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Federal prosecutors have charged a Ruleville police officer with extortion — allegations stemming from a traffic stop of an immigrant. 

Law enforcement officials arrested Antonio Artez Wade, 36, in Gulfport on Thursday for what Clay Joyner, U.S. attorney for the Northern District, described as a “shakedown.”

Federal officials said in a news release that on Sept. 17, Wade stopped a vehicle in the small Delta city in northern Sunflower County. The car’s occupant, an immigrant, admitted to lacking identification. Then Wade allegedly offered to “help” in exchange for $2,500, and the immigrant paid him.

“Corruption of the kind alleged here undermines public safety and trust in law enforcement, and it will simply not be tolerated,” Joyner said in a statement.

Wade remains in federal custody until his bond hearing. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He is being formally charged with blackmail, extortion and “deprivation of rights under color of law.” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced plans to file state charges as well.

The criminal investigation was a joint operation between federal prosecutors, the Department of Homeland Security, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety and the attorney general’s office. This marks the second joint investigation into corruption in Mississippi Delta law enforcement agencies in the last month.

On Oct. 30, 19 people, including officers from nine Delta law enforcement agencies, were indicted for illegally carrying a firearm in relation to a drug trafficking crime. Those charged ranged from patrol officers to sheriffs and police chiefs. The U.S. Department of Justice had previously investigated law enforcement agencies in Rankin County, Noxubee County and Holmes County for torture, bribery and illegal searches. respectively.

A Ridgeland-based immigration attorney said she’s pleased federal prosecutors appear to be concerned with proper treatment of an immigrant.

“I’m glad that state and federal officials are speaking out against this because what is wrong is wrong, and what is right is right regardless of what your status is,” Assma Ali said in a phone interview Monday. “In the United States, individuals are entitled to Fourth Amendment protections even if undocumented.”

“I do firmly believe that if extorted, the vast majority would pay the money because they fear arrest,” she added.

Mississippi football history is rich with legendary players who were lightly recruited out of high school but went on to become among of the most productive college and professional players on the planet.

Names like Payton (Walter), Rice (Jerry), Favre (Brett) and Manning (Archie) are part of American football lore. None were heavily recruited as 17- and 18-year-olds. “Diamonds in the rough,” sports writers and sportscasters used to call them. Popular opinion is that such rare diamonds no longer exist, what with the proliferation of summer football camps, scouting combines and .com recruiting services.

But just when we think that, out of nowhere (actually from out of Oma, Mississippi), comes a guy like Ahmad Hardy, the 19-year-old Missouri running back, who Saturday night appeared a second coming of the great Payton. All he did was slash and dash for 300 yards and three touchdowns on 25 carries in the Tigers’ 49-27 trashing of Mississippi State. Like Payton, Hardy can run around you or he can run over you. He hurts tacklers more than tacklers hurt him. Like Payton, Hardy is listed at 5-10 and 210 pounds. Like Payton, Hardy is just getting started when opponents first hit him.

Yet when signing day arrived in February of 2023, Hardy had just one FBS offer and that was to the University of Louisiana-Monroe. You, as I, must wonder, how can that be?

Jesse Anderson, now the head coach at Hazlehurst, was Hardy’s coach at Lawrence County, and he knew what he had in Hardy. “I knew he was an SEC running back, I knew how good he was, and I told every college coach I could,” Anderson said Monday morning. “I sent them all film. I never got a straightforward answer on why nobody was offering him. They’d tell me, ‘Coach, he’s on our radar. We’re tracking him.’ But his only offer on national signing day was Louisiana-Monroe, so he took it.”

Hardy’s grades weren’t a problem. Neither was his production. Said Anderson, “Ahmad led the state in rushing (2,442 yards and 24 touchdowns) as a senior. He was a dream to coach. He wanted the ball on every play. You never wondered what you were going to get with Ahmad. You always got his best effort.”

Until his senior season of high school football, Hardy played both running back and linebacker. In fact, Anderson’s favorite memory of Hardy remains a game against Brookhaven his junior season. “Ahmad ran for 170 yards in the game, and we were ahead late. Brookhaven was driving deep in our territory for what would have been the winning touchdown,” Anderson said. “Ahmad made four straight tackles on first, second, third and fourth downs. I don’t know why they kept running to his side but they did. He stuffed them.”

