Mississippi revenue collections through April are on near-record pace for the largest percentage year over year increase in the modern era.
Through 10 months of the fiscal year, the state has collected $5.35 billion in general fund revenue — a $756.9 million or 16.5% increase over the amount collected during the same time period last year, according to the April revenue report recently released by the Legislative Budget Committee staff.
Factors surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could be playing a strong role in the revenue collections. Those factors include:
Unprecedented federal assistance to individuals and to Mississippi governmental entities. For instance, during the current fiscal year, most Mississippians have received at least $3,200 in federal stimulus checks that economists say have helped fuel the state economy.
Last year the filing deadline for state income taxes was postponed from April 15 to July 15, meaning that about $230 million in income taxes that would have been collected in the prior fiscal year were pushed into the current fiscal year.
Revenue collections in the past fiscal year were down as a result of the onset of the pandemic and other circumstances, such as the postponement of the income tax filing deadline. The 2.5 drop in revenue collections during the last fiscal year helps inflate percentage increases in the current fiscal year.
Still, if the 16.5% increase holds for the next two months, that means it would be the strongest year-over-year increase since 1981, which also saw a 16.5% increase.
It is not clear what fueled the large increase in fiscal year 1981. Revenue collections could be impacted by multiple factors, including the economy, rebuilding in the aftermath of a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, tax cuts or tax increases or even circumstances surrounding a pandemic.
“Revenues continue to be good. We are grateful for that… This has allowed us to fund what cuts we made last year,” House Speaker Philip Gunn, R-Clinton, said earlier this year.
There are two key numbers to assess in the monthly Budget Committee revenue reports. One is how revenue collections look year over year, which is generally viewed as an economic indicator. The second is whether revenue collections are meeting the official estimate, which is the number the Legislature used in making its budget. If collections do not meet the estimate, the governor or Legislature could be forced to make mid-year budget cuts.
For the month of April, collections continue to be strong — $212.1 million or 28.5% above the estimate. For the year, collections are 17.7% or $804.2 million above the estimate. Much of the excess money will be directed to the Capital Expense Fund at the end of the fiscal year. Money in that fund often is used by legislators to fund various projects throughout the state.
Not surprisingly, most sources of state revenue have increased significantly year over year. Sales tax revenue, the largest single source of state revenue, is $124,2 or 8% above the amount collected during the same time period last year while use tax revenue, which is essentially the sales tax levied on internet purchases, is up $75 million or 28.5% year over year. Income tax collections are up $291.1 million or 20.1%, but that includes the revenue that was collected after the tax filing deadline was pushed back to July.
Casino revenue collections have been strong during the pandemic, up $204 million or 20.2%.
In a more fair and just Mississippi, James Thomas Bell — JT to his family and friends around Starkville — probably would have attended his hometown college, then Mississippi A&M, where he surely would have become a baseball star.
Of course, in a more fair and just Starkville, Bell and other Black children could have attended 12 years of high school and not had to work the fields to help feed their families. Those schools did not exist in Bell’s day.
Yes, and in a more fair and just America, Bell would have become a famous Major League Baseball player — and/or perhaps an Olympic track star — and never had to worry about money the rest of his life.
Sadly, there was little fair or just for a child of African American and Native American descent, born in 1903 on a farm three miles from downtown Starkville. So at age 17, JT Bell moved to St. Louis to live with older brothers, earn money in the factories there and attend high school in night classes.
Rick Cleveland
The high school thing never happened. Factory work didn’t last long. Baseball discovered Bell, his dazzling foot speed, natural baseball instincts and quick bat. He became a professional baseball player in the old Negro Leagues. He became Cool Papa Bell, the most accomplished Mississippi-born baseball player ever, the only native-born Mississippian enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. Bell was inducted in 1974 despite never having played in the Major Leagues.
And if you are wondering why this is written today, you should know that his hometown college — now Mississippi State University — will pay tribute to him Thursday night. An area on the left field terrace at Dudy Noble Field will be dedicated as Cool Papa Bell Plaza, replete with a handsome plaque.
