Published: August 17, 2008 12:30 am            

What is it going to take?

Within two weeks there have been two separate drive by shootings here in our fine City of Meridian. The first shooting occurred on September 9, 2008 and within four days another drive by shooting occurred. The first shooting occurred within one block of the Meridian Police Department headquarters building. Just one block from our renowned Riley Center. The shooting occurred in daylight terrorizing the people of 39th avenue. In both shootings young boys were shot.

In May, I appeared before the City Council and the Mayor and commented that the number of robberies, burglaries and shootings were at unacceptable levels in a small city like our beloved Meridian. I commented that if this situation was not addressed we would only see an escalation of violence. I was told that our crime statistics were within normal range.

It is interesting that when we had a rash of bank robberies in and around the city, the sheriff himself seemed to be right in the center of the investigation that eventual chased and was part of the capture of the armed robbers. I take my hat off to Sheriff Sollie personally leading the manhunt from the front lines. Unfortunately, we can not say the same about our police chief. The only image we see of Chief Dubose is him sitting behind his desk at the station. And of course we never hear from the mayor on anything that is not a brick and mortar project. Mr. Mayor, now this is a time to offer a reward to capture these potential murderers. Now that would be money well spent!

I also hope the brass at the top of the Meridian Police Department start leading those fine police officers that work the streets from the front lines and not the safety of their comfortable desks.



Bill Marcy

Meridian

        

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