A Columbia pastor told aldermen Tuesday he has concerns about six alleged run-ins between citizens and police, although Mayor Justin McKenzie said only one of the people listed has come to him to express concerns.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating one alleged incident, and another case is going up for appeal in Marion County Circuit Court in March. The rest are based on allegations made mostly through social media.
The Rev. Kenneth Owens Sr. said multiple people had called him about the issues because he’s a pastor and grew up here. He said they’re concerned about things going on in the city and want answers.
“We’re not here saying people didn’t do wrong. I’m not standing up for wrong people. I’m a man of God. If you done wrong, you done wrong. But we’re not the judge and the jury for the officers to be beating people and then throwing them away. It’s not that serious. Because I wouldn’t want to have that happen to my children; you wouldn’t want it to happen to your children,” Owens said during Tuesday’s board meeting. “That’s just the bottom line because one day it might happen to that person, the next day he could be knocking on your front door. So we’re going to have to stand one day as a group to come together. We just want to come together. I’m not here trying to get anything riled up. We as a city have to come together and grow together and be able to do things together for this city to grow.”
Owens brought up six specific names of alleged victims, some of which have been previously reported on publicly and some hadn’t. City Attorney Lawrence Hahn asked him for the names in the cases that officials said they weren’t previously aware of. Owens asked for the suspension of officers involved until investigations are complete.
Mayor Justin McKenzie said MyJellious McKenzie (no relation) is the only one who has discussed anything with him.
“I still have not have not had a meeting with anyone else about any complaints on any officer at any time at the Police Department related to anyone you named off except for MyJellious,” Justin McKenzie said. “And he did come down. I’ve known MyJellious for some time. He and his mother come down here and met with us, and they are handling theirs in accordance with exactly how I referred to: Take it to court, go through the court motions and let’s go from there.”
MyJellious McKenzie’s appeal of his conviction in Columbia Municipal Court of disorderly conduct (failure to comply) is scheduled for a trial on March 15 in Marion County Circuit Court. He alleges police mistreated him during an incident at his home in August that began with someone else’s truck playing loud music nearby while the owner was inside McKenzie’s house watching a football game.
As more officers and people gathered on the front porch, McKenzie’s wife passed out, as shown in surveillance video posted online, and after paramedics took her away for treatment police ran into the home and arrested McKenzie after he went back inside after an officer motioned for him to come back.
The actual arrest is not shown on the video, but he says police slammed him into the kitchen counter, tazed him and smashed his head into the floor.
Owens said he is 53 and said Columbia has been having problems like this for his entire life. Owens said he could have packed the meeting out with concerned citizens but didn’t want that kind of confrontation.
“If we’ve got some bad apples, we need to get those apples out before they make the other apples bad. Because one bad apple will mess the whole bunch up, and I think we’ve got a couple of bad apples that need to be took care of as quickly as possible, and I feel like suspensions should be done,” he said. “We know we’ve got an investigation. Y’all can’t say we don’t have an investigation, an MBI investigation, going on right now. And this certain officer is involved in every one of these things here, one officer is involved in it. And I ask for his immediate suspension until the investigation is over with.”
Police said last week that they turned over evidence to the MBI related to an allegation by Jessie Domenique Jefferson that police stomped on his feet with a chair and pointed a gun to his head during an interview in October.
Video surveillance with both audio and video has been installed at the Police Department since that incident, and police are working on getting body cameras for officers.
Pictured Above: Pastor Kenneth Owens Sr. speaks to the Columbia Board of Aldermen Tuesday about alleged run-ins between citizens and police. He requested that officers involved be suspended until investigations are over. | Photo by Charlie Smith