“Cool Papa Bell remains one of the greatest players in the history of the sport,” State athletic director John Cohen said. “No, he didn’t go to school at Mississippi State but he worked on our campus as a child. He should be recognized in his hometown and at our stadium. He will be.”
The moral of this story: It is never too late to admit — and correct as best you can — old mistakes.
Cool Papa probably said it best himself when asked if he had any regrets about never having played Major League Baseball. Bell replied that he did not and then added, “They say I was born too soon. I say they opened the doors too late.”
“They say I was born too soon. I say they opened the doors too late.”
Cool Papa Bell
For those who don’t know the Cool Papa Bell story, he is widely recognized as the fastest player in the game’s history. For Cool Papa, a walk or a single quickly became a triple because he usually stole both second and third bases. He achieved a lifetime batting average of .341 in the Negro Leagues, playing for several different ball clubs. He also starred on teams in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Cuba.
What would he have done in Major League Baseball? We have strong clues. Bell played in many exhibition games between barnstorming players from the Negro Leagues and Major League ballplayers. Facing some of the best pitchers in the history of the game, Bell hit .391.
Satchel Paige, the great pitcher and Bell’s teammate, once said, “Bell was so fast he could shut the light off in his hotel room and be under the covers before it got dark.”
What we know of Bell’s early life comes mainly from interviews of him late in life. We know his father was African American and his mother was largely of Native American descent. We know he was fourth of eight children and that his maternal grandfather owned 200 acres of land outside Starkville where he grew cotton, corn, fruit trees and vegetables. We know that Cool Papa Bell not only worked those fields but also worked at the college’s creamery and at the agricultural experiment station. In a recorded interview in 1981, Bell told of having to dodge rocks thrown at him by some of the agriculture students.
Although he didn’t attend State, Bell knew all about the rivalry between State and what he called “Old Miss.”
When “Old Miss” came to town to play, Bell said State students would “soap” the train tracks to stop the train from running. He laughed as he told the story.
He also told about coaching Jackie Robinson with the Kansas City Monarchs before Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball.
“Jackie wasn’t the best player in the Negro Leagues, but he was the best to represent us in the Major Leagues,” Bell said. “He played better in the Major Leagues than he did in our league.”
Bell took great pride in Robinson’s Major League success. He called his own induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame his second greatest thrill, second only to Robinson’s breaking baseball’s color line.
We can only imagine what it would mean to the great Cool Papa to be honored all these years later at his hometown university – the one where he worked as a child but could not attend.
•••
The dedication of “Cool Papa” Bell Plaza and the plaque noting the life and career of Bell is a joint project between MSU athletics and the University’s Student Association. MSU Director of Athletics John Cohen, Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill, student association Vice President Kennedy Guest and Bell’s cousin Allen Landfair will each speak during Thursday’s pregame dedication.
Fans are encouraged to be in their seats at Dudy Noble Field at 7:15 p.m. prior to the game. First pitch is set for 7:30 p.m. on ESPNU. The ceremony will be shown on the video board as the “Cool Papa” Bell Plaza, located on the left field terrace, will be dedicated.
Mississippi Today Editor-At-Large Marshall Ramsey sits down with journalist, author and teacher Curtis Wilkie to talk about his long career and his new book, When Evil Lived in Laurel: The “White Knights” and the Murder of Vernon Dahmer.
A 1963 graduate of University of Mississippi (He drew a map of what happened the night of the riot that is in the Ole Miss archives), Wilkie began his career at the Clarksdale Press Register covering the Civil Rights movement. From there, he went on to cover eight presidential campaigns (He was one of the Boys on the Bus during the 1972 Nixon Campaign.), being the White House correspondent during the Carter and Reagan administrations and then covering the Middle East for the Boston Globe.