Hardy’s toughness was never an issue. Perhaps his foot speed is what turned off recruiters. He reportedly ran a 4.6 40 at a scouting combine. But track speed and football speed are two entirely different things. Jerry Rice famously ran a 4.71 40 at the NFL combine. But did you ever see anybody catch Rice from behind? Me either. Nobody has been catching Hardy either, including State on one 72-yard touchdown run when Hardy was clocked at a top speed of 21 mph. (I remember asking the late, great Archie Cooley, Rice’s coach at Mississippi Valley State, why Rice ran a 4.71 at the combine. Said Cooley, “Because nobody was chasing him.”)

What makes Hardy’s college recruitment (or lack of) even more mystifying is that he comes from a football family. Two uncles (Wayne Hardy and Kendrick Hardy) were outstanding players at Southern Miss. His father, Kentario Hardy, was a terrific defensive end at Nicholls State.

Southern Miss reportedly offered Ahmad Hardy during the fall recruiting period but wanted a verbal commitment from him right away. When Hardy opted to wait until the national signing day in February, USM retracted the offer. Huge mistake, that was.

So, naturally, Hardy torched the Golden Eagles as a freshman for 121 yards and two touchdowns rushing and 52 yards receiving in ULM’s 38-21 victory. Hardy ran for 1,351 yards for the Warhawks, garnering transfer portal interest from football powerhouses around the country. He chose Missouri, and he has treated SEC defenses every bit as rudely as he did those in the Sun Belt. Through 10 games, he had rushed for 1,346 yards and 15 touchdowns. He has yet to fumble in well over 400 carries in two seasons of college football. Not bad for a teenager from Oma, a small community about 15 miles north of Monticello on Mississippi 27.

“Ahmad’s just special,” Anderson, his high school coach, said. “He’s a country kid, loves to fish and ride horses. He loves him some horses, now.”

Seems fitting. Hardy looked like Secretariat running down the stretch against Mississippi State.

“No doubt,” Anderson said. “Ahmad runs like a thoroughbred.”

Gov. Tate Reeves is asking lawmakers when they convene for the 2026 regular session to provide $1 million for expanding child care access for workers across the state. 

The program, according to his annual Executive Budget Recommendation, would be a public-private “tri-share model” in which employers, employees and the state government share the cost of child care. 

Reeves, a Republican, said in the report that the child care program could lead to a reduction in absenteeism, increased work performance and the attraction of a larger talent pool. 

“It is a vital workforce-development strategy that will strengthen our state’s historic economic development efforts and help increase Mississippi’s workforce participation rate,” Reeves said. 

The governor also recommended that the Legislature expand “education freedom,” or school choice in Mississippi, though he didn’t recommend a specific policy or propose how much money lawmakers should spend. 

Education freedom is the moniker that Mississippi Republicans prefer to describe school-choice ideas. It refers to a myriad of policies that either disburse tax money to families to pay for education services, including private school tuition, or allow families to move their children to different schools, regardless of type or location. 

The issue has gained traction under the Trump administration. House Speaker Jason White and other state leaders have repeatedly indicated their support for expanding school choice, which is expected to headline the legislative session that starts in January. 

Reeves said legislators should expand charter schools in the state and give students greater flexibility to attend public schools, regardless of where they live. 

Current state law requires students to attend the school district in which they reside. The only way for them to transfer to another district is if their home school district and the receiving school district both agree to the switch. 

Both the governor and Joint Legislative Budget Committee are required to issue budget recommendations before lawmakers convene in regular session. But the full Legislature sets a budget and is not bound by either recommendation.

Other budget recommendations Reeves made include: 

• $20 million to fast-track construction of energy generation, transmission and pipeline infrastructure at sites designated by the Mississippi Development Authority.
• $100 million to create an Energy Infrastructure Bank to prevent supply chain disruptions.
• $20 million for new economic site development efforts.
• $50 million for debt management strategies to save money in the long term.
• $9 million to establish three 16-bed psychiatric emergency service locations for adults in crisis.
• $5 million to create a second adolescent crisis stabilization unit and a secure residential substance use disorder unit.
• $10 million to establish in-state facilities for children with extreme behavioral and mental health issues.
• $1.5 million to provide more vehicles for the Capitol Police Department to patrol the expanded Capitol Complex Improvement District.
• $15 million for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency Disaster Trust Fund to prepare for severe weather events.
• $12.75 million to establish a uniform statewide youth court system with 25 full-time youth court chancellors and associated staff.
• $8 million to replace the outdated youth court case management system with a modern system for efficiency and transparency.

