Kenneth Stokes is preoccupied with the concept of “dope boys.”

It’s one of the longtime Jackson city councilman’s go-to insults, hurled toward people he blames for the city’s woes. “Dope boys are controlling this city,” he said during a December council meeting.

He has recently zeroed in on the owner of a food truck that secured a business license with the city last year and operates on an empty lot near Stokes’ home in central Jackson’s Georgetown neighborhood.

The blue trailer housing Georgetown Grub is one of few places in the area to grab a bite. It serves wings, quesadillas, cheesesteaks and fried broccoli across from an abandoned Jasco gas station. 

Stokes alleges it serves dope. 

“The dope boys have found a way to get the planning department to help give permission and permits for them to have food trucks,” he said from behind the council dais. “They’re not selling food, but they’re selling dope.”

This, in part, is what inspired Stokes’ new ordinance, enacted Dec. 2, banning city employees from maintaining any kind of business or personal relationship with anyone “known to be engaged in illegal drug activity.” 

The new law perplexed some Jacksonians, leaving them to wonder what conspiracies are afoot at City Hall. But for residents in Georgetown, it’s clear the origin of Stokes’ decree is more personal – considering the owner of the supposed drug-deal-on-wheels is the councilman’s own nephew, Daniel Cooper.

An HVAC technician who manages several rental homes in the neighborhood, Cooper said he opened the mobile restaurant – which, indeed, sells food – last year after cleaning up an abandoned lot owned by his late grandfather. 

Cooper, who now lives in Clinton with his wife and teenage son, said he wanted to help revitalize the neighborhood where he grew up. But ever since he returned to Georgetown, Cooper said he’s dealt with harassment from the councilman. Mississippi Today found no Jackson drug sale charges in Cooper’s history. 

“He thinks he can’t be touched. He thinks that everybody sells dope,” Cooper said of Stokes. “But he met his match with me because I’m not scared to fight back, because I know I’m not doing nothing illegal.”

“I’m not going to let a lie run me from that lot and diminish my father and my grandfather’s legacy,” Cooper said.

Not only does Stokes say the food truck is a dope operation, he also claims it has no authority to operate there on a major thoroughfare at the intersection of Woodrow Wilson and Ludlow avenues. That’s because of its complicated ownership status: The lot is heirs property, meaning its owner did not leave a will when he died. 

Several people have a potential stake in the property, including Cooper’s father and, since his wife died, Stokes and their children.

The city’s longest serving councilmember elected in 1989, Stokes has taken exceptional steps to target Cooper’s business, repeatedly calling the cops, complaining to city business departments, blocking the entrance of the lot with his own truck and now using it to justify his nebulous ordinance.

The ordinance, which was not reviewed by the city’s legal office before passage, requires employees who know of colleagues with relationships to drug dealers to “immediately” disclose the information to the city attorney. 

Earlier this week, City Attorney Drew Martin said no one, including Stokes, has made such a report.

There’s little dispute that Georgetown, a historically Black neighborhood in a census tract with a poverty rate of over 30%, experiences crime because of the presence of narcotics. 

“He does have concerns that there are folks in that part of town who are engaged in illegal activity, and I share his concerns,” Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer and a former Hinds County judge, said of Stokes. “I can’t say I share those concerns about these individuals.” 

The neighborhood is also home to elderly and working class people who live in colorful, well-kept homes, enjoy fresh produce from a community garden and generally love their community.

But Stokes and one of his neighbors and allies, Geneva Johnson, are adamant that Georgetown is overridden with dope dealers, who they say congregate at the barber shop across the street from the food truck and, before it closed, the Jasco at the same intersection. Stokes takes credit for shuttering the gas station. 

Johnson said she’s experienced multiple burglaries, and that despite her numerous calls, police have neglected to address the dope problem. She estimates drug dealers live in 13 out of 24 houses on her block. This activity is one reason they allege Cooper must be involved with drugs.

“If they were not involved with drugs, why would they locate there, in a drug haven?” Stokes said.

Ten years ago, police raided the building housing the barbershop, finding $6,000 worth of methamphetamine. Its owner Shawn Morrow was arrested, but he said the drugs were found in a separate unit from his shop, and his guilty plea was deferred, meaning the court dismissed the charges after he completed three years of probation. 

In the last two years, police have recorded two calls at the address, both for “suspicious circumstances,” according to a JPD call log.