After his retirement from the Globe, Wilkie became a professor and fellow at the Overby Center where he taught until recently. He is the also the author of several books including Dixie: A Personal Odyssey Through Events That Shaped the Modern South, The Fall of the House of Zeus: The Rise and Ruin of America’s Most Powerful Trial Lawyer, The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-year Campaign (Co-authored with Tom Oliphant) and Assassins, Eccentrics, Politicians, and Other Persons of Interest: Fifty Pieces from the Road.
A frequent guest on CSPAN, Wilkie is a master storyteller who has helped document history for over a half century.
The state of Mississippi has applied for more than $2 billion in American Rescue Plan funds — a key first step to the state receiving the federal stimulus money for local and state governments to spend.
While Gov. Tate Reeves, supported by House Speaker Philip Gunn, opted this week to discontinue participation in an American Rescue Plan program that provides the unemployed in the state an additional $300 weekly in federal benefits, Department of Finance and Administration spokeswoman Marcy Scoggins confirmed the state had requested the federal funds for state and local governments.
The U.S. Department of Treasury set up a mechanism this week to begin the disbursement of $350 billion to state, local, territorial and Tribal governments as part of the American Rescue Plan that was passed earlier this year to provide financial relief to governmental entities and individuals who might have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mississippi is slated to receive $1.8 billion to be spent by the Legislature. Half of that money, based on Treasury reports, will be disbursed to the state this month, with the remainder scheduled to provided in 2022. The money must be spent by 2024.
According to the guidelines from the Department of Treasury, the states and local governments have broad discretion in how the funds can be spent. It can go for COVID-19 relief, including to offset revenue lost because of shutdowns caused by the pandemic. On a state level, Mississippi never suffered a revenue loss because of COVID-19, and, in fact, tax collections for the current fiscal year have been growing.
The money also can be spent to enhance broadband and water and sewer improvements but not for roads and streets. Funds also could be used to provide extra pay to essential workers.
Similar rules apply for the funds going to the local governments.
The funds cannot be used to cut taxes, though some Republican-led states have filed lawsuits challenging that restriction.
The website for the Department of Treasury instructs: “The Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds provide substantial flexibility for each government to meet local needs—including support for households, small businesses, impacted industries, essential workers, and the communities hardest hit by the crisis. These funds can also be used to make necessary investments in water, sewer, and broadband infrastructure.”
Mississippi is slate to receive:
$1.8 billion to the state, to be spent by the Legislature.
$97 million for the metro cities of Biloxi, Gulfport, Hattiesburg, Jackson, Moss Point and Pascagoula, with Jackson receiving the largest share at $47 million.
$258 million for smaller cities.
$577 million for the state’s 82 counties.
$1.6 billion for K-12 education, with most directed to local school districts using existing formulas for federal money disbursement. For perspective, the state K-12 budget is a little more than $2 billion a year.
$429 million for the state’s colleges and universities.
$166 million for capital projects statewide, primarily for rural broadband access projects.
“Clearly this is something that is transformative to Mississippi,” Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said earlier this year of the funds coming to the state. “… It is a good problem to have. Part of our process in my own mind is not only using this over the three years, but how to make this have an effect over the next five, 10 years or longer.”
Earlier this year the Legislature opted to establish a fund to be administered by the Department of Finance and Administration to deposit the funds with the legislators in the coming years deciding how to spend the money. The Legislature will have no say in spending the funds going to local governments and education entities.
Gulfport School District is awaiting approval for additional flexibility next year to be able to reduce achievement gaps, increase student learning and other goals because the board overseeing public education in the state has too many vacancies to take a vote.
And in one Delta county, funding for an early learning program for preschool children hangs in the balance for the same reason.
The nine-member State Board of Education is currently operating with only five members, and soon to be four after a longtime member rolls off next month. The low numbers means any time one board member must recuse him or herself from a vote, the board can’t proceed.
Two — and soon to be three — of the vacancies on the education board are Gov. Tate Reeves’ responsibility to fill, while Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Speaker Philip Gunn each have one seat to fill. Hosemann and Gunn have said they are actively meeting with candidates to determine who to appoint.