Mississippi earned an ‘F’ grade for its rate of preterm births in 2024, according to the 2025 report card from the March of Dimes. The state has failed every year since the March of Dimes, a national nonprofit aimed at improving the health of mothers and babies, began issuing state report cards in 2008. 

With 15% of all births in the state happening before 37 weeks gestation, Mississippi’s preterm birth rate is the worst in the country. Last year, 5,017 babies in the state were born preterm, which the report attributes to policy decisions, chronic diseases and lifestyle choices. Policy decisions include the state’s failure to expand Medicaid and adopt paid parental leave policies.

Any state with a rate greater than 11.5% also received an ‘F.’ The U.S. average is 10.4% – the same as the year before and a full percentage point higher than the 2030 Healthy People target goal set by the federal government to reduce infant sickness and death. 

“I think the fact that Mississippi continues to get this grade really speaks to how challenging this problem can be and how difficult some of the underlying causes are,” said Dr. Michael Warren, chief medical officer of March of Dimes. “One of the things that jumps out to me when I look at the Mississippi report card is the high rate of chronic diseases. We know that the health of women before they ever become pregnant has an important influence on that pregnancy and outcomes for both mom and baby.”

Compared to national averages, pregnant Mississippians are more likely to smoke, have high blood pressure and maintain an unhealthy weight, all of which contribute to preterm births, according to the report. Mississippi’s rate of diabetes in pregnant women – another significant contributing factor to preterm birth – is in line with the national average, the report found. 

Preterm birth is the leading cause of infant death, and Mississippi also leads the nation in this grim statistic. In August, the state Health Department declared a public health emergency over the state’s infant mortality rate. State lawmakers have held several hearings on the issue in recent weeks, even entertaining the possibility of no-strings-attached cash assistance to new mothers to address the crisis. 

Counterintuitively, the report showed more women in Mississippi received adequate prenatal care than those nationwide. While Mississippians consistently visited their health care providers during pregnancy, Warren said high rates of chronic diseases and lifestyle choices undermined those gains. 

“Even with the best prenatal care, even with getting all the recommended visits, if women are coming in sicker and with more chronic disease, we’re really starting from a deficit,” Warren said. 

Preventing chronic diseases before pregnancy requires having health insurance well before conception. But Mississippi’s Medicaid program, which has among the strictest eligibility requirements in the nation, does not insure childless adults. Parents must earn less than 22% of the federal poverty level, which amounts to less than $500 per month for a family of three to be eligible. Those requirements are more lenient during pregnancy, meaning many women only qualify for health insurance once they become pregnant.  

And even when women are going to regular check-ups, long driving times and concerns about additional costs mean some women don’t seek care between scheduled visits, explained Dr. Rashad Ali, a Laurel-based obstetrician who has made it his mission to serve uninsured and underinsured women. Something as simple as an untreated urinary tract infection can lead to an intrauterine infection, which may account for up to 40% of preterm births, research shows. 

“Cervical infections, urinary tract infections – any infections like that – we know that if you treat them, that will reduce your risk of preterm labor,” Ali said. 

Mississippi isn’t alone in the crisis. Half of all U.S. states received a ‘D’ or an ‘F’ for their preterm birth grade, and a third of the 100 U.S. cities with the greatest number of live births received an ‘F.’

Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama are the only states to fail the report card every year, according to March of Dimes.  

In 2023, the Mississippi Legislature extended pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage to 12-months postpartum, one of six policy recommendations by March of Dimes. The state also passed mandated mental health screening and reimbursement for those services and established a maternal mortality review committee. 

However, Mississippi has no universal paid parental leave policy, despite the fact that the Legislature passed paid parental leave for state employees in 2024. The state also does not require reimbursement for doulas, or birth workers who are proven to improve outcomes. Mississippi also remains one of 10 states not to expand Medicaid to cover tens of thousands more low-income residents.  

Now, the country faces the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, signed into law by President Donald Trump over the summer. While the law doesn’t change eligibility for pregnant women, the enormity of the budget constraints will force hospitals to make difficult decisions, said Warren. 

That could bode especially poorly for Mississippi, a state where maternity care deserts pervade more than half of its counties – well above the national average of 33%. 

