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The ‘Goon Squad’ torture of Eddie Parker & Michael Jenkins cries out for uncomfortable reckoning

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1 year ago

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Jenkins’ and Parker’s abuse at the hands of the very people entrusted to protect them cannot be swept under the rug if justice is at all a goal. We must be unafraid to shine a light on the actions of officers who abuse power–to tear out root and branch any part of the system that makes them comfortable in the abuse.

On January 24th, six armed intruders broke into a house in Braxton, Mississippi. Once inside, they found two Black men, Eddie Terrell Parker and Michael Corey Jenkins. The intruders brandished guns. A shot was fired into a wall of the home to intimidate Parker and Jenkins into submission.

The men were handcuffed, beaten, and brutalized. Racial slurs like “nigger” and “monkey” and “boy” were allegedly volleyed by their tormentors. Jenkins and Parker were told to leave Rankin County, to go back to Jackson or “their side of the Pearl River.”

A dildo was mounted on the end of a BB gun and forced into Parker’s mouth. One of the assailants threatened to sodomize the men with the sex toy. He only stopped when he grabbed the back of Jenkins’ pants and realized his victim had defecated himself.

Parker and Jenkins were then subjected to a series of additional humiliations. Milk, chocolate syrup, alcohol, and cooking oil were poured over their heads and into their mouths. Eggs were hurled at the men. They were then forced to strip naked and shower together.

The intruders robbed the home. They took turns tasing Parker and Jenkins to see who owned the strongest taser. The tasers used were discharged seventeen times during this cruel ‘game.’

A gun was shoved into Jenkins mouth. He was inadvertently shot. The bullet sliced through his tongue, shattered his jaw, and exited out of his neck.

Jenkins laid bleeding out on the floor while the criminals planned their getaway. Fortunately, he survived.

Not a John Grisham Novel

What appears above is not the dramatized plot of a John Grisham novel set in the segregated 1960s South, though it may seem that way at first blush.

These are the facts contained in a criminal information filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against five officers of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO) and one officer with the Richland Police Department (RPD), set in the year 2023.

What happened that night, and the offensive language the officers are accused of using, are relayed here not for a cheap shock, but to rebuff any effort to sugarcoat the depth of depravity at play. What occured to Parker and Jenkins was dehumanizing.

The officers involved pled guilty to a vast assortment of crimes laid out by the Department of Justice last week. The counts pled against each man carry maximum penalties that could put them in prison for the remainder of their lives.

Sentencing should be proportionate to the crime at hand, which is to say it should be severe, particularly when the devastating abuse of power and erosion of public trust are considered. Sentencing should also contemplate not only what the consequence was–Jenkins living and being exonerated–but also what could have been–Jenkins dying or serving nearly 40 years in prison on trumped up charges (more on that below).

The Department of Justice also obtained guilty pleas from Dedmon, Updyke and Elward in a separate incident in which Dedmon beat and tased a man to coerce a confession. C.J. Lemasters at WLBT has done a good job of documenting a long history of legal complaints filed against the officers involved.

The Lead Up

What preceded and followed Jenkins’ and Parker’s torture is, in some ways, as troubling as the abuse itself.

On January 24th, Brett McAlpin, who at the time was the Chief Investigator of the Rankin County Sheriff’s Office, was notified by a neighbor that two Black men were living in a nearby house at 135 Conerly Road in Braxton. The neighbor reported “suspicious activity.”

McAlpin reached out to Christian Dedmon, Narcotics Investigator at RCSO about the complaint. McAlpin and Dedmon, along with the other men involved that night were part of a group they called the ‘Goon Squad.’ The Department of Justice says it knows of more members of this squad and its investigation into the Sheriff’s Office continues. The FBI is actively soliciting information on other cases.

At 9:28 PM that night, Dedmon texted RCSO Lieutenant Jeffery Middleton and patrol Deputies Hunter Elward and Daniel Updyke. Dedmon asked “are y’all up for a mission?”