But Reeves remains silent about when he’ll make his three appointments, ignoring questions from Mississippi Today over the course of several weeks. Meanwhile, the board cannot take critical votes.
In April, Gulfport School District was on the list along with several other districts to be approved as a “District of Innovation,” a special status granted by the state to districts that allows them additional flexibility to expand curriculum choices, develop programs that increase students’ college and career-readiness and make special efforts aimed at low-performing students to decrease learning disparities.
Glen East, the district’s superintendent, is also a member of the State Board of Education and had to recuse himself from the vote, leaving the board with four members, or one member shy of a quorum, and unable to vote on the matter.
“We’re still currently working on the District of Innovation for this school year through the end of June, so we’ll see what happens,” said East, whose district has used the status to create a Middle College program where students can achieve a high school diploma at the same time as an associate’s degree.
He said he’s hopeful an appointment will be made in the next 60 days so the district’s status will be able to be approved once again.
“We’re working hard as a board of five right now … We’re all waiting for the next appointments to come through to help make the process more efficient,” he said.
The State Board of Education must also soon approve additional grant funding for the Tallahatchie Early Learning Alliance, along with other collaboratives across the state. But because of Board of Education member Angela Bass’ work with the Mississippi Early Learning Alliance, she must recuse herself from the vote — meaning the board is, once again, unable to move forward in securing an additional nearly $40,000 in funding for Tallahatchie.
Early learning collaboratives are partnerships among school districts, Head Start agencies, childcare centers and nonprofit groups. There are currently 18 collaboratives serving more than 3,000 children across the state. They were recently recognized by a national group as having the highest quality standards, but access to them remains very low, with only 8% of the state’s 4-year-olds attending one.
One of the Board of Education seats became vacant after the former board chair Jason Dean resigned in February. Dean’s seat is appointed by Hosemann, the lieutenant governor. The others have been vacant for at least several months, and one nearly a year.
Board of Education Chairwoman Rosemary Aultman said she has a meeting with Gunn, the House speaker, on Thursday to discuss his appointment and hopes to have more news then. A spokeswoman for Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said his office is in the process of interviewing candidates.
Reeves’ office has ignored multiple questions about his unfilled appointments.
Bass said, however, a contact in Reeves’ office told her appointments would be made by the State Board of Education’s meeting on May 20.
Jonathan Smith of Amory was on Christmas break from his job as a forklift operator in 2017 when he thought he was having a stroke.
Doctors instead found a brain tumor, then determined he had a rare cancer of the nervous system.
Smith said his company was in the process of switching insurance providers, and employees were without health coverage for about three months — including Smith when his cancer was diagnosed. Many treatments and surgeries later, Smith, now 35, cannot work, owes more than he could ever repay for medical care, and his family struggles. He’s just learned he needs another surgery.
Smith on Tuesday spoke to a crowd of medical providers and advocates for the kickoff of the “Yes on 76” drive to put Medicaid expansion before Mississippi voters on the 2022 midterm ballot. Smith says he would be one of about 200,000 uninsured Mississippians who could receive health coverage if Mississippi were to expand Medicaid through the federal Affordable Care Act, with federal tax dollars footing most of the bill.
“A lot of times I feel helpless,” Smith said. “But today I feel pretty good. This is something I can do, something I can help with… I’d like to be healthy enough to be a better father to my children… I should be battling the cancer, not worried about how to pay for my medicine.”
Physicians and nurses on hand for the kickoff of the drive at the Mississippi Hospital Association office inked the first signatures on the petition for Initiative 76. Organizers — led by MHA — must gather about 106,000 to put a constitutional amendment to expand Medicaid on the ballot.
“This is a human issue, not a political issue,” said Hattiesburg pediatrician Dr. John Gaudet, who helped file the initial paperwork for the initiative in February. “It’s a human issue, with a common-sense solution.”
