Bond has been set at $500,000 for Johnel White, 53, of 620 East Elmwood Circle, and according to Miss. Code Ann. 43-47-19, he could get up to 20 years in the state penitentiary.
White was charged with two counts of aggravated assault on a vulnerable adult and is currently in the Sunflower County jail.
The charges stem from his arrest on Sunday for injuries he allegedly inflicted upon his mother and his partially paralyzed stepfather.
According to police investigator Benny Milton, the dispatcher received a call from an unidentified person who said that White was outside his mother’s home beating her with a stick.
Officers arrived and were informed that White had also assaulted the stepfather and that he had been transported to the emergency room. Officers then called and confirmed the information and White was arrested. “He stabbed both of them, the stepfather got a more critical wound than the mom did, he had to be transported to Jackson,” Milton said.
Milton said the severity of the charges was necessary because of the ages of the victims and the paralysis the stepfather was already experiencing.
White received a $250,000 bond for each charge. He was only recently released on bond (less than a week) in relation to an arson arrest. Because of his record, he is on the list to have his bonding privilege revoked. Milton said the paperwork has been initiated, but “It’s a process,” she said.
He has a long list of run-ins with the Indianola police that include assault on a police officer for firing a rifle at an officer in August of 2016 and attacking the former police chief the year before.
According to paperwork filed in the circuit clerk’s office, he received a continuance in June of 2018 on one of the aggravated assaults on a law enforcement officer indictment because of a pending mental evaluation. White also has numerous domestic violence call-ins with the department.
