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‘So medieval’: Man with mental illness jailed for 20 days without charges

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In January, the head of Mississippi’s Department of Mental Health told lawmakers that people who aren’t charged with a crime are spending less time in jail than they used to: The average wait time for a state hospital bed was down to three days after a court hearing.

At that moment, a young man was on his 16th day locked in the DeSoto County Jail with no criminal charges. He was waiting for mental health treatment.

His mother, Sarah, was still trying to understand why he was there at all.

David, 29, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder about a decade ago. Since then, he has cycled through hospital stays and group homes. Sarah can rattle off the low points. There was the time her son was walking in the street and got hit by a car and broke his neck. And the time he called her from a Megabus in Texas, nearly at the border with Mexico.

But this was something new: a three-week detention that began after he called 911 seeking treatment and eventually wound up jailed at the request of his providers.

Her son’s treatment in DeSoto County – where a county website still uses the phrase “lunacy” hearings to refer to the proceedings where judges order people like David to receive psychiatric treatment – reminded Sarah of a different era.

“When they, you know, lock them in the dungeon or whatever and put chains on them and just let them live the rest of their lives there,” she said. “This is so medieval, what they’re doing.”

In the end, David was jailed for a total of three weeks before being transported to North Mississippi State Hospital at the end of January. Mississippi Today is not using his or his family’s real names to protect his privacy.

It is far from unusual in Mississippi and particularly in DeSoto County for people to be jailed solely because they are awaiting treatment through the state’s involuntary commitment process. No other state jails so many people for such lengths of time, solely on the basis of mental illness. Mississippi Today and ProPublica previously reported that hundreds of people are jailed without criminal charges every year while they await evaluations and treatment through the involuntary commitment process.

From 2019 through 2022, DeSoto County jailed people without criminal charges just under 500 times, more than any other county in the news organizations’ analysis.

As lawmakers debate changing Mississippi’s commitment laws to reduce jail detentions, David’s path through the state’s mental health system shows how it can funnel a sick person into jail, and how long it can take for them to get out once locked up.

A publicly funded facility established to treat people in crisis sent David to jail. Though the Department of Mental Health says commitment hearings should take place within 10 days, county officials instead kept him locked up for 14 days before he saw a judge, as winter weather shut down the county court system. The state hospital where the judge ordered him to receive treatment would not admit him for six more days – all of which he spent in jail.

The county is working on opening a crisis center to treat people suffering mental health crises – and keep them out of jail during the commitment process – and supervisors recently voted to hire an architect to draw up renovation plans for the county building that will house the center. The county is currently the largest in the state without one.

County administrator Vanessa Lynchard noted that reforming the commitment process is a priority for the Legislature this year, and that could hopefully bring some relief.

“Nobody likes mental commitments in the jail,” she said.

But officials involved in the process say jail is sometimes the only place they have to detain people during the commitment process, and that jailing people is safer than sending them home. And so every year, the county jails well over 100 people solely because they may be mentally ill – including people like David.

‘He really wants to live a normal life’

In early January, David walked away from his mother’s home in a tidy subdivision in DeSoto County. He knocked on a neighbor’s door and used the phone to call 911 for an ambulance to take him to the hospital.

When Sarah found out he was at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, she decided to let him stay there and get treatment. That he had been able to get himself there was a sign of progress. When his mental illness became severe about 10 years ago, “he used to just let himself spin out of control,” Sarah said.

When David was a teenager, he developed phobias that his mother found strange. He stopped wanting to go to school, claiming his breath smelled bad. After he ran away from home, he was hospitalized at Lakeside, a psychiatric hospital in Memphis.

He graduated from high school and got a job working at a warehouse, riding his bicycle more than an hour each way to arrive by 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning.

Then, when he was about 19, “stuff went totally to the left with him,” his mother said. He would disappear from home for days at a time. If he wound up at a hospital, staff wouldn’t tell her he was there, citing patient privacy protections. At home, he would refuse to take medications.

A few years ago, Sarah spent $2,500 to go through the legal process to gain conservatorship over her son so that she would always be included in conversations about his treatment.

“When the dust settles and the smoke clears, he always comes back to me,” she said. “If you’ve got him and put him on the wrong medication and overmedicated him, then I’ve got to help him get back on track.”