But the issue has been political in Mississippi, and brought heated — and most often partisan — debate. Mississippi, despite being the poorest state and otherwise dependent on federal spending, is one of just 12 states that has refused to expand Medicaid. Most of the state’s Republican leadership, starting with former Gov. Phil Bryant, have opposed expansion, saying they don’t want to help expand “Obamacare” and don’t trust the federal government to continue footing most of the bill. This has left hundreds of thousands of “working poor” Mississippians without health coverage, with the state rejecting at least $1 billion a year in federal funds to provide it.
Proponents estimate that expanding Medicaid would provide coverage for at least 200,000 working poor Mississippians, in addition to the roughly 750,000 poor pregnant women, children, elderly and disabled people already on Medicaid.
Meanwhile, Mississippi’s hospitals, especially smaller rural ones, say they are awash in red ink from providing millions of dollars of care each year to uninsured and unhealthy people. Six Mississippi hospitals have gone under in the last decade, and a recent study said that about half of the other rural hospitals statewide are at risk of closure, as hospitals have to eat about $600 million a year and growing in uncompensated care.
MHA President Tim Moore said that in most rural Mississippi communities “lucky enough to have a hospital,” it’s typically the area’s largest employer. MHA says Medicaid expansion would help the state’s economy and create thousands of jobs, beyond helping impoverished Mississippi tackle one of the global and persistent problems that keeps it on the bottom: the unhealthiness of its people.
“We’re talking about chronic issues that could have been dealt with on the front end, like detecting diabetes and treating it and not losing a leg down the road,” Moore said. “… If you believe in your community and your believe in small town Mississippi, you have to believe in Medicaid expansion… It’s time to bring our Mississippi tax dollars back home from D.C. … 38 states have already done it.”
Gaudet said that Mississippi chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the state chapter of the NAACP, ACLU of Mississippi, Mississippi Center for Justice, Mississippi Health Advocacy Program and the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund have joined in the initiative drive. He and Moore said they expect other groups to join as it gets rolling, including state business leaders.
“We are committed to creating the biggest, broadest, nonpartisan effort the state has ever seen, in order to bring health care to 200,000 of our citizens,” Gaudet said. “… As physicians, we want to bring our tax dollars home to take care of our patients here, just like Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma have done.”
Nakeitra Burse, CEO of Six Dimensions, a health research and health equity advocate, said Medicaid expansion would help Mississippi improve its worst or near worst in the nation status in categories such as maternal and infant mortality. Other states have seen rates of such chronic problems drop with Medicaid expansion.
“I have no doubt Mississippians will hear the call to action, and we will get the 106,000 signatures we need to get this on the ballot,” Burse said.
Two Mississippi firms have been hired to collect signatures for the drive, Moore recently said, and people and organizations have already lined up as volunteers. The drive has a website for people to learn more or volunteer, YesOn76.org.
Gov. Tate Reeves and House Speaker Philip Gunn have recently reiterated their opposition to Medicaid expansion. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he’s open to discussion on the issue, one of few state GOP leaders to openly say so.
Hosemann in a statement on Tuesday said: “Key chairmen in the Senate will likely hold hearings later this year to learn more from providers, advocates, patients, and other stakeholders in the healthcare community about the delivery of healthcare in Mississippi. Our office is not involved in the ballot initiative.”
Moore said MHA and others have pushed lawmakers to expand Medicaid for nearly a decade, to no avail, so it was time for voters to take matters in hand through the state’s ballot initiative process. He believes, in part based on polling, that the push will have bipartisan support.
“Mississippians have the chance to do the right thing in 2022, and also be fiscally conservative,” Moore said.
U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson is asking the Justice Department to investigate the 2018 jail death of Robert Loggins in Grenada.
“No question it’s equal to the George Floyd situation,” he said, alluding to the 2020 death of Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than nine minutes.
Asked if the Justice Department had begun to investigate, Acting U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner of Oxford responded, “We cannot comment on any investigation.”
