National ACLU accuses black mayor of Jackson, Miss., of racial profiling
JACKSON,
Miss. - The national American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday
accused the city's black mayor of civil rights violations including
racial profiling in his crusade to stem crime in Mississippi's capital
city.
The accusations against Mayor Frank Melton and police are
based on complaints from people who say they were pulled over on the
basis of their race and searched without probable cause, the ACLU's
national racial profiling coordinator, King Downing, said at a news
conference.
"For me to leave my office and come into one of the states
means that there is a very serious problem," said Downing, who is based
in New York. "There are problems here that it's going to take the
attention of the nation in order to solve."
Downing said the mayor's race should make him "more sensitive to the problems this is creating."
However, Melton said in an interview Tuesday that he wasn't
interested in the ACLU's complaints against him or the police, and
denied he had violated anyone's civil rights.
"We have 26 people that have been killed in Jackson this
year. We have 300,000 people killed across America each year. The
majority of them are African-American and it's time to do something
different," Melton said. "I want to know what the ACLU wants to do
besides criticize."
Melton took office last July after winning 88 percent of the vote on a tough-on-crime platform.
Melton declared a state of emergency last month to attack the
city's escalating crime problem, basically adopting a stricter curfew
for teenagers and homeless people. He also continued his practice of
riding with police officers on patrol or at roadblocks.
The city's population of 184,256 is nearly 71 percent black, and 23.5 percent live below the poverty level.
Since his election, federal authorities have told him to quit
packing his pistol on commercial airline flights, Mississippi Attorney
General Jim Hood told him to stop wearing police gear, and Faye
Peterson, the district attorney in Jackson, has said the mayor was
breaking the law by impersonating a police officer.
Melton criticized the ACLU's plan to hold meetings in Jackson
to inform residents of their rights if they're stopped by police.
"I hope they don't obstruct justice and give people false
information because if they do, then we'll be focusing on them and
we'll come after them," Melton said.
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