Police Chief Terry Gann said combatting juvenile crime is one of the top issues he faces within his new leadership role at the Yazoo City Police Department.
Juvenile crime within Yazoo City has made headlines since the beginning of the year. Since January of this year, at least 13 juvenile crimes involving gunfire have been reported. In addition to gun-related crimes, there has also been a wide range of assault and burglary incidents involving the community’s local juvenile population.
Alderman Macklyn Austin has been very vocal at the Board of Mayor and Aldermen meetings about curtailing the local juvenile crime.
“This is a sad situation that we are in,” Austin said. “I can’t count how many shootings I have heard at night with some kids being shot and even killed. I have pretty much lost count. At every board meeting, we ask our parents to be vigilant. I don’t know if some of the parents just don’t care, but their kids are not their priority. Some of these parents are finding their focus on other things.”
Austin encouraged the Yazoo City Police Department to enforce the city’s current curfew ordinance. The city of Yazoo City has both a daytime and nighttime curfew for juveniles. According to the city ordinance, “it shall be unlawful for any compulsory school-age child to remain in or upon any public street, highway, park, vacant lot or other public location within the city from 8:45 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday during the school term in which the compulsory school-age child is to be enrolled in a public or nonpublic school as mandated by the Mississippi Compulsory School Attendance Law codified at section 37-13-91 of the Mississippi Code of 1972.” Concerning the nighttime curfew, the city ordinances states that “it shall be unlawful for any minor to remain in or upon any public street, highway, park, vacant lot or other place within the city during the following period ending at 5:00 a.m. and beginning: (1)11:00 p.m. on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday nights; and (2)11:30 p.m. on Friday or Saturday nights.”
With most of the juvenile crime being reported during the late and early morning hours, Gann said he directed his department immediately upon his arrival to begin enforcing the juvenile curfew ordinances.
“We started enforcing the curfew ordinance immediately when I took office,” Gann said. “Parents are going to be held accountable. When we get a kid out past curfew and they have guns on them, we are going to be looking at the parents. Recently, the juveniles who we have arrested with guns running the streets in the middle of the day, we found out that they were suspended or expelled from school. Parents need to be held accountable. If their kids are suspended or expelled from school, they have no business running the streets.”
If a juvenile is in violation of the city’s curfew ordinance, an officer can take them to the police department. According to the city ordinance, “when a minor is taken to the police department, the minor's parents shall be immediately contacted. If after this contact there is still probable cause to believe that the minor was violating this article, the minor shall be held until a parent comes to take the minor home.” Parents are then provided with a written notice of the violation.
However, after the initial warning, future violations could result in the parents receiving a fine. According to the city ordinance, “the parent shall be fined $50, plus accompanying fees and court costs. For each subsequent offense of the minor, the parent fine shall be doubled, e.g., $100.00 for the second, $200.00 for the third and subsequent offenses.”
“The curfew ordinance is just one of the things we can do to deter some of this juvenile crime,” Gann said. “We are finding that most of the weapons being supplied to these juveniles are coming from older criminals. The older criminals are handing them guns and sending them out to do their dirty work most of the time.”
Gann said increased manpower within the police department is one of his top priorities as well.
“First thing we need to do is get our police department back up to full staff,” he said. “With that, we can work on stopping some of these shootings. Getting more officers on the streets and tackling these curfew violations is a start.”