David belongs to a tight-knit family: He has siblings, a doting grandfather, aunts and uncles. Sarah’s phone is full of pictures of her son. There’s a shot of him getting his face painted at a family party and another of him wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt at Disneyland. A video shows him chasing his sister’s kids around his mother’s backyard.

His family tries to help him manage his symptoms. When he lived with his older sister Beth recently, he would go into the backyard to pace and talk to himself.

“I’d go out there like every 15 minutes, like, ‘Hey, you’re too loud, you need to calm down,’ but I don’t interrupt,” she said. “That’s his way of calming himself down.”

David has told his sister that he doesn’t like depending on her and their mom, that he feels bad he doesn’t drive or hold a job – something that has been a goal for years.

“He’ll tell you that he really wants to live a normal life,” Beth said.

From the crisis unit to a jail cell

One day in January, after a few days at Baptist Memorial Hospital-DeSoto, David was transported to a crisis stabilization unit in Corinth, where he had agreed to get treatment. Operated by the community mental health center Region IV, which serves residents of DeSoto and four other counties, the facility is one of more than a dozen around the state designed to serve people closer to their homes, ideally keeping them out of the state hospitals – and out of jail.

For David, the crisis unit did the opposite.

Sarah sent over her conservatorship paperwork so she could be updated about his treatment. She expected to hear from her son not long after he arrived there, because he always calls her once he feels more like himself. When that didn’t happen, she called the crisis unit.

“He’s in the DeSoto County Jail,” staff told her.

Documents filed with the DeSoto County Chancery Court and reviewed by Mississippi Today show that after refusing medications twice, David had taken them and said he thought it was helping. There were no indications of violence or physical aggression. But not long after he arrived, staff requested a writ – a document allowing the sheriff’s department to take custody of a patient – because of his “agitation and inappropriate sexual conduct.”

Staff reported that he was experiencing “Psychosis including delusions, irritability. He is continually masterbating (sic).” They wrote that he had masturbated in front of other patients and a staff member.

It’s not clear from the documents exactly how long David was at the crisis unit before staff requested the writ, and Sarah said she was not contacted when he arrived there. It may have been as little as a day or two: The court order committing him says he arrived at Corinth “on or about 01/08/24.”

On Jan. 8, Catherine Davis, crisis coordinator at Region IV, which runs the crisis center, wrote: “At Corinth Crisis they are requesting he go to DeSoto County Jail.”

The next afternoon, deputies arrived to take David into custody and drive him 90 minutes back to DeSoto County. He was booked into the county jail with his charge listed as “Writ to take custody.”

Psychiatrists told Mississippi Today that people with David’s condition may exhibit sexually inappropriate behavior like public masturbation, stepping from hypersexuality and impulsivity that can be symptoms of mania.

“All they want to focus on is what he was doing wrong there,” Sarah said. “I understand that. But that’s because he needs psychiatric treatment. He’s mentally unstable. You’re a crisis center. Isn’t that what you do? But instead you ship him off to jail.”

Jason Ramey, executive director of Region IV, the community mental health center that runs the crisis unit, said he can’t discuss a specific client, citing HIPAA.

“At no point in time is it our goal to have somebody sitting in jail, but we also have to think about the wellbeing of the whole CSU, whether it’s the other clients there and things like that,” he said.

Ramey said that in 2023, the crisis unit staff initiated commitment proceedings on only three patients. The facility treated nearly 300 people in the most recent fiscal year.

“We want them to continue to receive treatment,” he said of patients awaiting transfer to a different facility. “If we’re not able to provide that, we want to get them to the state hospital as quickly as possible. It’s not like we file a writ just to have them go sit in jail.”

But in David’s case, that’s exactly what happened.

Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia and former president of the American Psychiatric Association, reviewed the commitment paperwork and initial evaluation filed with the chancery court in David’s case. He said sending David to jail was wrong.

“The sexually inappropriate behavior is a function of his current acute psychosis, and so the proper response to it is to treat the psychosis, which doesn’t happen overnight,” he said.

Dr. Marvin Swartz, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University, said it may have been appropriate to transfer David to another facility, but that elsewhere in the United States, such a transfer would not involve waiting in jail.

Dr. Lauren Stossel, a forensic psychiatrist and former chief of mental health for New York City jails, said that mental health providers have a responsibility to transfer patients to a higher level of care if they can’t provide safe and effective treatment.

Mississippi’s practice of routinely jailing people without criminal charges while they await psychiatric treatment demands systemic change, she said. But in the meantime, crisis center staff shouldn’t avoid commitment at all costs.