No warrant had been issued to search the premises of 135 Conerly Road, or for the arrest of anyone on the premises. And there were no reported “exigent” circumstances–imminent danger–that would have allowed for entry without a warrant.

Dedmon informed the group of the potential for cameras at the property and that they should “work easy.” The Department of Justice says this was understood code to knock instead of breaking down doors. Upon being told to “work easy,” Elward responded with an eyeroll emoji and Updyke with a gif of a baby crying.

The men wanted some wild west action.

Dedmon followed by noting “if we don’t see cameras go.” He warned the group “no bad mugshots,” a phrase understood to be a green light to use excessive force on the parts of the body not captured by a mugshot.

These are not the words and deeds of men engaging in rogue misconduct for the first time. These are the words and deeds of men with their own unique language and own experience handling matters off the books.

The Rendezvous

Middleton, Elward, and Updyke met up at the Cato Volunteer Fire Department. Dedmon, who was in route, radioed that Richland Police Department (RPD) Narcotics Officer Joshua Hartfield was riding with him. Dedmon and Hartfield drove by the staging area and Middleton, Elward, and Updyke formed a convoy behind him in their RCSO vehicles.

The men arrived at the property, where Chief Investigator McAlpin had already been surveilling the property. Noticing a camera near the front entrance, the RCSO officers proceeded to a side carport door, while Richland officer Hartfield went to the back door. The officers kicked in the side and back doors and made entry.

Once inside, Officer Dedmon tased Jenkins. Officer Elward tased Parker. The men were handcuffed and placed under arrest without probable cause of any crime being committed. Then two hours of real nightmare began.

Each officer would play their own roles in the torture. It was Dedmon and Elward who fired shots. Dedmon at a wall, and then outside, during the mock execution phase of the evening. Elward through the mouth of Jenkins.

The Coverup

The latter shot by Elward was cruelty gone awry. Elward believed his trigger pull to be a dry fire, or without a bullet in the chamber. He was wrong. Panic set in.

While Jenkins lay bleeding on the floor, the officers concocted a cover up. The story became that Dedmon had observed Jenkins in the driveway, had obtained consent to search him without a warrant, and had found two bags of methamphetamine.

From there, the story would go that Elward took Jenkins inside the house to conduct a drug buy over the phone, removed Jenkins’ handcuffs, and Jenkins reached for a gun, which prompted Elward to shoot him in self defense.

They apparently did not contemplate the difficulty of explaining a self defense shot from inside Jenkins’ mouth, nor whether the story would line up with the text messages between the officers. Hard to sync up how you just happened upon a man loitering outside a residence when your texts demonstrated a plot ahead of time to breach the home.

Lieutenant Middleton offered to plant a “throw down” gun he kept in his patrol vehicle–a .38 snubnose revolver that was not registered to him. Elward chose instead to use the BB gun to which he had earlier affixed the dildo. He set it down beside Jenkins, who was still seriously wounded and without medical attention.

Dedmon offered to take care of the drugs, producing some methamphetamine he had previously confiscated from an informant, but had not turned into evidence. The officers began trying to clean the scene, looking for spent cases and collecting spent taser cartridges.

That Middleton and Dedmon had ready a plant gun and drugs, again, suggests something much more insidious and systemic than a first time blunder.

Hartfield attempted to burn the clothes Jenkins and Parker had been wearing when doused with cooking oil, chocolate, milk, and eggs. When he could not figure out how to do that (they were too wet), he tossed them in the nearby woods.

Hartfield also ripped out the hard drive of a home surveillance system and later threw it in Steen Creek in Florence.

Meanwhile, McAlpin worked to get witnesses in line. He attempted to convince Parker to go along with their story, promising he could make sure Parker did not do prison time. McAlpin and Middleton also threatened to kill any of the officers that did not stick to the story.

Elward and Dedmon filed false felony charges against Jenkins, the man Elward had shot, for assaulting an officer and for various drug offenses. The crimes carried a combined maximum of 39 years in prison. Those charges remained pending until July 5th when they were remanded.