“Pregnant women are excluded from some of the provisions of this bill, but when you think about the funding going to state Medicaid programs decreasing overall, states have a limited number of options,” Warren said. “The worry is if those hospitals can’t stay open, or if they close their labor and delivery units, then pregnant women are going to suffer.”

Latasha Chairse said she believed she was on the cusp of homeownership, her mystifying story goes.

In early 2023, the cafeteria worker and her three kids moved into a house on Key Street in south Jackson after a bad experience with a prior landlord. The keys were in the doorknob, so Chairse said she walked right in and got to work cleaning the dusty home, repainting and installing a new water heater. 

“I treated this house like it was my home,” she said. “Like it was one of my children.” 

There was just one problem. It was never Chairse’s home. 

Last week, the 37-year-old pregnant, single mother became the first person in Jackson expelled from a dwelling under a new state law called the Real Property Owners Protection Act, said a Jackson Police Department captain whose team served the order to vacate. A municipal court judge declared her a squatter. 

Chairse says she believed she was living in a state-owned, tax-forfeited property. But she ended up in court after the home’s true owners, Key Street Trust, filed an affidavit for her removal. The trust had owned the home since 2008 and was hoping to sell it to a prospective buyer who would not purchase the property while Chairse occupied it, said Dallis Ketchum, a local real estate agent and the property manager. 

Ketchum said he had tried to tell Chairse that she was squatting, but Chairse insisted the home was hers.

“I don’t know that she actually understood what she was doing at all, but frankly, that’s unknown to me,” he said. “It’s a peculiar situation.”

Ketchum and a local attorney for the trust, Stephen Younger, could have filed eviction proceedings in Hinds County Justice Court, but Ketchum said they weren’t confident in that process.

“What’s most difficult is not necessarily getting it through the court,” Ketchum said of eviction proceedings. “It’s getting a constable to ever call you back.” 

They decided to wait to take action until the new law, designed to make these removals swifter than an eviction, went into effect earlier this year. Under the new process, the owner filed an affidavit with the Jackson Police Department. Police served her with the citation, giving Chairse three days to contest the eviction in court, which she did. Jackson Municipal Court Judge Jeff Reynolds could have ordered Chairse out of the home within 24 hours by law but decided to give her 10 days. 

Chairse’s last day in the home is this Thursday. 

In an interview, Chairse listed several reasons why she believed the property was available. She said a man in a white truck outside the house next door told her that Key Street house was owned by the state. 

Chairse said she then went downtown in early 2023 and spoke to a woman in the Hinds County Tax Collector’s Office who told her that no one had paid taxes on the home since 2008, which is false, according to county records.

“I had told her that the house was abandoned and I was trying to see how I could get the house,” Chairse said. 

Chairse claimed the woman advised her that the home could become hers if she moved in and paid three years of taxes — an incorrect description of Mississippi’s tax forfeiture process and advice that a Hinds County Tax Collector’s Office employee said the office would not give. 

Chairse said she paid $21 to get a copy of the deed, certified in 2008, then left, believing she could continue to live there and eventually become the homeowner. 

“It was going to be under my name once I paid,” she said. 

A year or so after Charise moved in, a man knocked on her door. It was Ketchum. He told her that she was squatting and she had to leave. Chairse showed him the deed, complete with the name of the owner: Key Street Trust.

“It’s the deed that my owner had. And that was what was so perplexing to everyone,” Ketchum said. “It’s just a copy of the deed. That’s all.” 

Chairse had scrawled her name on the deed for good measure, as if it were a car title. 

“I just ended up signing it to keep people from trying to get it from me, cause I ain’t trust the man that came over there,” she said. 

Chairse’s understanding of the process through which she could obtain the home lacked a key element: Mississippi’s tax sale, which occurs when an owner fails to pay property taxes on time. 

In fact, the Key Street home went to a tax sale in 2024 after Randall Martin, a beneficiary and owner of the trust, failed to pay the prior year’s taxes on time. An investment company scooped up the tax lien to the home. Chairse was none the wiser.

The tax sale does not transfer ownership of the home. The original owner can maintain their right to the home if the back due taxes are paid — or “redeemed” — within two years. 

Martin redeemed his ownership of the home on Jan. 23, 2025, paying the 2023 taxes he had missed, according to Hinds County Chancery Court records. Chairse claimed she paid one year of taxes on the home, but this is not reflected in the county’s records and would not have earned her any interest in the home had she paid.

