Consequences of Prohibition
Politics & Advocacy
Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Frank Melton was indicted last Friday on six felony counts related to the partial destruction of a suspected drug house last month. He was also charged with three gun violations, one of them a felony, and faces up to 50 years in prison. Two Jackson police detectives who acted as Melton's bodyguards were also indicted in the drug house attack.
Frank Melton as drug czar, with Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, 2002
As mayor of Jackson since July 2005, Melton has continued his vigilante-style drug warrior and crime-fighter antics. He kicked off his mayoralty with a three-day crime sweep "just to let people know we're out there," as he put it at the time. Those periodic sweeps, complete with Mayor Melton riding around in the Jackson Police Mobile Command Unit in a police commando uniform, continued throughout his tenure, including one last December that netted dozens of truant school children.
Melton's wannabe cop activities sparked community outrage and concern earlier this year, prompting Hinds County District Attorney Faye Peterson to investigate whether he had committed any crimes. The DA came up short in the spring, but when Melton, his bodyguards, and some of the teenage boys he typically has staying with him broke their way into what Melton called "a crack house" last month, he went too far.
Melton and his wrecking crew attacked the front of the home with sledgehammers, knocking down part of the front wall of a home rented by a man named Evans Welch. There was no evidence of cocaine trafficking, but Welch was arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession and possession of drug paraphernalia. He has since been released from jail.
Melton and his gang were acting without a search warrant or any apparent probable cause. Now, he will get to try to convince a court that he should not be sent to prison for violating the law in his fevered enthusiasm for supporting it.
Although there is now a growing chorus of calls for his resignation, the crime-fighting mayor still has support within the city, including the poor Virden Addition neighborhood where the sledgehammer attack occurred. The Jackson Courier-Ledger reported Tuesday night that some 150 Melton supporters carrying signs reading things like "Find Frank Melton Not Guilty" converged on a Jackson city council meeting that evening to demonstrate their support.
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
Frank Melton. A Creature of Government.
I will open with this quote from Saint Augustine and another from Thomas Paine:
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
---Saint Augustine
Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.
---Thomas Paine
It is my opinion that Frank Melton will run head long for the shelter of Sovereign Immunity. A law that is constantly abused by Law Enforcement Officials and Elected Officials nation wide. Frank Melton obviously has been allowed to be a Maverick, while the rest of American Society, is made to adhere to the letter of the law.
As is evident, there is no oversite into the activities of "Creatures of Government". The framers of our Constitution envisioned that there would be people like Frank Melton. However todays elected officials, as it appears, have forgotten the Framers of our Constitution. Men that believed that all men were created equally. This Included Frank Melton.
If not for our Constitution. Frank Melton would not even be a TV executive. He would be shining the shoes of an Anglo TV executive.
Frank Melton would not even have had the chance to be a Mayor of any city in America. Yet Frank Melton ignores the Constitution of the United States of America.
Another Quote that the general public can ponder, with regard to Frank Melton:
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
â Haile Selassie
And a closing quote from another man that made it possible for Frank Melton to exist as he does:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
â Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is my opinion that Frank Melton has set the good works of Martin Luther King, Jr. back 50 years. He should be ashamed. However, you and I know, that by his actions, Frank Melton is not ashamed. Frank Melton is the epitome of a Creature of Government.
I say "God Bless America".
Response
Frank Melton was allowed to carrying out his gangister like tacts because the crimes he was committing was black on black crimes. When those types of crimes are committed, America will asks when a complaints is issued, who cares?
I'm from Jackson, Mississippi and there should be a legal answer to the drug problem in Jackson. My family is tramatized by the thugs that rome the street, some being my relatives who opposes a threat to myself when I visit the city and ask why are doing what you are doing.
Yes! There should be an answer, and I pray that Mr. Melton cleans up his act and work within the legal arm of the law and help corrrect the wrong in a beautiful city that has been set back by Black on Black crime.
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