Calls for an investigation came after the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting published a video of Loggins’ death inside the jail on Nov. 29, 2018. The video shows Loggins slowly rolling when officers get on top of him inside the Grenada County Jail, with one officer appearing to kneel on his neck and sit on his head.
Three and a half minutes later, they got off him. The 26-year-old never moved again. More than six minutes passed before anyone checked his conditions — only to discover he had no pulse and wasn’t breathing.
Despite that discovery, another four and a half minutes passed before anyone conducted any CPR.
Authorities ruled the death an accident, blaming the methamphetamine he took, but renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden concluded the death was a homicide, saying the methamphetamine was not a fatal amount. “They killed him by piling on top of him,” he said. “He absolutely died from some kind of asphyxia.”
A Mississippi Bureau of Investigation concluded no foul play was involved in Loggins’ death. Officers have yet to respond to the litigation, but they denied in interviews with MBI that they had done anything wrong.
Loggins’ wife, Rika Jones, the administrator for his estate, has filed a lawsuit in federal court against those involved, accusing them of causing her husband’s wrongful death.
“The wrongdoing that culminated in Robert Loggins’ untimely death is difficult to watch but plain to see,” said the family’s attorney, Jacob Jordan of the Tannehill, Carmean & McKenzie law firm in Oxford. “The family appreciates the increasing number of calls for justice and reform in his wake.”
Thompson requested the Justice Department investigation after reading MCIR’s story and viewing the video.
“It is unacceptable that Mr. Loggins’ last moments were met with unnecessary suffering and pain at the hands of Grenada County law enforcement officials,” he wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland. “As a representative of this community, I request a complete and thorough investigation of the causes and circumstances surrounding the untimely death of Mr. Loggins.”
The Grenada City Council and Mississippi’s Legislative Black Caucus have also called for an independent investigation by the Justice Department.
Back in 1995, the department, along with the International Chiefs of Police, warned law enforcement officials that keeping people restrained in the prone position increased the risk of death from asphyxia. “As soon as the suspect is handcuffed, get him off his stomach,” the report urged.
If the person must be kept in the prone position, that person “should be closely and continuously monitored,” the report said.
Applying weight to someone’s back adds to that risk, the report said. The more weight, the more risk. Drugs and alcohol also add to the risk.
In his book, Evaluating Police Uses of Force, co-author Seth Stoughton warns twice, “DO NOT PUT YOUR KNEE ON THE SUSPECT’S NECK OR SPINE.”
He said it’s even more well established to not do this while someone is handcuffed, but that is what has continued to happen in policing across the U.S.
The city of Minneapolis paid $3 million to settle litigation involving the 2010 death of 28-year-old David Smith, who suffered from mental illness and died after officers used a Taser on him and held him face down on the floor. One officer kept a knee on Smith’s back even after he stopped speaking.
As a part of that settlement, the city agreed to include additional training to avoid positional asphyxiation, but that training failed to prevent continued use of these techniques by officers.
In 2020, four Minneapolis officers kneeled on the handcuffed George Floyd, including then-officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd’s neck more than nine minutes. The city of
Minneapolis has already agreed to pay $27 million to settle a civil lawsuit from Floyd’s family.
A jury convicted Chauvin of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, and he faces sentencing later this year.
On Friday, a federal grand jury charged Chauvin and the three other former officers with depriving Floyd of his civil rights.
A second indictment accuses Chauvin of depriving a teenager of his civil rights in 2017 by kneeling on his neck and upper back after he was handcuffed and in the prone position for nearly 17 minutes. Chauvin also reportedly held the minor by the throat, struck him with a flashlight and ignored complaints from the teen that he couldn’t breathe.
The Justice Department is now investigating whether Minneapolis police have engaged in the continued practice of excessive force.
In Mississippi, four police officers in Southaven pinned Troy Goode down, handcuffed him and called for an ambulance. His wife, Kelli, described multiple officers “on top of him with their knees in his back.” He died after being kept hogtied in the prone position for 90 minutes.