In late June, Rankin County Sheriff Bryan Bailey announced that some of the involved officers had previously resigned, but that those who were still on the force during the department’s internal investigation had been terminated. The announcement lacked specificity on which officers fell into which category.

Reckoning with the Present

For quite some time I have been critical of the way media treats Mississippi. No doubt part of that is driven by my love of our state and its people.

But a bigger part still of my disdain for the coverage of our state is a belief that even today we unfairly battle the perception that Mississippi has made no progress from the dark days of the fight for Civil Rights. I hold no illusion that we are perfect, but I think the way we are painted, more often than not, is in false light.

As a guy who has lived and worked in New York, D.C., New Orleans, and Nashville, and who has traveled all over the country, Mississippi’s warts are the nation’s warts. The human heart is prone to failures no matter where it resides. Our past just makes it cheapier and easier to score points on our present than most places.

What happened on January 24th in Rankin County poses a challenge to my belief that we have made real progress, though. It demands an answer. It demands uncomfortable reckoning. In the interim, all the scorn the media and the general public can muster is deserved.

Without a warrant, without probable cause, these officers of the law should have never been at 135 Conerly Road that night. But even if a warrant had existed, even if Jenkins and Parker had been doing something illegal, nothing in our system of justice affords officers the power to sadistically torture suspects.

Jenkins and Parker were owed due process. Their abuse at the hands of the very people entrusted to serve and protect them cannot be swept under the rug, minimized, or ignored if fundamental justice is at all a goal.

These officers dishonored their badges, their fellow officers, and their duty to the public. Their actions provide foothold to every critic of our state, and more generally, of policing in America.

McAlpin, Middleton, Dedmon, Elward, Updyke, and Hartfield plainly existed in a culture where they felt little fear of reprisal for their own vigilante lawlessness. The stain of their deeds will not end with their sentencing.

We should make clear that we are not what they are. That involves being unafraid to shine a light on their actions–to tear out root and branch any part of the system that would make men comfortable abusing their power this way.

For their part, Jenkins and Parker have filed a $400 million lawsuit in federal court. As a recovering lawyer, I cannot fathom a scenario where they receive a settlement or verdict anywhere in that ballpark. But, the County, and by extension its taxpayers, could be on the line for millions.

The exposed misconduct of the ‘Goon Squad’ cast a pall over all of the cases these officers were involved in solving. This should not be a jailbreak moment, but there probably needs to be some systematic review of previous collars. It is frightening to think that after torturing Jenkins, had the officers’ story not cracked, he could have sat in prison for 39 years as part of their coverup.

We must also safeguard against future abuses of power. One very simple way to do that is by requiring body cameras and making it so that the public can access footage when a controversy of public trust arises. That move could help protect both officers, from false accusation, and citizens.

Finally, a word about how tribalism can prevent accountablility. Too often in modern discussions of policing, we have the tendency of retreating into our side’s “safe space.” At their extremes, one tribe blindly “backs the blue,” while another would “defund the police.” Those are childish poles for unserious people.

Police officers serve an important function in society. They deserve much of the honor they receive. But they are people and people are fallible–that fallibility comes into particular focus when people are granted unique power. Imbued with the great power of life and death over the people with whom law enforcement interacts, there must be real accountability when that power is misused.

Author’s Note: For some great period of time I debated quoting from the Department of Justice’s criminal information the full n-word. I ultimately decided that not quoting it, as it was spelled out in the criminal information, would have the effect of sterilizing or diminishing the sting of what Jenkins and Parker might have felt in those moments.

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By: Russ Latino
Title: The ‘Goon Squad’ torture of Eddie Parker & Michael Jenkins cries out for uncomfortable reckoning
Sourced From: magnoliatribune.com/2023/08/10/the-goon-squad-torture-of-eddie-parker-michael-jenkins-cries-out-for-uncomfortable-reckoning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-goon-squad-torture-of-eddie-parker-michael-jenkins-cries-out-for-uncomfortable-reckoning
Published Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 07:10:34 +0000

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Staring mortality in the face at Christmas

Published

11 months ago

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December 16, 2023

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My friend Jarrod is dying after an eight year battle with cancer. He’s lived a life worth celebrating, one that has drawn people to Christ.