Morrow denied having any involvement in drugs, but he wasn’t surprised by the accusation, which he said is a common refrain from Stokes. Morrow told Mississippi Today that Stokes has run off all Black businesses in the area and has failed to do anything to build up the community. 

Stokes is known for cruising the neighborhood in his white Chevy Suburban, scowling, several residents told Mississippi Today.

Johnson similarly keeps a look out. When she sees Daniel Cooper in the neighborhood, she alleges his conduct matches that of the other dealers she’s aware of in the area.

“It’s obvious that they’re doing something illegal because the cars come and go,” Johnson said, adding that people in the neighborhood frequently approach Cooper. “Who walks away with their hand closed up? Nobody.”

Resident Norma Michael, the Georgetown Community Neighborhood Association president and founder of the “Sharing is Caring” Neighborhood Block Garden, said she’s disappointed by the claims, for the message they send about her community. She told Mississippi Today that no one who attends the association’s meetings has complained about drug dealing in the neighborhood. 

Michael said it seems like Stokes’ is on a “witch hunt” because nearly every issue he has raised recently about the neighborhood seems to trace back to Cooper. 

“He has an obsession about it, and I can’t understand that,” she said. “Here’s a man trying to do something about the neighborhood. It’s no drugs, it’s no people hanging around (the food truck) drinking or smoking or things like that. It was a good thing to me.” 

Cooper and his father, Roy Byram Cooper, argue their efforts have reduced crime in the neighborhood. Vagrants had taken up residence in an abandoned office building on their family lot before they demolished it. They said a house across the street was a high-traffic area with a frequent police presence until Daniel Cooper bought and renovated it. A WLBT news report even highlighted their progress in a recent feature. 

“If you had any evidence for the things you’re saying and accusing us, my son, of doing, then you should present it and we can move forward from that,” Roy Byram Cooper told Mississippi Today. “He’s not giving us anything to defend. He’s just making accusations because of his position.”

Gabrielle Cooper, Daniel’s sister, said Stokes is using his power as a city official to harass her brother, turning what is a family matter into a public issue. 

“The council might just ignore him,” she said. “But there are people who are listening, and it’s your responsibility to say something regardless of if you feel like he’s just talking.” 

A family dispute

Stokes’ screed against Daniel Cooper also deals with the ownership status of the property where Georgetown Grub resides.

The parcel has been in the Cooper family name for decades. Daniel Cooper’s grandfather, Roy Cooper, repaired air-conditioning units and owned a two-story building that housed several family businesses – a beauty salon, an ice cream parlor and a brass exchange company. 

Daniel Cooper’s father, Roy Byram Cooper, also went into the HVAC trade and helped his father maintain the property. Now 71, Roy Byram Cooper told Mississippi Today he takes pride in working with his hands, one time writing his name into sidewalk concrete he poured outside the building. 

“The other kids, they had their own careers and other things they were doing,” Roy Byram Cooper said of his siblings. “See, Daddy and I were blue collar.”

But after Roy Cooper died in 2012, the building fell into disrepair and the ownership of the lot into limbo. He has many heirs, but a court would need to establish the shares to which they’re entitled, and that hasn’t happened yet. 

Stokes told Mississippi Today during the reporting of this story that he was working with an attorney to initiate that process, but the Coopers’ attorney beat him to it, filing a petition Thursday to open the estate.

Still, the councilman has gone around boasting that he owns the property. 

“I’ll tell you this, if Mr. Cooper owned it, I own it,” Stokes said recently, taunting a few of Cooper’s friends who were using the lot to pass out food the day before Thanksgiving. 

“Go to law school,” Stokes said when pressed for an explanation before driving away, according to a video recording.

Roy Bryam Cooper says he has never gotten along with Stokes. The councilman says the same, calling his brother-in-law a “bad apple” and alleging he’s a dope dealer, too. 

But Stokes wasn’t acting out a vendetta until after Cooper-Stokes died in 2023, the brother-in-law said.

“If he wasn’t a councilman, it wouldn’t be no problem,” Roy Bryam Cooper said. “But because of him being a councilman, he knows people downtown. So he’s tried every avenue he can to try to shut it down.”

The Coopers also suspect that Stokes, whose family owns properties throughout the area, is out for a landgrab. 