Authorities blamed LSD toxicity for his 2015 death, but an independent autopsy by a pathologist hired by the family concluded that he died from “positional asphyxia.”
Authorities tried to have the case dismissed, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that “hog-tying a drug-affected person in a state of drug-induced psychosis and placing him face down in a prone position for an extended period constitutes excessive force.”
The trial is set for July 12 in Oxford before U.S. District Judge Michael P. Mills.
Chris Vignes, spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said the Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers’ Training Academy “does teach on the dangers of positional asphyxia.”
The academy doesn’t teach “any form of neck restraint, including chokeholds, as a force option; however, we do expose students to neck restraints for familiarization,” he said. “This exposure gives them insight into how to defeat a chokehold position.”
In 2016, Dallas police officers handcuffed Tony Timpa. One of the officers put his knee on Timpa’s upper back for 14 minutes while he lay prone, and he stopped breathing, according to court records.
The medical examiner blamed cocaine use and “the physiological stress associated with physical restraint,” concluding that due to “his prone position and physical restraint by an officer, an element of mechanical or positional asphyxia cannot be ruled out,” according to court records.
In 2017, Jonathan Salcido, who was experiencing a psychotic episode, died after officers from the Whittier Police Department in California piled on top of him while he was handcuffed and in the prone position. His mother had called police to get her son to a hospital. The city paid $1.9 million to the family.
Last month, Mario Gonzalez, who appeared to be under the influence, died after police officers in Alameda, California, pinned him to the ground for more than five minutes.
The bodycam video shows one officer keeping his knee in Gonzalez’s back.
Over the past decade, there have been 157 asphyxiation deaths in police custody, according to fatalencounters.org.
Stoughton, who trains officers, said far too many are failing to do “what decades of training tells them they should be doing—taking secured subjects out of the prone position at the earliest opportunity.”
Changing that behavior requires “a clear policy that directs officers to take handcuffed subjects out of the prone position as quickly as possible, even if the subject is still not fully compliant,” he said. “Officers must be actively trained on that policy—rather than just signing an acknowledgment form that they received it—so that they actually understand it.”
Prosecutors who review in-custody deaths should educate themselves about positional asphyxia, and if officers “acted with gross negligence or recklessness that might meet the threshold for criminal prosecution under governing law,” he said, they “should be prosecuted.”
Baden said most, if not all, of the deaths in police custody attributed to “excited delirium” are “really deaths due to restraint asphyxia in my experience.” A 2020 review of these delirium cases raised questions about this cause of death, concluding that these cases were fatal mostly in aggressive forms of police restraint.
Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that is exposing wrongdoing, educating and empowering Mississippians, and raising up the next generation of investigative reporters. Sign up for MCIR’s newsletters here.
The COVID-19 vaccination rate in Mississippi is continuing its steep decline.
Last week, 46,440 Mississippians received COVID-19 vaccines, a drop of over 16% from the week prior. The state’s weekly vaccination rate has dropped 65% from its peak in late February. Mississippi continues to rank last in the nation for the share of its population that is partially or fully vaccinated.
Allison Cox, executive director of the Jackson Housing Authority, said she’s surprised more people are not getting vaccinated in Mississippi. Her organization even had difficulties in early March to fill the 240 vaccination slots per day they had through a partnership with Walmart. Still, Cox is proud that they were able to get around 2,000 Mississippians vaccinated over a six-week period.
“Our northeast partners, like up in Maine, when they talk to us, they just can’t believe that it’s so accessible to us and that people aren’t taking advantage of it,” Cox said.
The Mississippi State Department of Health reported on Monday that 974,542 people in Mississippi — about 33% of the state’s population — have received at least their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Nearly 839,000 people have been fully inoculated since the state began distributing vaccines in December.
Thousands of vaccination appointments are currently available on the MSDH vaccine scheduler. All Mississippians ages 16 and up are currently eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
Gov. Tate Reeves said Mississippi in early June will opt out of a federal pandemic program that has been providing an extra $300 a month in unemployment benefits to Mississippians since last year.
