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The mother of a man allegedly tortured and shot in the mouth by a Rankin County sheriff’s deputy earlier this year and another mother of a man beaten, tased and killed by deputies in 2021 said the recent firing of deputies accused of misconduct is not enough.

They want to see criminal charges. 

“It’s not enough to fire those deputies because all they will do is go on to another police department and do the same thing,” said Mary Jenkins, whose son Michael almost died when a deputy placed a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. 

“They treated our children as if they weren’t even human,” she said during a Wednesday press conference.  

Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced Tuesday that deputies accused of beating and torturing Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker have been fired. Bailey did not name the deputies or specify how many were let go, but did say some remedial measures have been put in place, such as the hiring of a compliance officer and review of the department’s policies and training. 

Malik Shabazz, an attorney representing the men, said it is now up to Attorney General Lynn Fitch to secure a criminal indictment for the deputies. 

The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI opened an investigation in February into the incident.

On Jan. 24, six deputies conducting a drug investigation raided the home of Jenkins and Parker and, over the course of 90 minutes, allegedly subjected them to torture in the form of waterboarding, attempted sexual assault and threats of death by having guns pointed at them. The men’s attorneys say the deputies entered the home without a warrant and that their clients have been wrongly charged.

Attorneys have said they were charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of paraphernalia, but drugs weren’t found. Deputies also said Jenkins pointed a gun at a deputy, but a firewarm wasn’t recovered.

A $400 million lawsuit against the sheriff, county and department detailing the men’s experience named three of six deputies allegedly involved in the incident: Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin and Christian Dedmon. 

Bailey didn’t specify how many deputies he fired. Attorneys for the men said the sheriff fired five deputies, but their clients have been clear that there were six. The attorneys asked who the remaining person is and why they have been allowed to keep their job. 

Jenkins and Parker appeared on camera during the press conference, but they did not comment because of the ongoing civil lawsuit. 

For Monica Lee, termination isn’t enough because deputies have not been held accountable for the death of her son, Damien Cameron,  two years ago, nor has the family received sufficient answers from the sheriff’s office. 

On July 26, 2021, deputies responded to a vandalism call reported by a neighbor who accused Cameron of the damage, according to an incident report obtained by Insider. Elward was one of the deputies at the scene who punched, tased and chased Cameron. 

Lee believes that if the sheriff had taken action against the deputies involved in her son’s death, maybe what happened to Jenkins and Parker could have been prevented. 

“Had (the sheriff) got rid of them when he killed my son, it would have never happened to Michael,” Lee said Wednesday while seated next to Mary Jenkins. 

The post Firing Rankin deputies accused of brutality not enough, mom says: They need to be charged appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh vowed a year ago to fight the racist wage and hiring practices alleged by Black farm workers regarding workplace abuse and exploitation in the Delta. 

That promise resulted in a Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation called Operation Delta Force, which released findings Wednesday into those allegations of wage theft and illegal displacement of local workers in favor of white workers from South Africa, a practice detailed by Mississippi Today. 

Forty-four employers were found to have violated federal labor laws and were fined nearly $350,000 in civil penalties, according to the investigation. Additionally, about $505,000 in back wages has been recovered for 161 Delta workers. 

The Black farm workers “were elated that finally their voices were heard, that finally they were getting the wages and they could go to work and see that they were valued as an employee,” said Audrey Hall, the division’s district director in Jackson. 

Mississippi Today’s “Exploited” investigation found that at least five Delta farms paid their local workforce less than workers who came to Mississippi on foreign farm work permits called H-2A visas over the past few years. 

Most of the farms recruited young, white South African workers, which farm owners said is in response to an aging local workforce population and a shortage of people to take those jobs. 

The H-2A program mandates a premium hourly wage, which was $12.45 last year. Labor regulations order farms hiring the visa workers to offer jobs to local workers at that rate and not to pay current workers below it. 

The workers’ experiences were detailed in a lawsuit against two Delta farms that was filed in 2021 and settled earlier this year. 

The Wage and Hour Division took a look at the H-2A program and found employers violated requirements for multiple reasons, including when they showed preferential treatment, failed to pay the same rate of pay to local workers and failed to provide local workers bonus opportunities. 

