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Lowndes County District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks hopes to bring enough officials and residents on board to revive a crime prevention task force in the city.

During a Lowndes County supervisors meeting Aug. 17, Brooks said the idea was motivated by recent shootings, particularly one in which a juvenile was shot. He, along with Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins, addressed the city council the following day.

“Nobody said anything. That’s kind of what happens in this community: people get shot all the time, and nobody says anything,” Brooks said. “You can’t have that kind of apathy in your community if you plan to make a change.”

The new task force would seek to build on findings of a similar task force commissioned in 2021 by then-Mayor Robert Smith or at least use recommendations made then as a starting point, Brooks said.

But what happened to the last task force? What about the report it created? How would a new task force function?

What happened to the last task force?

The last task force, which met for the first time in January 2021, consisted of four subcommittees tasked with offering recommendations on ways to reduce crime in the areas of law enforcement enhancement, education, community revitalization and recreation/youth development.

While the larger task force met monthly, subcommittees met as needed in between to develop long term and short term goals addressing issues within each area.

“The interesting thing about that task force is that you had lay people and you had professional people,” Brooks said, listing members ranging from local businessmen to city, county and school district officials. “… You had a litany of stakeholders involved along with lay people.”

Nearly a year after the task force’s first meeting, Brooks presented its report to the mayor and city council in November 2021, but with a new city administration in office, he said progress on implementing any recommendations ultimately stalled.

“I kept all that information,” Brooks told The Dispatch on Thursday. “So (now) I’m saying, let’s look at some of the things we recommended. Some of them have been accomplished. It may be a good place to start, or we may just want to throw it in the trash can and start completely new.”

What was in the 2022 report?

Brooks said a large part of the report made what he calls “institutional recommendations,” or suggestions aimed at agencies and institutions. Among those recommendations, the report set a goal of reducing crime by 25% annually.

To do so, it recommended greater recruitment and retention strategies for the police department and suggested stronger collaboration between Columbus Police Department and Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office.

Along with greater cooperation, the report said Columbus police needed technology upgrades to improve enforcement and prevention. It also included an anonymous survey of CPD officers addressing topics ranging from crime causes to department needs and morale.

The report aimed to address underlying causes of crimes with community revitalization-related recommendations, like taking a more aggressive approach to abating blight, forming organizations to keep neighborhoods clean and improving city parks.

What about a new task force?

Within two weeks, Brooks said he’d like to have invitations sent to different city and county officials, requesting their participation in the task force and encouraging them to invite other interested stakeholders. Later, he plans to open the invitation to volunteers from the community.

The goal is to garner community support for the initiative because “it doesn’t matter how great” law enforcement is in the city without support from residents, Brooks said.

“A community-type prevention task force means that (neither) the city nor the county is in charge,” Brooks said. “You’re not looking to appoint people.”

Police Chief Garland Ward told The Dispatch he still needs to read the report, as it was commissioned before he started working in Columbus. But he said he sees the need for the task force and wouldn’t have a problem with one.

Mayor Stephen Jones showed support for the idea but ultimately said it would be up to Ward and Sheriff Eddie Hawkins to pull together.

“I’m open to anything,” Jones said. “Anything that’s going to benefit us working together equally, then I’m for it.”

McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.