Reeves’ announcement came just hours after fellow Republican, House Speaker Philip Gunn, called on Reeves to either start enforcing job-search requirements for unemployment benefits or end the federal stipend. Gunn said small businesses are reporting they cannot hire people because of the extra benefits, and that the state is not enforcing the rule that people search for work while receiving them.
“The purpose of unemployment benefits is to temporarily assist Mississippians who are unemployed through no fault of their own,” Reeves posted on social media on Monday. “After many conversations over the last several weeks with Mississippi small business owners and their employees, it has become clear that the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and other like programs passed by the Congress may have been necessary in May of last year but are no longer so in May of this year. Therefore, I have informed the Department of Employment Security to direct the Biden Administration that Mississippi will be opting out of the additional federal unemployment benefits as early as federal law allows – June 12, 2021.”
Gunn said he’s heard reports that unemployment claimants are not following requirements that they earnestly search for jobs, and that “MDES is not effectively enforcing that requirement.”
Gunn in his letter Monday said he received a report from one small-business owner that over a short time, 18 people had applied for job interviews, but only three showed up. He said the owner believed they were trying to game the system with MDES and “he reported these individuals to MDES to no avail.”
“I and other House members are continually being contacted by increasingly desperate small businesspeople who inform us their businesses are at risk,” Gunn wrote to Reeves, and copied the letter to all House members. “They report that they cannot get employees to return to work because they can earn more from combined federal and state unemployment benefits than their normal wages.”
Gunn noted that the governors of Montana and South Carolina last week announced they were ending their states’ participation in the $300 a week federal COVID-19 benefits. Politicos and pundits nationwide have surmised increased pandemic unemployment benefits and stimulus payments have incentivized many people to not return to work.
Reeves on Monday said, “I have also directed MDES to prioritize pre-pandemic enforcement of all eligibility requirements for any individual to receive unemployment benefits under state law. Mississippi is open for business!”
Last August, Reeves announced the state would participate in a federal COVID-19 unemployment stipend created by an order of the Trump administration that would provide unemployed Mississippians an extra $300 a week. In Mississippi, state benefits are a maximum $235 a week, with the average payment at less than $200, compared to the national average of $308 a week.
House Ways and Means Chairman Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said he has heard from numerous employers in his district that they can’t find workers because of increased pandemic benefits.
“Not just one or two (employers),” Lamar said, “but a substantial number of businesses just here in my little hometown of Senatobia — restaurants, other businesses. The place where I used to get coffee in the mornings can’t open in the mornings because they don’t have enough workers … I think it’s past the point for this. People can safely go back to work.”
But Mississippi has suffered from low wages, lack of jobs, high unemployment and low workforce participation long before the pandemic.
House Democratic Leader Rep. Robert Johnson of Natchez said, “let’s raise the minimum wage first,” before ending the pandemic unemployment stipend.
Johnson said “people have been working in poverty” because of the state’s $7.25 an hour minimum wage and should not be blamed for taking advantage of an opportunity to earn more thanks to the $300 per week federal benefits stipend. Plus, he said, cutting the benefits off without taking other steps could harm people who are legitimately unemployed.
He said many states have increased their minimum wage to as much as $15 per hour. If it was increased to $9 or $10 an hour in Mississippi, Johnson said it would help low wage workers and boost the economy.
Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, said, “It’s very unfortunate to hear about ending the unemployment benefits for Mississippians who are currently out of work.”
“I don’t know of a single person who would rather receive these benefits than find meaningful employment,” Bell said. “The extension of unemployment benefits should not expire.”
Mississippi’s unemployment for March was 6.3%, higher than the national average of 6% and up from 6.1% in February. Overall, Mississippi’s number of jobs remains down by 3% from last year.
Mississippi for March ranked last, at 56.1%, in workforce participation — a trend that predates the pandemic — and it ranks last in median household income at $45,081, also a trend predating COVID-19.