“Clinicians need to consider all their patients and staff and make a decision about what they can manage in their facility,” she said. “The fact that jail is a possible alternative is appalling and needs to be factored in, but they also have to be careful about getting in over their heads trying to manage patients they have no way of treating safely or effectively.”

Credit: Bethany Atkinson

When reviewing the information crisis center staff provided to the chancery court to justify their decision to initiate commitment proceedings, however, Stossel didn’t see a clear explanation of what staff believed the patient needed that they weren’t equipped to provide.

“It’s not clear to me based on this information: what symptoms or behaviors is this patient exhibiting that you can’t manage? What interventions have you already tried? How long did you allow him to respond to treatment before determining a higher level of care was necessary? It’s crucial to require a clear justification to protect the patient from an unnecessarily restrictive outcome.”

Adam Moore, spokesman for the Department of Mental Health, which funds the crisis units, did not answer specific questions about what happened to David. He said in an email statement that a crisis unit may initiate commitment proceedings when their clinical staff feels that someone served there meets commitment criteria or is in need of a higher level of care.

‘I didn’t know I was gonna get sent to jail’

While her son was in jail, Sarah wondered what medications he was taking, concerned that any disruption could worsen his symptoms. She and her daughter, Beth, worried about what he might experience as a young Black man locked up – with no criminal charges – in a Mississippi county jail. They prayed for God to keep him safe.

Sarah called the jail every day to find out how David was doing. During one of those calls, on Jan. 22, a staffer at the jail told her David would have a hearing in court the next day.

It had been 14 days since he was jailed, and 15 since the affidavit requesting his commitment was filed. The Department of Mental Health publishes guidelines saying that the entire process should wrap up within 10 days, but it doesn’t track whether that actually happens.

Special master Adam Emerson, the attorney appointed by a chancellor to preside over commitment hearings, said the county normally holds commitment hearings every Thursday, and sometimes on Tuesdays as well to meet the statutory deadline. Most hearings take place within a week of the writ being served, he said.

He would not comment on David’s case because it is his policy not to discuss specific commitment proceedings, but said that the week of Jan. 15, the entire county court system was shut down due to winter weather, postponing all hearings to the following week.

Emerson said he serves as special master as a way to serve the community where he has lived for nearly his entire life. During a decade as a public defender in the county, he realized many of his clients had mental health or addiction issues that led to criminal charges.

“I continue to believe that early intervention in situations where mental health issues are involved will lead to better outcomes to the individuals and society at large,” he wrote in an email to Mississippi Today.

To make it to the hearing, Sarah had to take the day off of work. At the courthouse in Hernando, she sat in the hallway with three other families of people going through the commitment process.

Eventually, she was called into the courtroom and took a seat in the front row. Deputies escorted her son into the room. He was shackled, with his hands chained to his waist and another chain running down to his feet.

Sarah noticed that almost everyone else in the courtroom was white. She suspected that racism had played a role in her son’s treatment. He is 6-foot-7, and though she knows him as “a gentle giant” who acts like one of her grandchildren, she worries other people are scared of him.

“It’s three strikes against you right there,” she said. “You’re African-American– strike one. African-American male– strike two. Then you’re an African-American male with a mental health disease. You just struck out.”

Emerson said he could not speak to David’s treatment outside of his courtroom, but that race had not played a role in his decision.

“I can only tell you that everyone who comes before my court is treated equally and with dignity and respect,” he said. “A person’s race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual preference, etc. is never a factor in our decisions.”

Mississippi Today reviewed the recording of the hearing after filing a motion to unseal it, with a letter of support from Sarah.

At the beginning of the 10-minute hearing, Catherine Davis, the Region IV crisis coordinator who had filed the affidavit against David, explained why she believed commitment was necessary.

Davis said that David had been masturbating at the crisis center, and that he was “hostile,” without saying what that meant exactly.

“When he was redirected he was becoming hostile,” Davis said. “He was pacing, responding to internal stimuli. So they felt at that point he wasn’t safe with the staff and the other clients. So they asked us to do a court commitment.”

When it was his turn to speak, David offered a different account of how he reacted to instructions from staff.

“After they told me the first time, I stopped,” he said, forming his sentences slowly and softly. “I really didn’t know it was a problem. I didn’t know I was gonna get sent to jail. I was just trying to get to the hospital.”

He told the judge he didn’t need more treatment.

