Itta Bena’s interim police chief says he intends to bring order back to the small Delta town.
“We’ve got some problem areas, and I’m going to attack them,” said Ted Washington, a 20-year veteran of law enforcement who has spent the past 10 years with the Itta Bena Police Department.
Washington was appointed interim chief Tuesday by the city’s Board of Aldermen.
He takes the place of former Police Chief Robert Kirklin, who stepped down to take the chief’s position in his hometown of Lexington. Christopher Austin, the department’s former assistant chief, is now serving as a full-time school resource officer at Amanda Elzy High School.
Washington said he was a natural since the aldermen already knew him as a police officer.
“They just might go on and make me the chief,” he said.
Itta Bena Mayor Thelma Collins said Saturday the city is searching for a new chief. She declined to say if Washington was a candidate for the full-time position.
Collins said, “We had to have someone in charge.”
Washington supervises a department of five officers with extremely limited resources.
“Right now, we’re working on a tight, tight budget. The money is just not here right now to hire a chief,” he said.
Washington received his law enforcement certification while a police officer at Mississippi Valley State University. He also served as a police officer with the city of Sunflower for 2½ years.
While employed full-time with the Itta Bena department, Washington also served five years as a school resource officer and DARE instructor at Leflore County High School.
Washington said police know where the trouble spots of Itta Bena are. Beginning soon, he intends to break up large groups of people who loiter around stores at all times and especially at night — specifically targeting those engaged in “thugging and hanging out.” He said the loitering hurts businesses by driving away legitimate customers.
“When you pull up and you see 15 folks standing out, you’re not going to stop,” Washington said.
Another common problem is the city’s nightclubs, which routinely fail to close at midnight as required by city ordinance, he said. Washington identified three clubs — the Cotton Club, the H&H Club and the Blues Club — as frequent “last call” offenders and said H&H also is the site of a lot of the city’s shootings and gunplay.
The city’s crime rate has gone down over several years but is starting to tick upward again, he said.
He said he expects that the measures that he intends to introduce will make a noticeable dent in the city’s crime rate.
“I’m going to try to get it all the way back down to where it was before,” he said.