Ketchum said it is very common for owners of investment properties to forget to pay taxes on time, because most homeowners are accustomed to the escrow attached to their monthly mortgage payment covering that duty each year. He added that he was hesitant to talk to the media about what happened in case Chairse was portrayed as “the victim.” 

“The victim is the property owner,” Ketchum said. “He did not have control of what he owned because he had a trespasser living in it.” 

Chairse, who stopped working in the final months of her pregnancy, said she purchased a new water heater for the home. For this, the judge gave her a break, rejecting the financial judgment that Key Street Trust was seeking for attorney’s fees.

The mother said she was in a desperate situation before she moved into the Key Street house. She claimed the water heater had broken at the home where she had been living and the landlord tried to make her pay to replace it.

“I look at it like it was a blessing,” she said of finding the house on Key Street. “I ain’t got no rent to pay. The only thing I got to pay is my utility and take care of my children. I said, ‘That’s all I need.’” 

Earlier this year, Chairse said she visited the Hinds County’s administrative offices in an attempt to pay taxes she believed she owed, only to learn they’d already been paid. 

“And I said it must’ve been God, then.” 

She’s not sure yet where she’ll end up now. 

Amid the 2020 pandemic, Andrew Jones suffered a series of crises. 

The one-time youth cheerleading coach in Mississippi’s Pine Belt entered an addiction treatment facility. There, he was diagnosed with several mental health disorders.

Then, another troubling diagnosis: He had HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS.

He had never been in trouble with the law before, but was arrested in December 2020 on a burglary charge and booked into the Jones County jail.

A month later, Jones was dead. He died from HIV, the state medical examiner ruled.

The jail never gave him the lifesaving medication he’d been prescribed, his family’s lawsuit claimed.

Jones was one among a wider but mostly unknown number of jailhouse fatalities across the state.

At least 46 people have died in Mississippi’s county jails since 2020, according to lawsuits, news reports and law enforcement records reviewed by The Marshall Project-Jackson. But those lost lives do not appear in any official statistics or records.

Mississippi has long failed to count and report all deaths in local jails that serve the state’s 82 counties, despite a federal requirement to do so. These often dangerous facilities operate virtually free of any state oversight.

“If we don’t understand why people are dying, we can’t prevent it,” said Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans and a widely recognized authority in the study of deaths behind bars.

Under the federal Death in Custody Reporting Act, states must report all deaths in state prisons and local jails, as well as people who die in the process of being arrested. 

Across the country, these reports are often incomplete. After obtaining five years of unredacted death records maintained by the Justice Department, The Marshall Project found hundreds of deaths were missing and others were inaccurately or incompletely described. In a sample of 1,000 death records, The Marshall Project found that 75% did not meet the Justice Department’s own standard for an acceptable level of detail. 

A key source of data gaps in many places? Local jails. 

Even so, Mississippi still fares worse in its reporting than most of the country. It was one of only four states with locally managed jails to report fewer than 10 deaths in those jails across five years of national records reviewed by The Marshall Project. 

Of those states, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota all acknowledged in 2023 filings submitted to federal authorities that local jail deaths are largely absent from their reporting. 

Within the last year or so, state officials have begun more concerted attempts to collect records of local deaths even when local agencies don’t report them, according to leaders at the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, the state agency responsible for reporting obligations under the federal DCRA requirements. 

“I think everybody sees the value in the data,” said DPS Commissioner Sean Tindell, but he said many of the state’s hundreds of local law enforcement agencies find the reporting requirements burdensome. 

Mississippi does report state prison deaths, which have drawn scrutiny, including federal investigations that in 2022 and in 2024 found constitutional violations. 

Without that same data at the local level, solutions can be scarce to problems like the ones that allegedly led to the death of Jones. His family’s lawsuit claimed better healthcare could have saved his life.

That lawsuit’s allegations described the jail’s medical treatment “orders of magnitude below typical care,” said Dr. Anne Spaulding, who reviewed the lawsuit’s claims for The Marshall Project – Jackson. She is an associate professor at Emory University and was a former medical care care director for the prison and jail system of Rhode Island before holding a similar position in Georgia.