Juan Coria, the division’s Southeast regional administrator based in Atlanta, said the purpose of the H-2A program was to bring people if help was needed – not to replace local workers. 

As a result of the investigation, some workers received raises that brought them up to the same rate that the H-2A workers are paid, Hall said, and more farms have come into compliance. 

She said that extra money means a lot to Delta workers living in one of the poorest areas of the state. They no longer have to make choices between whether to buy groceries, medicine or pay for housing, Hall said. 

The Wage and Hour Division plans to launch more investigations and increase outreach in the Delta. 

Hall said the division’s role is to help vulnerable workers through education about issues such as contracts and wages. The division has a toll-free help line at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243.)

Coria said an immediate result of Operation Delta Force is that the division now has an investigator assigned to the Delta who is based in Greenwood. 

One of his goals is for these efforts to improve working conditions for future Black farm workers in the Delta and inform farms about their responsibilities in following federal labor laws. 

“This will have a positive impact,” Coria said.

The post 44 Delta employers fined $350,000 for racist wage and hiring practices, pay $505,000 in back wages appeared first on Mississippi Today.

My grandmother, who grew up in Greenville, Tennessee, remembered when they strung power lines in her hometown. Electricity changed her world. The pandemic confirmed that the lack of high-speed internet is a serious disadvantage. That, thankfully, has found a solution.

The post Marshall Ramsey: Wired appeared first on Mississippi Today.

The board that governs the massive Public Employees Retirement System is working to develop recommendations for the Legislature to consider in 2024 in an effort to ensure the long-term financial viability of the pension plan.

PERS will provide or already is providing a pension to about 10% of the state’s population — people who worked or are working for local or state government entities.

For new hires, those legislative recommendations could include:

• No longer guaranteeing the annual 3% cost of living increase. Under a new system, the increase could be contingent on whether the system can afford to pay the cost of living increase any particular year and tied to the consumer price index, meaning it might be lower some years than the 3% increase.
• Creating a hybrid system where some of the benefits — a lower amount than under the current system — would be guaranteed while others would be provided through some type of investment portfolio.
• Lowering the amount of the benefits.

Such recommendations, which would have to be approved by the Legislature to be enacted, would not impact current employees. Instead, the changes would be for future employees. The Legislature would establish when the changes would go into effect for new hires.

Another recommendation could be a change to the payout method for the cost of living increase for both current and future employees.

Under the current system, many people take the annual 3% cost of living increase as one lump sum payment at the end of the year. PERS could recommend the increase be provided to retirees as part of their monthly retirement checks. Another option would be to make the “default” choice for retirees to receive the cost of living increase divvied up as part of their retirement checks. The employees would have to request specifically for the cost of living increase to be paid as a 13^th check instead of monthly.

Changing the payout method from a lump sum to monthly one for the annual 3% cost of living increases would not result in less money for retirees. But it would give more flexibility since the system would not be taxed with paying the entire total at one time at the end of the year.

“These are recommendations and still a work in progress,” Ray Higgins, PERS executive director, said during a recent interview with Mississippi Today. “PERS is such a great system. It is important we work together to find solutions for generations to come.”

During an at times contentious 2023 session between legislative leaders and PERS, Higgins committed to providing recommendations to lawmakers on steps they could take to improve the financial viability of the system.

The contentiousness surfaced because before the 2023 session began, the PERS governing board voted by a 7-3 margin in December 2022 to increase the rate paid by state agencies, school districts and local governments from 17.4% of employees’ paycheck to 22.4%. The decision caused consternation with legislators and local governmental entities because of the additional cost of the rate increase.

The decision to increase the amount paid by governmental entities to support the pension program rests solely with the board and not with the Legislature or any other entity. But in the 2023 session, House leaders introduced a bill to strip some of the authority of the board that oversees the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System.

After that bill was introduced, the board through Higgins committed to postponing the increase in the employer contribution rate and to introduce a long-term PERS fix for the Legislature to consider.

The PERS Board is working on those recommendations now and Higgins said he believes they will be finalized later this year before the 2024 session begins in January.

The effect of those recommendations, though, would be “long term in nature” and “does not alleviate the need for the increase in the employee contribution rate.”