I was going about my business this week when I received a text that stopped me in my tracks. A college friend was being moved to hospice care.

Jarrod Egley was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in early 2017. In the fall of 2018, tests revealed the cancer had spread to his lungs and Jarrod’s cancer was classified as Stage IV.

For almost eight years from the date of the original diagnosis, he’s fought. Through surgeries, radiation, endless rounds and cycles of chemotherapy, and experimental immunotherapies, he’s fought.

Last year, I flew out to California and spent some time with Jarrod and his wife, Emily. We sat outside one night. He acknowledged to me that it was not a question of ‘if’, but ‘when’ the cancer would claim his life. I told him I was sorry, because what else is there to say?

We talked about our faith, about the trials of Job, about Jacob wrestling with God, about Paul’s affliction. But mostly we reflected on our time together in school, on the good things, and the mundane things, that happened since.

Jarrod and I met at Tulane University. One Sunday morning in the Spring of my freshman year, I rose from my dorm room bed, dressed, and began walking down Saint Charles Avenue in New Orleans with no particular agenda. I walked until I came across First Baptist Church and the thought flickered in the vacuous recesses of my brain to enter.

Some would say it was a lark. The Calvinist in me says providence. The walk that morning changed the trajectory of my time at Tulane and my life on the whole. Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the Baptist Collegiate Ministry became central to my life and put me in regular league with Jarrod. I met him first at the BCM and we ultimately ended up attending church together.

Jarrod was a faithful servant on and off campus. He helped organize a group of us that would weekly make our way down to the Esplanade seawall on the backside of the French Quarter to feed the homeless. On Friday nights, he could be found at chapel with a small cadre of students foregoing Bourbon Street for early 2000s worship music.

Jarrod was a loyal friend in those years. Never rude or biting. Not prone to an insult for an easy laugh. Persistently encouraging. An engineering student, his mind worked linearly and was oriented to problem solving. There were never a lot of wasted words — always a lot of deliberative questions when he disagreed or did not understand a point. He exhibited intelligence, empathy, and the kind of moral conviction that sets someone apart.

He also had a wry and dry sense of humor and a penchant for beating people at Madden football. He was fair-to-midland on the ultimate frisbee pitch. Along the way, there were crawfish boils, Mardi Gras outtings, poorly attended Tulane football games, and more than a decent amount of wing eating.

After college, I lost touch with Jarrod. He moved back to his home state of California. He got married to his college sweetheart, who could not have anticipated her husband’s journey, but has been a steady and constant helpmate throughout. Jarrod became a very successful engineer and a bourbon connoisseur. One of his bucket list trips took him to Kentucky, where he got to meet and became friends with bourbon “Hall of Famer” Freddie Johnson of Buffalo Trace acclaim.

Jarrod at Buffalo Trace Distillery (Spring 2022).

Sitting in his backyard nearly 20 years after graduating from Tulane, I saw many of the same qualities I had grown to admire when we were students together. I saw a husband who doted on and supported Emily’s passions. But I also saw someone whose body had been beaten to hell and back, who was tired, and who, like Jacob, had been wrestling with God. We quickly fell back into friendship, which perhaps is the mark of good friendship.

We all have aspirations in our youth — for the kind of spouse or parent we might be, for what we might accomplish, for what we might experience. Along the way, dreams are satisfied, modified, or they die on the vine. The clock inevitably works against all of us. That night in Oceanside, California, Jarrod, a numbers guy, saw that time was not on his side. He believed, as we all would, that he still had more to give, more impact to be made, and more things to see and experience.

