Editor’s Note: This is part 3 of a series about the rise of youth crime in Indianola and the surrounding area.
In our two previous attempts to illustrate how major infractions perpetrated by minors are handled within the judicial system, we have delved into the roles and responsibilities of the courts, law enforcement and other agencies as they relate to juvenile offenders.
It doesn’t matter if the minors’ offenses are classified as incorrigible, delinquent, children in need of supervision or felons; they require special handling and will have to pass through at least one of these agencies.
Some minors may fall into more than one of these classifications at one time. It falls upon the accountability of each agency that is involved to render the best services possible by providing for the needs of the youths once those needs have been identified.
In light of recent gun-related violence involving minors and the escalating growth of youth involvement in such illegal activities, this week, we deviate slightly to focus on how parents and members of the community can positively affect the lives of these young people.
More and more of the infractions involving youths extend beyond the boundaries of minor offenses and result in major wrongdoings, including gun crimes and other felonies, which incur the intercession of law enforcement.
With local law enforcement investigating more and more severe crimes that are reportedly being committed by youths, it is becoming evident to Indianola Police Investigator Sgt. Irish Johnson that the parents and adult guardians should be required to show some answerability.
Johnson said youths as young as 12 years old are out at all times of the day and night unsupervised by a parent or guardian.
He is a strong advocate for holding the parents accountable. “There's no way that you can tell me that your 13-year-old is still outside of the house and you don't know about it,” he said.
Johnson insinuated that those youths who may not have adequate parental involvement are being ill-advised and erroneously influenced by older criminal elements, who are telling them that because they are minors, they will only go to juvenile court, do a short stint in the detention center and no jail time if they are caught, which is not accurate.
He said, “When I arrest some of them, this is what they are telling me.” So he has to inform them that a gun crime carries a more serious penalty. “That idea that they are selling to these guys are crazy, but these juveniles don’t know this until they get arrested,” Johnson said.
He said parents who may have juveniles who are out in the streets late at night, past curfew and past midnight should be questioning their child's activities.
He added that although some parents have stated that they can’t do anything with their disobedient child, very few are willing to work with law enforcement to help solve a major problem, which is juveniles with guns that they have been able to simply purchase on the streets.
He appealed to the parents to assist law enforcement in getting some of the guns out of the hands of the minors. “Do your job as a parent to save your child,” he said. Johnson said not only could it save their child’s life, but the life of someone else’s child.
He insinuated that some parents—not all—who are experiencing these type issues with their youths are either too busy with their own life or are in some way benefiting from the child’s criminal activity. “We’re running into a lot of that, where the parents are out there doing their thing and not caring about what their kids are doing,” he said.
Johnson said they plan to establish a task force that will go into the homes where they have knowledge that juveniles are holding guns and seize the weapons in order to effectively reduce the number of weapons on the streets.
He said it would not be just a one-time procedure, but a repetitive one. "It's going to take a little time, but it's going to happen,” he said, "We're going to try to come down on the whole household. Because ain't no way in the world I would not know that my son has assault rifles, drugs, and money inside of my house."
Johnson said it doesn’t help the matter when parents hide or harbor the juvenile offenders from law enforcement by sending them out of town when they get in trouble. He said some parents are guilty of that, but some are concerned enough to allow the authorities to help their child.
When a gun crime is committed and the parent tries to hinder the arrest by sending the juvenile away, then that sometimes result in an undesirable situation where the U.S. Marshals are called in to locate them.
Johnson asserted that he is not for extemporaneously incarcerating minors away in prison, but cautions those who serve on grand juries and such to be mindful of repeat offenders and not focus only on a current misdemeanor without considering past felonies.
“What it's doing is showing the juvenile that the boys that they are working for, they are right; saying, ‘I just went to juvenile detention for a week and I'm back, so I'm going to go back out here and commit the same crime and go shoot up in somebody else's house,” he said.
Johnson added, “You're empowering them; you're showing them that what these grown people are telling them is right.” And that only causes the minor to ask the older youth, “So, what else do you need me to do?”
"It's a battle that we need to come up with a plan to solve. And we need the help from the parents, we need the help from the neighbors," Johnson said. Many of the youths who are committing these offenses are repeat offenders, so that calls to question whether there is a breakdown somewhere.
“They're fascinated by guns. They're fascinated with getting away with stuff they see on TV. They're fascinated by that stuff and it's our job to take that away from them. We're losing our youth to the graveyard and to the jail system. It's going to take a community to save Indianola," Johnson said.
Johnson, like many law enforcement personnel in other communities is calling upon the citizens for help. He said that when people in the community see crimes being committed; they should not just go and lie down on the floor. He encourages the citizens to make a phone call.
However, he is aware of the fear element that some people have when it comes to gun crimes. But he said that people should be more fearful of whether the house that is being fired upon is going to fire back and what if those bullets that they are firing back are going to come into their home.
He said some of the holes being made by the weapons being used on the street are golf ball sized holes, going into bricks. “They've got guns that are holding 100 rounds at a time," he said. And, they are not ashamed to display their weapons on Facebook.
Johnson said he and the rest of the department are going to continue to do their job. He's going to work with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and The Mississippi Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearm to get the guns off of the streets and he insists that if the community is not doing its job to help, then they are part of the problem.
"We're going to do our job as the police department to clean up Indianola, but we're going to still need help from the parents, the church and everybody," he said.