As it stands now, that increase from 17.4% to 22.4% of an employee’s retirement check paid by the governmental entity is set to go into effect July 2024. The board’s original plan was to enact the increase in October of this year, meaning local government entities would be hit with an additional major expense during the midst of an election year.

The action of the board to increase the rate by 5% will cost state and local governmental entities, including school districts and public colleges and universities, $345 million annually, including $265 million for state agencies and education entities.

Higgins said the PERS Board of Directors could opt to phase in the that increase instead of enacting it all in July 2024.

The system’s current funding ratio is about 61%, meaning it has the assets to pay the benefits of 61% of all the people in the system, ranging from the newest hires to those already retired. Of course, all of the people in the system will not retire at once. Theoretically, though, it is recommended that retirement systems have a funding ratio of 80% or more.

The system has $30 billion in assets and is underfunded by about $20 billion.

Most state, city and county employees and public educators are in the system that currently has about 325,000 members, including current employees, retirees and others who used to work in the public sector but no longer do.

Employees in the system pay 9% of their salary toward their retirement. It was increased from 7.25% in the late 2000s. The average yearly benefit from the plan is $26,258.

Part of the issue causing the system financial woes is a decline in the number of governmental workers.

A study by the Mississippi Legislative Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Committee pointed out that between 2010 and 2020, the ratio of active employees to retired employees decreased about 33%, from 2.02 active to 1 retiree, to 1.35 to 1.

“As a result of the decrease, the payroll of fewer active members must fund future pension obligations, a factor made more important because contributions from active members and their employers comprise approximately 46% of PERS revenues” as of 2020, the report pointed out.

The post PERS Board pondering changes to cost of living increases, other recommendations for Legislature appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame executive director Bill Blackwell joins us to talk about a huge month of July at the shrine, the Watermelon Classic, a big induction weekend, and since Bill is a baseball guy, the College World Series that was.

Stream all episodes here.

The post Podcast: A Hall of Fame podcast. appeared first on Mississippi Today.

JUNE 28, 1942

Dorie Ladner was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. She and her sister, Joyce, became involved early with the civil rights movement, working with Medgar Evers, Vernon Dahmer, Clyde Kennard and others. 

She and her sister were kicked out of Jackson State University for their support of the Tougaloo Nine, who integrated the all-white library in downtown Jackson. They became even more active at Tougaloo College. They worked with the Freedom Riders, joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped with the 1963 March on Washington. 

Dorie escorted Fannie Lou Hamer to register to vote. Joyce pursued graduate school, earning a doctorate in sociology, becoming the first female president of Howard University. Dorie continued her civil rights work, participating in every major civil rights march through 1968. In Washington, D.C., she earned her master’s in social work, counseling emergency room patients, visiting schools and working with the Rape Crisis Center. 

The sisters were honored at the Kennedy Center, and Dorie received the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy Humanitarian Award. In 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from Tougaloo.

The post On this day in 1942 appeared first on Mississippi Today.

MCCOOL – Teresa Springs looks out at the farmland that her husband Kevin Springs inherited in 2016.

After Kevin’s mother’s health declined, she transferred over the 73-acre farm to him. The Springses had no plans of moving from Florida to McCool, Mississippi, and they had no experience in farming. 

Instead of selling the property, the two decided to take on the task of bringing the farm back to life. They attended conferences, read books and conducted research online to prepare themselves as farmers. Teresa and Kevin’s Oasis, TKO Farming, was born.

“When Teresa and I came here, this wasn’t here,” Kevin said. “The land was here, but there was no one here to steward it. There was no one here to build upon it and create a blossoming future for other people, so we hit the ground running.”

On Juneteenth, they broke ground for their Southern-Agrarian Training Center under their company Ancestral Be-kin, which is located on the farmland. The goal of the center is to preserve the Black agrarian legacy by teaching sustainable agricultural and land-based skills to young Black farmers and youth. Their vision is to bridge the gap between older Black farmers and the next generation of those interested in farming and agrarian living. 

The center will be a space that merges generations of Black farmers and cultural workers. It will give student groups and interns the opportunity to have several days to be mentored and learn about food injustice and sustainable agriculture. The Springses want this to be a learning space regardless of experience levels.