After that trip, Jarrod and I stayed in touch, most frequently triggered by news of his cancer. It has been mostly the bad variety in recent months. Now spread throughout his body, down to his bones, he has lived in constant pain for months. Not even a steady diet of morphine and an implanted pain pump solve for it. Jarrod’s been hospitalized twelve times just in 2023.

But his matter of fact sense of humor and way of seeing the world remains in tact. So too does his faith that despite these trials, he has always been safe in the hands of Christ.

There are people in the world who believe that life is random, disordered, and without reason. I am not among them. I think my friend is staring mortality in the face at Christmas for a reason.

For thousands of years before Christ came, there was darkness and despair. Sin and shame gripped the hearts of men. Until one holy night, God, in His infinite love, mercy and wisdom, sent His son to save. Jesus is the light of the world and the hope of man. He has won victory over death and Jarrod’s will not be the exception. Jesus came for Jarrod, and for you.

For thousands of years since Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, His disciples have been used as divine instruments to point the way to God. Jarrod is among them. If life expectancies were the measure, Jarrod would be at the midway point for most people. He’s made a lifetime of impact for the Kingdom and on other people.

So, to my friend Jarrod, you were placed here with a purpose. You have run your race. You are loved. And when this chapter closes, you will hear “well done, my good and faithful servant.” There is no greater evidence of a life well lived.

While Jarrod and Emily have been fortunate to have health insurance, their portion of the medical bills so far in 2023 have eclipsed $30,000, and Emily is facing additional uncovered expenses during Jarrod’s hospice care, including a night nurse that costs over $400 a night. If you would like to help defray the cost, a contribution can be made at their Go Fund Me page.

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By: Russ Latino
Title: Staring mortality in the face at Christmas
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Published Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2023 15:05:22 +0000

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Magnolia Mornings: December 15, 2023

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11 months ago

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December 15, 2023

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Important state and national stories, market and business news, sports and entertainment, delivered in quick-hit fashion to start your day informed.

In Mississippi

1. Laurin St. Pe’ named CEO of Singing River Health System

Laurin St. Pe

The Board of Trustees of Singing River Health System announced the immediate appointment of Laurin St. Pe’ as the Chief Executive Officer on Thursday.

“We are thrilled to announce Laurin St. Pe as the new CEO of Singing River,” said Steve Ates, Board President in a statement. “His wealth of healthcare experience and proven track record make him the ideal leader to steer our health system toward its next phase of growth and success.”

St. Pe’, who has been serving as Interim CEO since July 2023, said he is honored to assume the role of CEO at Singing River. He has worked at Singing River as Administrator of Singing River Health System’s Pascagoula Hospital and Gulfport Hospital, in addition to overseeing program service lines throughout the entire system to his subsequent appointment as Chief Operating Officer of Singing River.

The health system says St. Pe played a crucial role in the financial revitalization of Singing River Health System while steering the organization toward financial stability.

2. Gulfport-Biloxi airport, Stennis evacuated after threats

The Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport was evacuated on Thursday morning “out of an abundance of caution,” airport officials said, after receiving an emailed threat to certain transportation entities across the state.

The airport was thoroughly security swept, cleared and reopened in just over two hours. Gulfport-Biloxi is now operating regularly.

The threat was also sent to Stennis International Airport. Their staff and personnel were also evacuated until the facilities could be swept and cleared.

Any passenger whose travel was affected by the evacuation is encouraged to contact their respective air carrier.

3. Cassidy arrested in Iowa for beheading Satanic Temple statue

Former Mississippi congressional and legislative candidate Michael Cassidy was arrested this week in Iowa for beheading a statue at the state’s Capitol erected by The Satanic Temple.

Cassidy reportedly decapitated the statue and turned himself to police on Thursday. He was charged with fourth degree criminal mischief. He then started an online legal defense fund where he’s raised upwards of $20,000 as of Thursday night, according to his X account.

4. “Serial fraudster” ordered to cease offering investments into companies

According to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office, on October 26, 2023, Secretary Michael Watson and the Securities Division issued an order against Stephone N. Patton. The SOS says Patton is a serial fraudster with multiple criminal convictions in Mississippi and Florida.

