 years in prison. Marcus Wright, 30, and Michael Recio, 37, Jackson police detectives and Melton's bodyguards, also were indicted on five felony charges related to destruction of the duplex.

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The mayor of Jackson, Miss., was indicted on six felony charges Friday after months of criticism and warnings that his unorthodox crime-fighting tactics might put him on the wrong side of the law.

Among the counts now faced by the mayor, Frank Melton, are burglary, malicious mischief, illegally carrying a gun and causing a minor to commit a felony. The most serious of the charges against him carry sentences of up to 25 years, said the local district attorney, Faye Peterson.

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Jackson City Council President Ben Allen was actually insightful in explaining his logic for wimpish inaction instead of taking a stand against Mayor Frank Melton.

"This isn't Iraq. This is the United States of America . . . We are the legislative branch of government. We are not the Gestapo," Allen said in explaining why he joined three colleagues in deciding not to investigate the mayor's possible participation in the partial demolition of a Virden Addition duplex.

That this is Jackson, not Baghdad or Moscow, is precisely the point. Citizens by law are afforded due process and a presumption of innocence and not subjected to financial penalties based on suspicion, even if it's the mayor.

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Young drug offenders will have new resources to overcome abuse problems and avoid further contact with the justice system with the advent of a Forrest County Youth Drug Court.

Youth Court Judge Michael McPhail on Tuesday told the Forrest County Board of Supervisors the court received a $300,000 grant from Hattiesburg's Asbury Foundation. The grant, distributed over two years, will provide seed money for the juvenile drug court that is expected to open Jan. 1.

"We try to keep children from further penetrating the justice system," McPhail said. "This will help give them resources to stem alcohol and drug abuse."

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CALEDONIA - Town Marshal Chris Griffin warned Caledonia Aldermen Tuesday that the city isn't immune to the spread of methamphetamine, which can be made by amateur cooks with a variety of household chemicals, and urged the board to pass an ordinance to create a mandatory registry to help law enforcement officials help fight the spread of the drug.

A State Senate Bill passed in 2005 made the purchase, possession, transfer or distribution of any two or more meth precursor chemicals illegal, and urged retailers to voluntarily keep registers of customers who buy precursors.

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No Such Lack Of Flak For Crack

HANCOCK COUNTY - In the past few months, county narcotics agents have been pulling wild weed from weird places.

Several residents have reported strange-looking plants growing along roadsides, in ditches or even under a stop sign on a busy street.

The mysterious weeds are actually, just that, weed - marijuana, pot, herb, chronic, maryjane. Whatever one wants to call it, wild cannabis plants are growing naturally in some parts of the county.

"This is the first time I've ever seen marijuana like this, just growing along the side of the road," said Matt Carl, who runs the Hancock County Narcotics Division.

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Students in the Scott County School District participating in extracurricular activities will be subject to random drug and alcohol testing starting this school year.

"We're looking at this as a preventative tool," said Superintendent Frank McCurdy about the Scott County School Board's decision to implement a drug testing policy. "We want this to be a deterrent. If a child is using drugs, we want the parents and anyone involved to know so they (the student) can be helped."

McCurdy spoke to principals and staff from schools within the district, as well as parents, during a meeting last week concerning the new policy. All students in grades seven through 12 involved in extracurricular activities, including school clubs, must sign a consent form agreeing to testing this school year.

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Repugnant, repulsive and revolting are just a few choice words that describe the actions of three former Jones County sheriff's deputies accused of misdeeds while they were members of a task force established to ferret out illegal drug activity.

And those are gentler adjectives. What was once known as the Southeast Mississippi Drug Task Force can now go down as a public farce, all thanks to the actions of Roger Williams, 44; Chris Smith, 34; and Randall Parker, 32. On Tuesday, the three former deputies waived their right to a grand jury investigation and agreed to plead guilty to charges ranging from planting evidence to assaulting defendants and embezzlement.

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- -- The three men who were the subjects of an investigation involving wrongdoing at the Southeast Mississippi Drug Task Force appeared in Jones County Circuit Court Tuesday morning and pleaded guilty to a variety of charges. Roger Williams, 43, the former commander of the now closed drug enforcement unit, pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy to falsely accuse another of a felony, one count of embezzlement, one count of simple assault and one count of obstructing justice.

Randall Parker, 31, pleaded guilty to one count of embezzlement, one count of obstructing justice and four counts of conspiracy to falsely accuse another of a felony.

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LAUREL - Sheriff Larry Dykes has spent many days in the Jones County Circuit Courthouse, sometimes as a witness.

On Tuesday, though, he was witness to three of his former deputies pleading guilty to various charges ranging from embezzlement to beating and torturing handcuffed suspects and planting illegal drugs on residents. "This is the hardest day I've ever spent in this courtroom," Dykes said as he quietly watched Roger Williams, 43; Chris Smith, 34; and Randall Parker, 32, plead guilty before Circuit Judge Billy Joe Landrum. "You grow up with people and work with them and trust them. When something like this happens, it's a detriment to all law enforcement in the state of Mississippi," Dykes added.

