Mississippi lawmakers are proposing measures to provide police oversight

Mississippi lawmakers have introduced a bill that would increase oversight of law enforcement and give state authorities more power to punish misconduct after a series of scandals in the state came to light last year.

The bill would give the government agency that certifies law enforcement officers the ability to investigate claims of police misconduct.

If lawmakers pass the bill, it would give the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training the power to respond directly to complaints or allegations, putting Mississippi on par with states that regulate officers more aggressively.

If the board determines that conduct violates professional standards, it can revoke an officer's certification, potentially ending that officer's career in Mississippi.

Under current legislation, the board can accept complaints, but not investigate them. The agency has largely focused on conducting criminal background checks on new officers applying for certification, to ensure they meet basic training requirements and to track where officers work.

All law enforcement officers in Mississippi are currently required to be certified, except sheriffs, who are elected officials and are exempt from certification requirements.

The proposed law comes after The New York Times and Mississippi Today published a series of articles last year revealing allegations of sexual misconduct against two sheriffs and exposing a decades-long reign of terror by a group of Rankin County deputies calling themselves the Goon Squad.

Also last year, five Rankin County Sheriff's Department officers and a local police officer pleaded guilty to federal charges of breaking into the home of two black men, torturing them, threatening to rape them and then shooting one of them in the mouth.

The revelations have led to increasing calls from the public for accountability.

In Rankin County, just outside Mississippi's capital, Jackson, billboards have popped up encouraging residents to report police brutality and hate crimes to the FBI. The local chapter of the NAACP has repeatedly called for the resignation of Sheriff Bryan Bailey.

“They are tasked to protect and serve, but they do not protect and serve. They harass, they terrorize, they torture,” said Cardell Wright, chairman of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. “We need to have oversight if we want to address the issues that are happening in our communities.”

State Rep. Fred Shanks, a Rankin County Republican who introduced the bill in January, said all officers would be required to undergo annual training, a provision he said could improve community-police relations and protect law enforcement agencies from lawsuits .

“This is both pro-law enforcement and pro-citizen,” he said. “The more training you have, the better you will become.”

Mr. Shanks was personally affected by the actions of a Rankin County law enforcement officer.

According to an investigation by the local district attorney, Sheriff Bailey unlawfully used grand jury subpoenas to obtain phone records for his girlfriend, Kristi Pennington Shanks, Mr. Shanks' ex-wife, in 2014.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation investigates police shootings, deaths in custody and other misconduct when a local department calls for help. Mr. Shanks' proposal would add a second layer of oversight and could expand the types of misconduct reviewed in a state that has historically resisted police surveillance.

“It is long overdue that Mississippi needs to change a lot of their policies and a lot of their training” regarding law enforcement, said Rep. Jeffrey Hulum III, a Democrat from Gulfport who said he planned to introduce the measure along with to sponsor Mr Shanks.

Mr. Shanks co-authored the bill with Sean Tindell, the commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety. Mr. Tindell oversees several statewide law enforcement agencies, including the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation and the Law Enforcement Training Academy. Mr Tindell said while he and his colleagues had discussed changing the law in the past, the behavior exposed in 2023 was a factor in pushing for the bill this year.

“I think it's OK to look in the mirror and say, 'Hey, maybe we need to make some changes,' and this could be the opportunity where everyone feels the same way,” he said. “We can look at a bill like this as a way to improve the profession as a whole and the perception of that profession.”

Mr. Shanks said that had his bill been in place, many of the events that became public in 2023 could have been investigated by the certification board even if prosecutors had not filed criminal charges. In some of these cases, charging an officer was made difficult by statutes of limitations or the high burden of proof required to obtain a criminal conviction.

Mr. Tindell said leaders of both the Mississippi Sheriffs' Association and the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police supported the new bill, giving it a healthy chance to advance to a vote in the House of Representatives. A House of Representatives committee will decide in the coming weeks whether to introduce the bill.

Senator Juan Barnett, a Democrat from Heidelberg, introduced a new measure that could double criminal penalties for law enforcement officers convicted of abuse of power.

Lawmakers have not yet decided whether they will hear that bill. Joey Fillingane, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that will decide whether to pass the bill, did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Barnett said the national push for greater accountability for law enforcement inspired him to support the bill.

“We just want to make sure that people feel like they are protected and served by the men and women in uniform,” he said.

Taylor Vance contributed reporting.