NATCHEZ, Miss. – Adams County supervisors decided Monday to draft an ordinance requiring apartment complexes to beef up security measures following Sunday’s shooting sprees in these high-crime areas.
Sheriff Travis Patten said such steps are needed “to get these criminal elements out of these apartments.”
“I don’t have all the answers, . . . but solutions need to be put in place,” Patten told supervisors.
The sheriff reported one person was killed and two wounded in Sunday’s separate shootings. Jlandrick Davis, 25, was killed at Susie B. West apartments. Two people were shot at or near the Maryland Heights and Cambridge Heights apartments. Patten noted the Holiday apartment complex has also been a problem area.
Potential crime-curbing steps discussed at Monday’s board meeting include imposing a nighttime curfew, reactivating Natchez-Adams County’s crime crackdown task force and requiring apartment owners to install crime cameras and hire off-duty cops to patrol the premises.
Patten said he wants to bring back “Operation Safe Neighborhoods,” the joint crime-fighting initiative the city and county conducted last year with Natchez police officers and Adams County sheriff’s deputies engaged in “saturation” patrols throughout the city and county to curb and investigate crimes and make arrests.
County Supervisor Ricky Gray said setting up surveillance cameras to record criminal activities is a key to deterring crime and catching culprits. He got the county board Monday to instruct its attorney to draft an ordinance requiring apartments complexes outside the city to install crime cameras. The proposed local law’s details will be presented later for the board to review before approval.
“They are a problem,” Gray said of the crime-ridden residential areas. “Everybody in this county should be upset.”
Adams County board President Kevin Wilson said apartment owners should post security guards on the premises. “That seems to be the first step – to have off-duty police officers to patrol,” Wilson said.
In addition to drafting the anticrime ordinance to impose on apartments, the county board agreed to move the voting precinct from the Maryland Heights apartments. Supervisor Angela Hutchins said voters are afraid to cast their ballots there because of the crime. Supervisors agreed to transfer the precinct to a nearby church.
Comments