Through business filings with the SEC and Mississippi, Patton has held himself to be the CEO of various companies, including Star Oil and Gas Company, Inc., North Gulf Energy Corporation, Inc., Patton Oilfield Services, Inc., and Patton Farms, LLC.

The SOS says using these business filings and company websites, Patton claimed to have raised hundreds of billions of dollars through investment opportunities. Through investigative efforts and collaboration with the SEC, the SOS discovered none of Patton’s companies are operational, have any assets, or generate any revenues. Account records show Patton spent investors’ funds almost as soon as he received them on personal expenses. The total amount of known investments made to Patton’s fraudulent companies is over $80,000. Further, none of Patton’s investment offerings have been registered or notice filed with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office.

The SOS order requires Patton to cease and desist from offering investments with his companies, requiring Patton to permanently deactivate his companies’ websites to prevent any further dissemination of his false or misleading information. Patton is also ordered to pay an administrative penalty of $25,000 to the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office for these violations, in addition to restitution owed to all his Mississippi investors.

National News & Foreign Policy

1. Congressional retirements mounting as 2024 election cycle nears

Retirement and departure announcements are piling up ahead of the start to the 2024 election cycle. The New York Times has developed a Retirement Tracker that currently shows 22 Democrats and 11 Republicans who are in Congress now will not be seeking re-election next year.

“Dozens of members of Congress have announced plans to leave their seats in the House of Representatives, setting a rapid pace for congressional departures, with more expected as the 2024 election draws closer,” the NY Times reports. “Given Republicans’ razor-thin House majority, the wave of exits has the potential to lead to a significant shake-up next year.”

You can find the tracker here.

2. Texas, Daily Wire, The Federalist sue U.S. State Department over media censorship

The U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center has come under fire as Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton along with The Daily Wire and The Federalist have filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the department funded technology that could “render disfavored press outlets unprofitable.” They claim that the department has helped social media – Facebook, YouTube and X (formerly Twitter) – to censor free speech while funding technologies used to censor right-leaning news outlets such as theirs.

New Civil Liberties Alliance is representing The Daily Wire and The Federalist. Paxton and the outlets claim the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British think tank, received a $100,000 grant from the State Department in 2021, and NewsGuard, which rates the “misinformation” levels of news outlets, received $25,000 from the State Department in 2020, according to the lawsuit.

According to the State Department’s website, the Global Engagement Center’s mission is to direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations.

As reported by Reuters, the lawsuit cited a GDI-produced list from December 2022 that ranked The Daily Wire and The Federalist as among the 10 “riskiest sites” for news while the least-risky included The New York Times, Associated Press and NPR. Reuters notes that the lawsuit alleges such “blacklists” are reducing revenues to The Daily Wire and The Federalist along with their visibility on social media and ranking results from browser searches.

Sports & Entertainment

1. SEC releases 2024 schedules

Wednesday evening, the Southeastern Conference released the 2024 football schedules for its member schools, including of interest in the Magnolia State the schedules for Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

It is the first schedule that includes new conference members University of Oklahoma and University of Texas, bringing the conference to 16 schools. Each SEC team will play eight conference football games plus at least one required opponent from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac 12 or major independent, each team will have two open dates.

The 2024 season will be the first year the SEC will play a schedule without divisional competition since 1991. The top two teams in the league standings based on winning percentage will play in the 33rd SEC Football Championship Game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Saturday, December 7.

2. White, Jesiolowski, Jones honored by MAIS

John White

The Midsouth Association of Independent Schools (MAIS) in Mississippi, comprised of non-public schools, announced this week that Madison-Ridgeland Academy’s senior quarterback John White was named the 6A Player of the Year while Hartfield’s Reed Jesiolowski and Hartfield Chris Jones were named the MAIS 6A Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year, respectively.

All three have committed to play college football at the University of Mississippi.

White is Mississippi’s all-time leader in career passing yards with 15,259 yards, a record he broke during the 2023 season.