For Stokes, some bitterness comes from his claim that he took out a loan years ago to pay the unpaid taxes on the property – at the request of his wife – so the Cooper family wouldn’t lose it to a tax sale. 

But he also says he doesn’t want the property. Rather, it’s the alleged drug activity – on property bearing his wife’s family name – that makes him so intent on shutting the food truck down.

“If people in these neighborhoods know that this is drug-related and everybody in these neighborhoods know that was my wife’s father’s property, you don’t think they would associate my wife’s good name with the negative activity taking place?” Stokes told Mississippi Today. 

The Cooper family hasn’t collectively decided the future of their lot, hence the temporary restaurant. Daniel Cooper said they are waiting to see how the neighborhood develops. 

But Stokes’ allegations about his nephew’s conduct extend beyond the heirs property to just about every effort Daniel Cooper said he’s made to improve the community.

Daniel Cooper and his wife began buying property in Georgetown a decade ago. He said he uses one of the homes as a makeshift office and storage for maintenance supplies to take care of his rentals. 

He said he’s tried to bring positivity in other ways, too. Cooper and his friends took a small tractor to a block of nearby Crawford Street, a mostly wooded area, to rid the street of debris and trash. Volunteers use the Cooper lot to distribute toys and back-to-school supplies for young people in the neighborhood.

Stokes has referenced each of these endeavors, alleging the address of Cooper’s home office is a drug spot, that his nephew is recruiting young people in the neighborhood to deal drugs in exchange for bicycles and that his cleanup efforts are strictly a performance.

“We got to stop them from participating in cleanups, ‘cause they trying to clean their image,” Stokes said during a Nov. 4 council meeting. “If there’s going to be cleanups, I have an ordinance to come. It must be approved by the mayor or the CAO to make sure that the wrong element is not involved.”

Marshaling city resources 

Stokes’ efforts to expose the food truck began the very day his nephew placed the trailer on the lot last year, Daniel Cooper said.

Stokes began by claiming the business, co-owned by Daniel Cooper and his father, does not have permission to be there. He alleged Roy Byram Cooper fraudulently signed city paperwork using his deceased father’s name.

In fact, the lease agreement, obtained by Mississippi Today, was signed “Roy Cooper” by Roy Byram Cooper, who shares a name with his late father. 

While Stokes has failed to make his case to the city, he has repeatedly made this forgery allegation.

“I never heard of a dead person giving permission for people to use his property,” Stokes said at an Oct. 7 council meeting. 

Stokes also insisted to Mississippi Today that the Coopers acquired the food truck used from a “dope man that’s already in jail,” but the Coopers provided a check and receipt showing they purchased the trailer new from a manufacturer in Texas.

Roy Byram Cooper said he tried to ignore his brother-in-law’s antics. Over the last year, police have visited the food truck, “in droves,” Daniel Cooper said. When it came time to renew the business license this fall, he said the city planning department’s response was sluggish.

The Coopers eventually pushed back. In August, their attorney, John Hall, sent a letter to the city attorney and planning and development department noting his clients had faced roadblocks from the city despite satisfying its permitting and licensing requirements. 

“It has come to our attention that this inference stems from the actions of a member of the Jackson City Council who is acting under the color of his authority and law in a manner that exceeds his proper jurisdiction and violates my clients’ rights to due process and equal treatment under the law,” Hall wrote. 

Hall received no response, and Stokes did not stop. 

In response to Stokes’ complaints, Teeuwissen said he paid a visit to Georgetown Grub in mid-October. On a warm Friday afternoon, he sat in his car across the street and observed two people coming and going. One bought what appeared to be a drink and another seemed to buy food. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

When he reviewed the business file, it didn’t take long for Teewuissen to realize Stokes had a familial connection to the property. But he said he found no reason for the city to reject the business renewal.

“The I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed,” Teeuwissen told Mississippi Today.

While the city was still contemplating the renewal, an unusual series of events transpired.

The mysterious Impala

First, a man, unrelated to anyone in this saga, was driving down Martin Luther King Jr. Drive days before Thanksgiving when his car engine died. He wrote his phone number and a message saying he’d be back, and then left that piece of paper on the driver’s window after pushing the broken-down Chevy Impala into an empty lot.

The lot belonged to Stokes. The councilman then hired a wrecker to tow the car blocks away, next to the food truck.