Emerson called on Sarah to speak as well. She described the frustration and stress of sending her conservatorship paperwork to the crisis center only to learn days later her son had been taken to jail with no one informing her.

“I have been left out of this the entire time, and I don’t understand why,” she said.

On the recommendation of Davis and two physicians, Emerson ordered David into treatment at a state hospital.

“I’m doing that for your own good, to try to get you stabilized and get you back out,” he said to David.

To Sarah, he added: “Certainly based on where he’s sent, if I were you I’d try to get those records down to them so maybe they can keep you in the loop, OK?”

Before she could talk to or hug her son, Sarah was ushered out of the courtroom. David went back to jail for six more days.

‘How does being incarcerated support one’s mental health?’

On Jan. 29, 20 days after he was first jailed, David was transported to North Mississippi State Hospital.

Moore, the Department of Mental Health spokesman, said that the wait time information the agency had shared with lawmakers was an average and that it does not include any time a person is jailed before their hearing.

“Any individual’s wait time may be more or less than the average wait time for all admissions from a given period of time,” he wrote.

By early April, David was still at the state hospital in Tupelo. When Sarah visited him, she was disturbed that he had little energy, which she attributes to his long list of medications prescribed by the hospital staff. He told her he’s ready to come home, and he talked about trying to get a job.

His mother filed a complaint with the Mississippi Department of Health and with the Attorney General’s Public Integrity Division, which is responsible for prosecuting cases involving the exploitation of vulnerable adults.

She also emailed Wendy Bailey, head of the Department of Mental Health.

“As I deal with DeSoto County, which happens to be one of the fastest growing counties in the state, I am appalled at their antiquated systems of mental health support,” she wrote.
“How does being incarcerated support one’s mental health? What immediate changes can be made to improve upon this system?”

Bailey connected Sarah with Falisha Stewart, director of the Office of Consumer Supports. Stewart said there had been a communication “breakdown” when the Corinth crisis stabilization unit failed to contact Sarah about her son’s transfer to jail. She said the agency had enacted a plan to prevent communication lapses from happening in the future.

“It is unfortunate individuals who deal with mental health issues have to wait in jails for an available bed while being committed,” Stewart wrote. “These laws can only change through the process of speaking with your state representatives.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Mississippi Today

Indicted Jackson prosecutor’s latest campaign finance report rife with errors

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mississippitoday.org – @ayewolfe – 2025-07-18 11:00:00


Hinds County DA Jody Owens, facing federal bribery charges, filed a months-late, error-ridden campaign finance report reflecting questionable transactions that mirror details from his indictment. The report includes personal loans, dubious contributions from undercover FBI informants, and unexplained payments possibly tied to paying off debts of other officials. Mississippi’s lax campaign finance laws and minimal enforcement have allowed such conduct to persist. Owens allegedly funneled bribes through campaign accounts, including funds to former Mayor Chokwe Lumumba and Councilwoman Angelique Lee, both implicated. Despite legal requirements, the report lacks transparency and accuracy, raising broader concerns about campaign finance oversight in the state.

Tangled finances, thousands in personal loans and a political contribution from a supposed investor group made up of undercover FBI informants — this was all contained in a months-late campaign finance report from Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens. 

Owens, a second-term Democrat in Mississippi’s capital city region, is fighting federal bribery charges, to which he’s pleaded not guilty. At the same time, his recent campaign finance disclosure reflects a pair of transactions that correspond with key details in the government’s allegation that Owens took money from undercover informants to pay off a local official’s debt.

Regarding payments from Facility Solutions Team — the company name used in the FBI sting — to former Jackson City Councilwoman Angelique Lee, Owens allegedly stated the need to “clean it out,” according to the indictment, which was unsealed in November.

“[L]ike we always do, we’ll put it in a campaign account, or directly wire it,” he said, the indictment claims. “[T]hat’s the only way I want the paper trail to look.”

Agents recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with Owens and other officials, and after his arraignment last year, Owens responded to the charges, saying, “The cherry-picked statements of drunken locker room banter is not a crime.”

Throughout 2024, a non-election year during which federal authorities allege Owens funneled thousands of dollars in bribes to Jackson’s city officials, Owens loaned his campaign more than $20,000, according to his campaign committee’s finance report. He’d won reelection in late 2023.

Owens and his attorneys did not respond to questions about his campaign finance report.

