Columbus Mayor Robert Smith and Police Chief Fred Shelton talk about proposed solutions to violent crime, while police and city council members stand behind them at a press conference outside City Hall Thursday. The city will host a town hall meeting to address crime on Monday, and Smith and Shelton announced the city will increase police patrols at night, implement driver’s licenses and safety checkpoints and install surveillance cameras throughout the city to help curb crime. Isabelle Altman/Dispatch Staff
City officials have invited the public to a town hall meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in Trotter Convention Center to hear concerns and propose solutions to the recent increase in gun violence in Columbus and the surrounding areas.
Roses and thorns: 4/25/21
A rose to community leaders in Columbus and Starkville for efforts to engage citizens as they consider options in the wake of recent shootings that have put both cities on edge. Shootings in both Columbus and Starkville in recent weeks have led to open and far-ranging discussions. In Columbus Thursday, the Crime Prevention Task Force met at the Trotter Center to share information from the group’s four committees youth and recreation, community revitalization, community promotion and law enforcement enhancement. The same day, city officials in Starkville held a town hall at McKee Park, site of a drive-by shooting Tuesday that led to the arrests of five people. Crime especially violent crime creates a sense of understandable urgency, but we believe there is a danger of knee-jerk responses fueled primarily by emotions made before first making a real effort to understand the nature and scope of the problem. Now is the time for clear-eyed assessments
Task force proposes youth input, events to help prevent crime Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat speaks at a meeting of the community Crime Prevention Task Force in the Trotter Convention Center in downtown Columbus Thursday. Labat chairs the task force s education committee, and committee members Fairview teacher Roselynn Rainey, left, and Dennis Irby, right, also presented during the meeting. The task force aims to find ways to prevent crime in the Columbus area. Isabelle Altman/Dispatch Staff
Members of the community Crime Prevention Task Force had plenty of suggestions for community improvements when they met for their regular meeting at Trotter Convention Center Thursday night: from planning town hall-style meetings with community members, to partnering with organizations like Boys and Girls Club to hold events and recreational activities for youth, to hosting a community-wide festival celebrating Columbus.
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Brooks: City needs stronger blight removal program, more data-driven policing Lowndes County District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks speaks to Columbus Rotary Club Tuesday at Lion Hills Center. He spoke about the progress of the city’s Crime Prevention Task Force, which he chairs. Zack Plair/Dispatch Staff
Trip Hairston, president of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, was skeptical of Columbus’ effort to form a Crime Prevention Task Force when he first read about it in the newspaper.
Trip Hairston
“To be honest, the first thing I did was roll my eyes,” Hairston told his fellow Columbus Rotarians Tuesday at Lion Hills Center. “It’s an election year. Of course they’re going to have a crime prevention task force.”