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Has the federal government given up on the Drug War? Is it raising the white flag and admitting defeat in attempting to curb crimes involving illegal drugs?

Or is it simply saying to local communities and states: You pay the cost.

Those are logical questions since Mississippi's 14 local drug task forces have been asked to trim grant requests by 25 percent because of federal funding cuts.

Federal assistance to local law enforcement in Mississippi during the Bush administration has dipped from almost $5.3 million in 2003 to just more than $2 million this year. Federal officials say the funds are being shifted to fight terrorism.

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New Tactic Vs. Youth Crime

Brittany Weathersby, 10, carefully etched two sentences into her workbook about the day's lesson.

"I learned that it's better to make good decisions than bad decisions. I learned that D.A.R.E. stands for drugs," she said Thursday.

Drug prevention education kicked off this week in the Hinds County School District and a program geared toward older students - G.R.E.A.T. - will accompany the traditional D.A.R.E. program this year.

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Students In Some Activities To Get Random Checks

Madison County will perform more random drug tests on middle and high school students this year.

The district has decided to test 25 percent of each school's projected enrollments, up from the 10 to 15 percent tested this past year. Random drug tests are performed on students who participate in extracurricular activities that engage in competition, such as yearbook, newspaper, band, cheerleading, athletics and choir.

"The rationale (behind the testing) is to give kids a reason to say no if they're tempted," Superintendent Mike Kent said. "The more the tests are widely available, the more reason there is to say no."

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Starting this school year, some Pine Belt public schools plan to offer a program administrators hope will keep youthful miscreants from becoming youthful felons.

The Youth Development Initiative will receive referrals from schools, the youth court or district parents, said Alan Oubre, Hattiesburg schools executive director of support services.

"When they find out a child is slipping toward delinquency, it's a diversion program," he said. "They counsel (the children), provide community services and even get into mediation."

The program will begin in Hattiesburg and Petal public schools in the upcoming school year. Petal Schools Superintendent James Hutto said his district is working on coordinating the program's launch.

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Oak Grove parent Lillian Flynt isn't fearful of her daughter attending first grade at a school with a drug dog - she is more fearful of a school that doesn't have a dog.

"If it keeps bad influences away from my daughter, I'm all for it," Flynt said.

Lamar County public schools will have its first drug dog this fall, while Petal public schools will continue its existing drug dog program. In Petal, the dogs are available to search for drugs and serve as an aid in teaching children about crime prevention.

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Sadly, America's first national prison commission in 30 years failed to tackle, head-on, our lock 'em up culture and to find ways to reduce the number of people behind bars in Mississippi and elsewhere. The commission's recent report is little more than a how-to manual to help wardens cope with overcrowded prisons that breed violence, disease and recidivism. What we really need is a road map to drastically shrink

Mississippi's prison population and, at the same time, save state taxpayers a lot of money.

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Kathy Strickland of Petal has never felt that her two children are in danger while at school.

But Strickland said she is glad that the city's public school district is taking steps - a new drug dog, upgraded security cameras and a new school police officer - to ensure all schools are safer this year.

"The security is great," said Strickland, who has a ninth- and seventh-grader attending Petal schools. "I think the drug dogs are a good idea - anything they can do to make campus safer."

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Students returning to school next month look forward to new experiences: new status, new classes, new teachers, new activities.

What also awaits many of them are new rules, and in some cases a new student random drug testing policy.

Several school districts - Booneville and Prentiss, Itawamba and Tishomingo counties among them - are implementing the new policies for the 2006-07 academic year. Five other school districts in the region also have drug-testing policies for some or all their students.

"Our students deserve a safe and secure environment to learn, and this policy is designed to ensure that," said Malcolm Kuykendall, Tishomingo County's newly appointed superintendent.

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MONTGOMERY - Loretta Nall speaks frankly. She is an atheist, a marijuana smoker and, recently, an escort for women attempting to get abortions. She's also a candidate for governor on the Libertarian Party ticket, and her positions don't seem to jibe with mainstream Alabama thinking.

So when Nall says getting 250,000 votes - equivalent to about 18 percent of the vote in the 2002 gubernatorial election - would be a good result, it sounds ambitious.

"It is," she said over lunch at Davis Cafe, a soul food restaurant in Montgomery. "I'm an ambitious girl."

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Some folks' logic baffles me.

Would you ever, knowingly do something that would cause you to lose control of your life?

Would you ever hand over all of your rights to freewill?

I wouldn't. I personally think that self control is just about the only control I can put my hands on in the world.

No matter what we do, usually we can't control the actions of other people --- we can't control the weather, we can't control the price of eggs in China...

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