JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) – One day after a killing in north Jackson, a councilman proposes paying more for informants could help solve and prevent future violent crimes.
Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes said he plans to place the item on next week’s agenda.
“We can’t wait till a person is dead and say, ‘Let’s solve this.’ Let’s be preventive,” Stokes said. “We need more snitches. Let me say it again. But I don’t want anybody to say they didn’t hear me. We need more informants.”
Stokes said he’s beyond frustrated after a gunman killed 34-year-old Nikita Bennet Monday afternoon, just blocks away from two schools.
“A school bus was letting kids out of school, and some fool’s shooting. That person could have killed babies, could have killed the school bus driver, and that school bus driver could have run into homes. Any kind of possibilities could have happened,” Stokes said.
For that strategy to work, the community would have to step up.
Stokes said he would propose moving $100,000 from the city’s fund balance to the Jackson Police Department budget so that money could be used to pay people for information.
Resident Steve Hemingway lives less than a block from where Bennet was killed.
As a father of three children, Hemingway said he doesn’t want that kind of violence outside his front door.
“We don’t want to leave out our house and go nowhere. My kids can’t play outside. It don’t make no sense. So I’m just saying it to this neighborhood. We don’t want no more killings,” Hemingway said. “No more shootings. You got small, innocent children.”
Hemingway said a child was inside Bennet’s car during the barrage of gunfire that struck the vehicle Monday.
“The baby that was in the car could have lost his life,” Hemingway said. “That young man, and I don’t care what he did. He didn’t deserve to be shot down like that, like a common thug. That was an execution. Nobody wants to be done like that.”
Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
Copyright 2023 WLBT. All rights reserved.