A nurse at the Jones County jail failed to obtain lifesaving drugs for Jones in December 2020 and January 2021, the lawsuit claimed. The county and other defendants, including the nurse, denied wrongdoing in court filings. In February 2025, a judge dismissed the lawsuit after key defendants settled. The settlement terms were kept confidential. 

In 2021, Jones County brought in outside healthcare. The county first contracted with a local hospital and later with a Gulf Coast-area medical firm. The change in medical staffing followed the deaths of three detainees that occurred in less than a year, including that of Jones.

To stop local jail deaths, broader solutions must be based on data from those jails, said Madalyn Wasilczuk, a law professor in South Carolina who spearheads a transparency initiative there around in-custody deaths. 

That’s because local jail deaths tend to occur for different reasons than prison deaths. The Justice Department, for example, has found that jail deaths are most commonly linked to suicide or drug and alcohol intoxication.

To tackle these problems, Mississippi must first count deaths that occur inside local jails, Wasilczuk said. Otherwise, Mississippi “is missing an entire piece of the puzzle.”

A death in Jones County

When a sheriff’s deputy found Andrew Jones leaving the deputy’s home on Dec. 7, 2020, his family contends that Jones was drunk and confused about where he was.

Now facing burglary charges, Jones was held in jail on a $15,000 bond while waiting for an indictment. Jones wasn’t accused of taking anything from the deputy’s home. 

When he was booked into the Jones County Adult Detention Center, near the small town of Ellisville, Jones allegedly listed his health problems: mental health disturbances that included suicidal thoughts, high blood pressure and his recent HIV diagnosis.

At the time, medical care at the jail was provided by a full-time staff nurse, Carol Johnston, with visits from a nurse practitioner by appointment, according to the lawsuit. Johnston was a licensed practical nurse and was providing care at the jail without the supervision required by her license, alleges the lawsuit over Andrew’s death. The county and other defendants, including Johnston, denied this claim in court filings.

Johnston has not worked at the jail since June 2021, Jones County Administrator Danielle Ashley told The Marshall Project-Jackson. The county now contracts with Health Corr LLC, which must provide nurses and medical staff at the jail throughout the week, according to the county’s contract with the Picayune-based medical company. 

Ashley declined on behalf of the county to answer other questions about the lawsuit’s allegations. Johnston did not respond to questions about those allegations. Public records from the state’s nursing board show that Johnston has no disciplinary history.

During Jones’ month in jail — the last month of his life — there were repeated opportunities to avert his death, the lawsuit claimed. 

Johnston arranged for Jones to visit a clinic in nearby Hattiesburg for an appointment scheduled before his arrest. Nine days after his arrest, on Dec. 18, a doctor prescribed Jones a pair of drugs to keep his HIV in check, Descovy and Tivicay. 

Regular access to these pills, or similar medications used to suppress HIV, is “bare minimum” care, said Dr. Tara Vijayan, a professor of medicine at UCLA who specializes in infectious diseases. Ideally, she said, Jones would have begun taking these medications soon after his diagnosis.

However, Jones never got those medications in the jail, the family’s lawsuit alleged. 

The county’s current contract with Health Corr requires that its staff administer prescribed medications.

At subsequent appointments, tests showed concerning results related to Jones’ liver and that his untreated HIV had become full-blown AIDS, meaning his immune system was significantly compromised, and he was now vulnerable to infections that would not otherwise be dangerous. 

Careful monitoring of such a patient would be required to watch for dangerous infections, Vijayan said. However, antiretroviral medications can still bring the disease under control.

Still, Jones’ prescription for the lifesaving drugs allegedly went unfilled, and Jones began to decline rapidly. 

His last day was painful, according to the lawsuit’s recounting of video surveillance from the isolation cell where Jones was confined because of his November bout with coronavirus.

Throughout Jan. 9, 2021, Andrew moved in spastic and increasingly disoriented ways, apparently losing control of his own body. He became weaker and slower.

He lay on the bed as a guard placed food on a table next to him, allegedly ignoring signs of distress. Later, another guard again allegedly ignored signs of distress after he saw Andrew trying to eat food off the floor.

Finally, later that day, guards found Andrew dead. The state medical examiner ruled his death was caused by an HIV-linked infection, exacerbated by high blood pressure.

No oversight for Mississippi jails

Jones’ death is one among a string of jailhouse fatalities that have been linked to allegations of abusive jail conditions that haven’t been reported to the federal government. 