Owens’ report, filed May 30 – months late and riddled with errors – is the latest example of how Mississippi politicians can ignore the state’s campaign finance transparency laws while avoiding meaningful consequences. It’s a lax legal environment that has led to late and illegible reports, untraceable out-of-state money that defied contribution limits, and, according to federal authorities, public corruption with campaign finance accounts serving as piggy banks. 

Enforcement duties are divided among many government bodies, including the Mississippi Ethics Commission. The commission’s executive director, Tom Hood, has long complained that the state’s campaign finance laws are confusing and ineffective.

“It’s just a mess,” Hood said.

Owens filed the annual report months past the Jan. 31 deadline, after reporting from The Marshall Project – Jackson revealed he had failed to do so. He paid a $500 fine in April.

He was also late filing in previous years, paying fines in some years and failing to pay the penalties in other years, according to records provided by the Ethics Commission.

The report, which Owens signed, is full of omissions or miscalculations, with no way to tell which is which. The cover sheet of the report provides the total amount of itemized contributions and disbursements for the year — $44,000 in and $36,500 out. But the body of the report lists the line-by-line itemizations for each, and when the Marshall Project – Jackson and Mississippi Today summed the individual itemizations, the totals didn’t match those on the cover sheet.

Based on the itemized spending detailed in the body of the report, Owens’ campaign should have thousands more in cash on hand than reported. In the report’s cover sheet, Owens also reported that he received more in itemized contributions during the year than he received in total contributions, which would be impossible to do.

While the secretary of state receives and maintains campaign finance reports, it has no obligation to review the reports and no authority to investigate their accuracy. Under state law, willfully filing a false campaign finance report is a misdemeanor. Charges, however, are rare.

Owens is the only local official in the federal bribery probe — which is set to go to trial next summer — who remains in office. The government alleged that Owens accepted $125,000 to split between him and two associates in late 2023 from a group of men he believed were vying for a development project in downtown Jackson. Owens accepted several thousand dollars more to funnel to public officials for their support of the project, the indictment alleges. The use of campaign accounts was an important feature of the alleged scheme, according to the indictment.

Owens divvied up $50,000 from Facility Solutions Team, or FST, into checks from various individuals or companies — allegedly meant to conceal the bribe — to former Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba’s reelection campaign, the indictment charged. 

Lumumba accepted the checks during a sunset cruise on a yacht in South Florida, the indictment alleged. His campaign finance report, filed earlier this year, reflected five $10,000 contributions near the date of the trip, with no mention of FST.

Lumumba, who lost reelection in April, has pleaded not guilty. 

While the indictment accused Owens of saying that public officials use campaign accounts to finance their personal lives, state law prohibits the use of political contributions for personal use. 

The indictment alleges Owens accepted $60,000 — some for the purpose of funneling to local politicians — from the men representing themselves as FST in the backroom of Owens’ cigar bar on Feb. 13, 2024. On his campaign finance report, he listed a $12,500 campaign contribution from FST two days later, the same day the indictment alleges he paid off $10,000 of former Councilwoman Lee’s campaign debt. Lee pleaded guilty to charges related to the alleged bribery scheme in 2024. 

Also on Feb. 15, 2024, the campaign finance report Owens filed shows a $10,000 payment to 1Vision, a printing company that used to go by the name A2Z Printing, for the purpose of “debt retirement.” Lee had her city paycheck garnished starting in 2023 to pay off debts to A2Z Printing, according to media reports. No mention of Lee was made in the campaign finance report filed by Owens. The printing company did not respond to requests for comment.

Campaigns are allowed to contribute money to other campaigns or political action committees. If Owens’ committee used campaign funds to pay off debt owed by Lee’s campaign, the transaction should have been structured as a contribution to Lee’s campaign and reported as such by both campaigns, said Sam Begley, a Jackson-based attorney and election law expert who has advised candidates about their financial disclosures.

The alleged debt payoff on behalf of Lee is not the first time Owens has described transactions on his campaign finance filings in ways that may obscure how his campaign is spending money. Confusing or unclear descriptions of spending activity are common on campaign finance reports across the state.

Owens previously reported that in 2023, he paid $1,275 to a staff member in the district attorney’s office who also worked on his campaign. The payment was labeled a reimbursement, which Owens explained in a May email to The Marshall Project – Jackson was for expenditures this person made on behalf of the campaign, “such as meals for volunteers/workers, evening/weekend canvassers, and election day workers.”