Hours later, volunteers with a group called Organized Gentlemen arrived at the Cooper lot for a Thanksgiving food drive and encountered the Impala. 

As the group of men, local law students and a judge dished plates of turkey, mac and cheese, and green beans, Stokes appeared. The councilman summoned the police to meet him and asked an officer to run the plates to see if the car was stolen. 

The confrontation put a damper on what had been a joyous event and made the people there to receive food feel uneasy, said Perry Thomas, a member of Organized Gentlemen.

“You could see their face change,” he said.

Thomas, wearing blue food-safe gloves, approached Stokes to inquire about the gray Impala and why Stokes had called the cops, according to a video recording. The councilman sat on the hood of another broken down car, a vintage Mercedes that belonged to Cooper’s grandfather, and answered by repeating: “FBI. FBI. FBI.” 

Police found the Impala was not stolen. Stokes told Mississippi Today he had the car towed because he was attempting to do gravel work on property where the car was left as part of his effort to build a museum for his late wife. 

Cooper said he believes Stokes was attempting to harass, or worse, entrap him. 

The following Monday, when Cooper’s cook arrived to open up the truck for the day, Stokes had maneuvered his SUV to block the lot’s entrance on Ludlow Avenue. 

Cooper, exasperated, called the cops. As he began to explain the problem, the arriving officer interjected, “I already know. We’ve been dealing with this for a while,” according to a recording obtained by Mississippi Today.

The officer told Stokes he couldn’t block the property because Cooper possessed all the proper paperwork. He would know: “We’ve had several officers to come out here and they’ve did several reports,” the officer said.

“Y’all have to work this out a better way than this,” he added. “Because this is going to cause somebody to get hurt.” 

Stokes’ antics may seem petty, but Cooper said he’s afraid of what might happen if someone takes his uncle seriously. Stokes is a city councilman who appears on the news, after all. 

If an idea that Cooper’s food truck is full of drugs prevails, Cooper said it’s not hard to imagine someone trying to rob his business. The same goes for his nearby office. Or what if the man who owned the Impala had spotted it on Cooper’s lot and gotten angry?

“It has you paranoid at all times, thinking that somebody might believe this junk,” Cooper said. “I just have to hope nothing that he’s trying to conspire to do works.”

Slang in city code

The clerk of council first read aloud Stokes’ “dope dealer” ordinance during the council meeting Nov. 18. Attendees laughed, but the other council members had no comment, and the meeting proceeded to other items. 

When Stokes brought the measure to a vote Dec. 2, he explained that in addition to problems in his neighborhood, his ordinance was also a nod to a recent FBI sting involving Mississippi Delta sheriffs, as well as a federal investigation that ensnared Jackson’s former mayor, a former Jackson council member and the Hinds County district attorney. 

The Jackson case doesn’t pertain to drugs, rather a development proposal, but District Attorney Jody Owens was quoted in the 2024 indictment as saying, “We can take dope boy money… but I need to clean it and spread it.”

After Stokes’ spiel, his council colleagues raised concerns: Should city employees shun family members they suspect of selling drugs? What if someone was convicted years ago and has reformed? How would the ordinance be enforced? 

“If you believe this city is that unsafe, we need to have a task force or something in place to do something with safety and security,” Ward 2 Councilwoman Tina Clay said after introducing an amendment to replace the term “dope” with “drug,” arguing city code should not contain slang. 

Her amendment failed, but two others passed: Only drug activity within the last year would count, and the ordinance would not violate or impose on federal law. The ordinance passed with all but Clay voting yes. 

Not long after, Stokes spotted Cooper and his friend, Jeremy Harris, in the hallway through the glass of the chamber doors. The men had hoped to hear what Stokes was saying about them. Stokes left the meeting and summoned a Jackson Police Department assistant chief to deal with the men.

Out in the hallway, Harris asked Stokes if it’s illegal to attend a public meeting, to which Stokes responds: “It’s against the law to be a dope boy,” according to a video recording.

“I’m not a dope boy,” Harris told him. “Just ‘cause you said don’t mean it’s true.” 

The officer asked the pair to leave City Hall, and they didn’t put up a fight, Cooper said. Stokes moseyed back to his leather seat behind the dais. 

“I left the council chambers ‘cause the dope boys had showed up,” he announced, adding that he’d given Cooper’s office address to the sheriff, FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office.