Unsolved murders and the mothers of Jackson, Mississippi

After Margie Allen’s son Ryan was murdered on Thanksgiving in 2020, she stated police in Jackson, Mississippi left it as much as her to seek out clues.

“I was shown a picture of my baby on the side of the road. I was shown some information. And I was told to go solve my own crime,” Allen stated. 

Mothers dealing with the prospect of investigating their very own kid’s homicide has grow to be a actuality in Jackson, the place a murder squad of eight detectives responded to 156 homicides final 12 months. Jackson suffers from one of the highest homicide charges in the nation, and roughly 4 in 10 of these killings went unsolved.

CBS News interviewed practically three dozen individuals who misplaced family members to homicide in Jackson, and discovered widespread frustration that extra hasn’t been finished to trace down the killers of their kids. They stated they felt their circumstances weren’t priorities to the police in Jackson.

“Murder is at the bottom of the totem pole. A young Black male’s gonna die tomorrow. We have three over the weekend. We can’t get to you right now,” Allen stated.

Many expressed frustration with their communications with the police — even Willie Mack, a former Jackson murder detective with 24 years on the drive, whose daughter was shot to dying in 2017.

“Every detective I talked to, they hung the phone up in my face,” Mack stated. “I don’t get no calls returned.”

Jackson’s mayor, Chokwe Antar Lumumba, has private expertise with the ache of an unsolved taking pictures. As a baby, his brother survived being shot in the head — a criminal offense that by no means led to an arrest.

“I will always tell you that the Jackson Police Department can do a better job,” Lumumba stated, including that the metropolis has a scarcity of law enforcement officials. The FBI says a murder detective ought to oversee 5 circumstances a 12 months. The Jackson Police Department has eight full-time detectives, sufficient to deal with 40 homicide investigations — about one-quarter of final 12 months’s homicides.

“They’re certainly inundated,” Lumumba stated.

Jackson Police Chief James Davis says the drawback goes past staffing at the native stage. Davis stated his division will depend on an overwhelmed state crime lab for proof processing.

“The whole system is backlogged. I could use more police officers. I could use more homicide detectives, but if the state is backed up, the court is backed up, we will still have the same problem by developing these cases that we’re already doing,” Davis stated.

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Adam Gelb, president of the nonprofit Council on Criminal Justice, stated many police departments do not dedicate sufficient sources to detective work.

“What we need is a real commitment to investigation, a real investment in the investigative and forensic resources,” Gelb stated. “We need more investigators on the case within the first 48 hours when the case is hot.”

To many of the relations of homicide victims who spoke to CBS News, the work of the murder squad was shifting too sluggish. Detective Kevin Nash defended the division from an workplace the place stacks of homicide case information lined each desktop.

“I call them back when I’m available,” Nash stated. “It may not be right then when they want to. And remember, if this was your child, you want immediate answers, too.”

Three weeks after CBS News visited Jackson, police arrested three folks in reference to Ryan Allen’s homicide. The Jackson Police Department stated in an announcement that “the investigation never went cold.”

“We continually followed up on tips, leads, and the things Ms. Margie Allen asked us to follow-up on,” the division stated.

Allen stated she thinks police turned extra motivated to resolve the crime after being pressed by CBS News.

“You just lay in bed at night and just cry all night. And you get up and try to fight more to get justice for your child,” she stated.