Community Comes Together Looking For Ways To Cut Down On Recent Crime Spike

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)- Recent shootings in Starkville are raising concerns among residents.

Those concerns are prompting one local organization to spring into action.

On Thursday, the Oktibbeha County Chapter of the NAACP met with residents to discuss ways to stop the violence.

“You cut on the news it’s violence, it’s violence,” said Willie Earl Thomas Sr., First Vice of the Oktibbeha County Chapter of the NAACP.

Thomas said he’s tired of hearing about shootings happening in Starkville.

In the past three months WCBI has reported a total of four shootings.

“It hurts me because that’s somebody’s child and when it’s a fatality, it’s too late to say I could’ve helped that child,” Thomas expressed.

Police said guns have become easily accessible and they believe that plays a key role in contributing to the violence.

“I believe it is because of the amount of guns that are being stolen, that we are seeing on the street, the amount of guns we are recovering on the daily basis, the amount of guns that we are running checks on when we stop vehicles,” said Captain Henry Stewart, who’s been with the Starkville Police Department for more than two decades.

Residents call the recent shootings senseless and believe they could’ve been avoided.

As a result, dozens came out to Thursday’s meeting at the Oktibbeha County Courthouse looking to find a solution to the problem and help keep the youth on the right track.

“They see things happening around them and no one is showing them love,” said Thomas. “To me really to be honest, they are crying out for help.”

To answer that call to help, the local chapter of the NAACP is partnering with other organizations in the community to come up with an action plan to combat this issue.

Residents expressed that creating more programs and activities for the youth, as well as developing relationships with police, are a few ways to deter some of the crime they’ve been seeing.

“One of the things we’re looking at doing is we have two DARE officers and their main job is to go out in the community and to build trust with the community and to interact with these kids,” said Captain Stewart.

“We need more programs for them because they have talent and they need to exercise their talent, their gift, and have someone that just makes them feel wanted and be part of an organization,” said Thomas.

Thomas said it will take a community effort to solve this problem.

The NAACP will continue to discuss ways to combat this issue during each of its monthly meetings.