MAIS, like the Mississippi High School Activities Association (MHSAA) for public schools, is broken down into classifications, from 1A to 6A. However, MHSAA added a 7A this season.

Markets & Business

1. Consumer retail sales up as energy, gas prices move down

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% in November after being unchanged in October. Retail sales rose 0.3% in November after rising 0.2% in October, meaning consumers continue to spend at the start of the holiday season.

The CPI or inflation rate is 3.1%, higher than the Federal Reserve target of 2% but below the 9% peak in 2022 which reached a 40-year high.

As for the energy index, BLS reported that it fell 2.3% in November after decreasing 2.5% in October. The gasoline index decreased 6% in November, following a 5% decrease in the previous month.

The index for fuel oil fell in November, decreasing 2.7%. However, the natural gas index rose 2.8% over the month after rising 1.2% the previous month. The index for electricity also rose 1.4% in November, after increasing 0.3% in October.

The energy index fell 5.4% over the past 12 months. The gasoline index decreased 8.9%, the natural gas index declined 10.4%, and the fuel oil index fell 24.8% over this 12-month span.

2. Week’s market rally continues into Friday

At close of trading on Thursday, the U.S. markets continued the week’s rally, pushing the Dow up 158 points to 37,248 while the Nasdaq and S&P also made gains, 27 points and 12 points, respectively, to close at 14,761 and 4,719.

The record high for the Dow on Thursday moved futures up 102 points.

According to CNBC, the major averages are headed for their seventh straight positive week. As of Thursday, the Dow is higher on the week by 2.8%. The S&P 500 is up by 2.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite rose 2.5% this week.

Stocks rallied after the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged this week while members look towards cuts in the new year and beyond.

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Title: Magnolia Mornings: December 15, 2023
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Published Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 13:00:00 +0000

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New water rates expected in Jackson come 2024; those who don’t pay face shut off

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11 months ago

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December 15, 2023

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Interim Third-Party Director Ted Henifin said this week that only about 59% of the City of Jackson’s water customers are paying their bills.

JXN Water has announced new rates and fees coming in 2024. Those who are not paying will be at risk of shut offs.

The company, which was established by federal appointed interim Third-Party Director Ted Henifin, has been overseeing the city’s water system for the better part of a year.

Officials estimated that the average cost for water in the city was $76 per month for residents. Henifin clarified that JXN water will not attempt to recoup any charges prior to November 29, 2022, and will work with those who have failed to pay since that time.

He said only about 59 percent of the city’s water customers are paying their bills.

“You can’t forgive bills, so we have to be creative in how we part that,” said Henifin in reference to Mississippi’s laws that prevent giving away water.

According to a release by JXN Water announcing the rate changes, residents in single family households with small meters that use up to 748 gallons daily would see a bill increase of roughly .30 cents per day. Research indicates that the average U.S. family uses 300 gallons per day.

SNAP customers will have a new rate tier that could lower their bill by up to .69 cents per day, on average.

“Those who need to save the most benefit from saving money by drinking tap water. This new rate structure makes water affordability possible for 12,500 JXN Water customers who receive SNAP benefits,” said Henifin in the release.

Read more about the anticipated rate changes here.

New fees will also be implemented, including a new service fee of $50, service deposit of $100, returned check fee of $25, service restoration fee of $100, and meter tampering charge of $500. 

JXN Water has continued to encourage residents to use the water, with Henifin going on the record in a federal status hearing saying that the water “was safe to drink.”

More conversation regarding the billing process is expected to come at next week’s Jackson City Council meeting.

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By: Sarah Ulmer
Title: New water rates expected in Jackson come 2024; those who don’t pay face shut off
Sourced From: magnoliatribune.com/2023/12/15/new-water-rates-expected-in-jackson-come-2024-those-who-dont-pay-face-shut-off/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=new-water-rates-expected-in-jackson-come-2024-those-who-dont-pay-face-shut-off
Published Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2023 20:00:00 +0000

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