Ten years earlier, at the same jail, Albert Graham died from heart problems.

A lawsuit over his 2010 death dragged on for years before a judge found that even if Johnston, the same nurse who treated Jones, provided slow, untimely care, it wasn’t bad enough to be considered “deliberate indifference” — the legal term for the high threshold that must be met to sue in federal court over medical care in jail.

An hour-and-a-half up the road from the Jones County jail, Kemper County has faced several lawsuits over jail deaths, settling one in 2022 over the 2018 jail suicide of a man allegedly held 52 days past his release date. On the day of his death, other detainees warned that Robert Wayne Johnson was trying to strangle himself with a shoelace. Guards allegedly placed the man into an isolation cell with the shoelaces anyway.

In George County, a nurse was convicted of manslaughter in 2017 and sentenced to 15 years in prison for failing to provide insulin to a diabetic man facing drug charges who died in 2014. Jail staff testified that she accused the prisoner of faking his symptoms of distress. A 2022 settlement in a civil lawsuit totaled $2.5 million — half the annual budget of the rural county. 

That George County settlement was among at least 10 settlements within the last five years involving Mississippi jail deaths.

But litigation and criminal prosecutions can also take years to resolve, letting problems linger and yielding — at best — only piecemeal accountability for local officials tasked with jail safety.

There is no state-level law requiring local jails to track and report deaths in custody, one barrier identified in the state’s memo. 

Rather than relying on a sprawling network of more than 360 law enforcement agencies to report local in-custody deaths, Tindell, the DPS commissioner, suggested a statewide system relying on county coroners to identify these deaths might be more effective. However, he said he believes the amount of data requested by the U.S. Justice Department can be “burdensome,” especially for many local officials to administer. He said collecting less information about each death could improve compliance. 

Another key DPS official, Public Safety Planning Director Josh Bromen, said he has made an online system available for local officials to report deaths and plans to ramp up outreach efforts to local officials about the DCRA requirement. 

Bromen also said he has begun to collect records of jail deaths from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation, which sometimes examines those deaths.

Federal law allows the DOJ to withhold federal funds from law enforcement agencies that don’t comply with reporting requirements, but that penalty has never been enacted.

The lack of transparency or oversight of jail deaths in Mississippi is part of a broader failure in the state to oversee local jails.

There are no jail licensing requirements in Mississippi, except for spaces used to house certain mental health patients. State officials don’t tour or inspect local jails. Grand juries routinely tour the jails, but their reports are rarely seen by anyone outside the county, are often ignored and lack an enforcement mechanism.

And when jail deaths occur, policymakers and advocates aren’t the only ones kept in the dark. The families and loved ones of those who died often have unanswered questions, said Marquell Bridges, an activist based in Mississippi and Alabama who has worked with survivors and families impacted by police and prison violence across the country. 

“That transparency is important for the families. It’s important for the community,” Bridges said. “The only way this system works is if people believe in it.”

Updated 11/17/25: This story has been updated to clarify the title and experience of Dr. Anne Spaulding.

Correction 11/17/25: A previous version of this story misstated certain allegations involving actions taken by jail guards on the day Andrew Jones died.

Sen. Jeremy England, chairman of the Senate Elections Committee, says he plans to again introduce legislation for Mississippi to join most other states and allow in-person, no-excuse early voting. He also talks about the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear a Mississippi case challenging the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day, and about major issues he foresees in the 2026 legislative session.

The holidays are a time to celebrate with loved ones, not falling victim to scams that can steal your cheer. Falling for a scam can lead to losing money and putting your account and personal information at risk, which can be both time consuming and costly.

Here are some common seasonal scams and tips to help protect yourself:

            •           Missed packages or problems with delivery: Expecting a package? Be cautious of phishing messages through email or text impersonating delivery services like UPS or FedEx with links to view “missed deliveries.” These links may lead to fake sign-in pages or malware-infected sites. Do not respond to messages requesting personal or financial information, including money or cryptocurrency. Be wary of unexpected packages and avoid scanning QR codes, as they may be attempts to steal your information.

            •           Online deals that are too good to be true: When shopping online or on social media, buy only from trusted websites and vendors. If purchasing on a platform or marketplace, stay on the platform to complete transactions and communicate with sellers, as protections often only apply when you use the platform. Use payment methods that offer buyer protection, and never send money to strangers or use Zelle for purchases, especially when you can’t confirm the goods exist.