“This little slice of real estate will be here to help other folks,” Kevin said.“This land has liberated us, and it has allowed us to continue to try and give that to other folks.”

In their research, the couple discovered that the farm, which had been in Kevin’s family for four generations, was a central Mississippi farm that was operated cooperatively by Black families. The families shared farming resources and expertise in the early to mid-20th century. 

In 2017, Kevin attended a Winston County Self Help Cooperative meeting and expressed to the local elder farmer that he didn’t know anything about farming and pleaded for help. The couple relied heavily on the group’s experience and wisdom for the successful development of the farm’s operations. 

“We’ve had a lot of support from a lot of people,” Kevin said. “It may seem like it’s just me and Teresa, but it’s definitely a group effort.”

Today, the Springses are growing the farm and sharing information with a younger generation, just as they learned from their elders at the start of their farming journey. 

They have created an “Education Exchange” which allows them to teach college students about Black land stewardship. They also mentor youth groups at a local church and teach them the basics of gardening and farming. 

“A lot of times I apologize to young people because I feel that we are leaving them a wounded world,” an emotional Teresa said. “That’s why TKO Farming started.”

For more information about TKO Farming and to support the build of the Southern Agrarian Training Center, visit GoFundMe.

The post Attala County farmers open training center to teach farming to youth appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Mississippi’s former flag with a Confederate emblem in its canton was an issue — sometimes a major one — in state politics and elections for decades before it was officially changed via a vote of the Republican-led Legislature and signature of Republican Gov. Tate Reeves in 2020.

The Jim Crow era-adopted banner appears to have faded as a major issue as the new magnolia-themed banner flies over the state.

But in his effort to energize the right wing of the state GOP to oust incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, state Sen. Chris McDaniel appears to be trying to revive the issue.

But he’s got to be careful, a little more surreptitious, in his approach as he wants to keep favor with his former political foe turned majordomo, Gov. Reeves. Any slings and arrows Hosemann would face on the flag change would apply to Reeves as well — along with many fellow Republican lawmakers down ticket. They had publicly called for voters, not lawmakers, to decide the issue before doing an about-face and facilitating the legislative change.

Thus, McDaniel appears for now to be letting a surrogate — a fellow state senator — publicly broach the issue.

Sen. Kathy Chism, a Republican from New Albany, appeared outside her district at a political rally “on behalf of … Chris McDaniel” in Tishomingo County in early June. As reported by the Mississippi Free Press, Chism endorsed not only McDaniel, but the old flag, saying “a lot of our people fought and died under that flag.” It’s unclear what fighting, dying or people she’s referring to, as the old flag was adopted in 1894, long after the end of the Civil War. In the past, Chism has also incorrectly claimed the old flag was designed by a Black Confederate soldier in her defense of the state’s Lost Cause banner, which was in fact designed by a white supremacist legislator.

Both Hosemann and Reeves caught some flak after the Legislature initiated the flag change, even though neither took an early leadership role in the effort. Both said repeatedly that voters, not lawmakers, should decide the issue. Old flag supporters said the two Republicans reneged on this policy — Hosemann helping the House-led final legislative push through the Senate and Reeves signing the measure into law.

McDaniel fought the flag change in the Legislature, and after it was changed he helped lead an effort to force a referendum that would have allowed voters to re-adopt the old flag or choose a new one. This “Let Mississippi Vote” effort was led by one of McDaniel’s top political and campaign lieutenants, preacher and political consultant Dan Carr of Gulfport.

But the state Supreme Court in 2021 nullified the state’s ballot initiative process. Two efforts to revive it in the Legislature have failed with many, including McDaniel, blaming Hosemann and one of his top lieutenants for failure to adopt a new process.

McDaniel declined comment on the flag as a campaign issue, or whether he approved of Chism’s stance on his behalf. Hosemann likewise declined comment.

The flag issue has long divided Mississippians, and in recent years the state GOP as well. Any effort by McDaniel to revive it would appear to be aimed at energizing the far right of the party, then hoping for relatively low Republican primary turnout from moderates, independents or party crossover voters.

It’s a divisive strategy, using a divisive issue.

McDaniel in comments on social media in 2017 deemed Mississippi unity on a flag as a lost cause.