            •           Phony charities preying on your generosity: The holidays are also a season of giving. Before you donate money, double-check contact and payment information for your charity of choice and watch for text, email or phone call solicitations. Like any other unsolicited message, don’t click on links or open attachments that may contain malware or attempt to steal your information.

“Scammers do not discriminate and can target anyone during this festive season. Don’t let your guard down. Always remember that if something seems off, it likely is. By staying alert and informed, we can protect ourselves and our loved ones from falling victim during this holiday season,” said Darius Kingsley, Head of Consumer Banking Practices at Chase.

Tips to Avoid Scams:

            •           Don’t send money to unknown individuals or for goods or services that you can’t confirm exist.

            •           Be cautious of friendly messages from strangers on social apps. Scammers might try to build trust before asking for money.

            •           If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. Watch out for deep discounts or low prices that may be scams.

            •           If you shop on social media marketplaces, never pay using Zelle—it is the same as cash and you may not get back if there is an issue. For more information about ways to help protect yourself from scams, visit chase.com/scamspotting —it’s a free resource that offers information in English and Spanish.

Based on their recent comments, perhaps President Donald Trump and some other Republicans are getting ready to embrace universal health care. 

Universal health care involves some form of the government ensuring everyone has medical coverage at little or no out-of-pocket cost, beyond what people pay in taxes. Many countries, including much of western Europe, have some form of universal health care. 

The United States does not, even though various Democrats, ranging from Harry Truman to Barack Obama, from Kamala Harris to Bernie Sanders, have embraced some form of universal health care at some point in time.

Republicans have portrayed universal health care as the bogeyman, as socialism, as the worst thing that could happen to the United States and would eventually lead to capitulation to Russia.

Yet, Trump and others seem to be warming up to the possibility.

In recent weeks, congressional Democrats have been fighting to extend enhanced subsidies for private insurance purchased on the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace exchange – a fight that was at the center of the 43-day federal government shutdown that ended last week. The federal subsidies pay a significant portion of the cost of the health insurance purchased on the exchange.

Trump recently posted on social media, as he is wont to do, that instead of providing these subsidies to big insurance companies, he would prefer to give the money for health care directly to the American people.

How would this work? He didn’t say, but that did not stop many Republicans from embracing the idea. And it does not appear many Republicans voiced concern about such a scheme.

But according to the Congressional Budget Office, as explained in an MSNBC article by Miranda Yaver, a University of Pittsburgh assistant professor of health policy and management, the health insurance companies received about $92 billion in federal ACA subsidies in 2023. During the same year, just the out-of-pocket costs – those not paid by the insurance companies – totaled $500 billion for Americans.

So, in short, if Trump diverts that $92 billion from insurance companies to individuals, there also must be a method to pay for the additional costs of health care Americans will incur.

The amount of the subsidies each individual would receive will not cover the cost of a serious illness or accident. Would the people facing major medical expenses be left to face the impossible-for-most task of paying those tens of thousands of dollars in health care costs by themselves? Or would they need some, gulp, insurance, to help pay for those additional costs?

Insurance, love it or hate it, exists to level the playing field. By having a large number of people on insurance, the costs paid by those with expensive medical needs are held down by those who have insurance but seldom or never have to use it.

So, all this begs the question: What is the answer for those, like President Trump, who don’t like subsidizing big insurance?

The obvious answer to that question is, drum roll please, universal health care coverage, often referred to as Medicaid and Medicare for all or a public option.

Universal health care could be fashioned a number of ways. People could be expected to provide, as Republicans like to say, some “skin in the game” by paying for some of the costs themselves.

It could be a program where, if you have private insurance and you like your private insurance, you can keep it just as long as it is not paid for with federal dollars.

President Trump and others have been obsessed with getting rid of the Affordable Care Act. The president seems upset that it is called Obamacare.

It is important to note that it was first labeled Obamacare by those who opposed the legislation that was passed way back in 2010. But now that polls show it is popular, Trump seems upset that it is called Obamacare.

As a matter of fact, he said that money for health care being sent directly to the American people “would be so exciting. Call it Trumpcare. Call it whatever you want.… Anything but Obamacare.”

Perhaps Democrats, many of whom always supported universal health care as the most logical way to deal with an often broken and complex American system, could achieve that goal by just agreeing to call it Trumpcare.