He wrote: “The idea that Mississippi ‘needs a flag we can all be proud of’ is ludicrous — it’s an impossible task. Seriously, half the liberals in our republic consider the American flag to be oppressive. Stop trying to pacify them; they will NEVER be satisfied.”

The post Is the Confederate flag still an issue in Mississippi elections? Chris McDaniel campaign tries to revive it appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Rankin County deputies accused of beating and torturing two men earlier this year have been fired, Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced Tuesday. 

“We understand that the alleged actions of these deputies has eroded the public’s trust in our department,” Bailey said in a prepared statement shared during a news conference. 

“Rest assured that we will work diligently to restore that trust.”

The night of Jan. 24, six deputies conducting a drug investigation raided a Braxton home where Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker were living. In a $400 million lawsuit against the county and sheriff’s department, the men said they were unlawfully imprisoned and tortured for 90 minutes, culminating in a deputy placing his service weapon in Jenkins’ mouth and pulling the trigger. 

Bailey said the deputies were initially placed on administrative leave pending findings from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation. Recent developments and findings from an internal investigation led to the deputies’ termination Friday, he said. 

The sheriff did not name the deputies, but the lawsuit identifies three of them as Hunter Elward, Brett McAlpin and Christian Dedmon. 

The county, sheriff and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit have not yet responded to the lawsuit complaint. 

On Tuesday, Bailey said actions have been taken to ensure the sheriff’s office serves and protects the public and ensure that all citizens’ rights are protected. 

Those actions include a detailed analysis of policy, procedure and training of staff. The department has also hired a full-time compliance officer to monitor daily operations and ensure compliance with state and federal law, he said. 

“It is my privilege to serve the citizens of Rankin County as Sheriff and it has been my daily goal to run one of the best departments in the State of Mississippi,” Bailey said in the statement. 

“I believe in my heart that this department remains one of the best departments in our state and I am committed to doing everything in my power to keep this department on a correct path moving forward.”

The post Rankin sheriff fires deputies accused of beating, torturing two men appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Hospital CEOs are leaving at increasingly higher rates in Mississippi since the pandemic.

The state’s hospital CEO turnover rate was 17% in 2021, according to the most recently available data from the American College of Healthcare Executives. 

The percentage has been creeping upward since 2019. It went from 10%, considered a “low” turnover rate by the ACHE, to 13% in 2020, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and shot up 4 more percentage points the next year.

Now, Mississippi’s turnover rate is “high,” according to the organization. 

The percentage of hospital CEO turnover has fluctuated over the past decade — Mississippi’s highest turnover rate was 27% in 2014. But Tim Moore, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Association, said recent numbers are concerning. 

“Mostly, I think it’s a testament to how difficult the job is now,” he said. 

Just this month, the CEOs of Singing River Health System on the Gulf Coast and St. Dominic Memorial Hospital in Jackson, two of the biggest hospital systems in Mississippi, resigned from their positions to lead hospitals elsewhere. 

Moore, who was a hospital executive himself for more than two decades, said the job is nonstop and has only gotten more demanding since the pandemic.

“There’s no question it had a huge impact, and a lot of that goes back to the financial perspective,” he said. “You can't get to the position where your revenues exceed expenses. There's no business that can survive that. So that's the situation they’re in currently and trying to figure out.”

Hospitals are struggling in Mississippi and across the country, decimated by the pandemic. The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform puts a third of the state’s rural hospitals at risk of closure within a few years. 

And as the state of health care gets increasingly precarious, one study found that CEO exits nationwide hit a four-year-high in January of this year.

Data from the ACHE show that nationally, hospital CEO turnover rates have generally remained steady from 2012 to 2021, aside from 2013 when the percentage shot up to 20%. In 2021, the most recently available year, the rate was 16%. 

The organization also found that hospital CEOs were most concerned about workforce challenges, which includes personnel shortages and staff burnout. 

Doctors and nurses have gotten more expensive, Moore said, and harder to come by. Data from Moore’s organization show that Mississippi’s nurse vacancy and turnover rates have skyrocketed in the past decade.

“You're just … you're up against another wall,” he said. 

The post The revolving door at Mississippi’s hospitals: CEO turnover rate is high appeared first on Mississippi Today.