State law requires campaigns to itemize all contributions and expenses over $200. Begley said he believes Owens’ committee should have itemized any payments over $200 made by anyone on behalf of the campaign. 

Upfront payments, with the expectation of repayment by the campaign, might also be considered a loan, according to a spokesperson for the secretary of state. Campaigns are barred from spending money to repay undocumented loans.

The state Ethics Commission has addressed undocumented loan repayments in several opinions, outlining the required documentation to make repayments legal.

Since 2018, the Ethics Commission has had the power to issue advisory opinions upon request to help candidates and campaigns sort through laws that Hood, the commission’s executive director, said aren’t always clear.

The commission has issued just six opinions in seven years.

“I was surprised in the first few years that there weren’t more,” Hood said. “But now it seems to be clear that for whatever reason, most people don’t think they need advice.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Indicted Jackson prosecutor's latest campaign finance report rife with errors appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Center-Left

The article critically examines the conduct of Hinds County District Attorney Jody Owens, a Democrat, and highlights systemic weaknesses in Mississippi’s campaign finance laws. While the reporting is grounded in factual evidence, legal documents, and expert commentary, the tone leans toward exposing flaws in enforcement and transparency—issues typically emphasized by center-left or reform-oriented journalism. The article does not display partisan rhetoric or ideological framing beyond its focus on accountability and legal integrity. Its publication by Mississippi Today and The Marshall Project, both known for investigative work with slight progressive leanings, further supports a Center-Left classification.

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Mississippi Today

Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-16 11:25:00


Mississippi health officials report a sharp rise in whooping cough cases, reaching 80 as of July 10—up from 49 in all of 2024. Ten hospitalizations have occurred, mostly children under age 2. Northeast Mississippi accounts for 40% of cases. Nationally, about 15,000 cases have been reported this year. The illness, especially dangerous for infants, has resurged post-pandemic due to reduced mitigation efforts. Most cases are in children, and many were unvaccinated. Officials urge vaccination, especially for those around infants. Mississippi’s vaccination rates have declined since a 2023 court ruling allowed religious exemptions for schoolchildren. Vaccines are available at county health departments.

The Mississippi State Department of Health issued an alert Wednesday that cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, are climbing in the state. 

The year-to-date number of cases in Mississippi ballooned to 80 as of July 10. That compares to 49 cases in all of 2024. 

No whooping cough deaths have been reported. Ten people have been hospitalized related to whooping cough, seven of whom were children under 2 years old. 

Cases have largely been clustered in northeast Mississippi. The region accounts for 40% of cases statewide. 

The nation has also seen rising rates of whooping cough, though cases have been climbing less steeply than in Mississippi. About 15,000 whooping cough cases have been reported nationwide this year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The highly contagious respiratory illness is named for the “whooping” sound people make when gasping for air after a coughing fit. It may begin like a common cold but can last for weeks or months. Babies younger than 1 year are at greatest risk for getting whooping cough, and can have severe complications that often require hospitalization. 

Whooping cough cases fell in Mississippi after the COVID-19 pandemic began, but have since rebounded. This is likely due to people now taking fewer mitigation measures, like masking and remote learning, State Epidemiologist Renia Dotson said at the state Board of Health meeting July 9. 

The majority of cases – 76% – have occurred in children. Of the 73 cases reported in people who were old enough to be vaccinated, 28 were unvaccinated. Of those 28 people, 23 were children. 

“Vaccines are the best defense against vaccine preventable diseases,” State Health Officer Dr. Dan Edney said after the State Board of Health meeting.

Mississippi has long had the highest child vaccination rates in the country. But the state’s kindergarten vaccination rates have dropped since a federal judge ruled in 2023 that parents can opt out of vaccinating their children for school on account of religious beliefs. 

The pertussis vaccination is administered in a five-dose series for children under 7 and booster doses for older children and adults. The health department recommends that pregnant women, grandparents and family or friends that may come in close contact with an infant should get booster shots to ensure they do not pass the illness to children, particularly those too young to be vaccinated. 

Immunity from pertussis vaccination wanes over time, and there is not a routine recommendation for boosters. 

State health officials also encourage vaccination against other childhood illnesses, like measles. While Mississippi has not reported any measles cases, Texas has had recent outbreaks. 

The Mississippi Health Department offers vaccinations to children and uninsured adults at county health departments. 

Correction 7/16/25: This story has been updated to reflect that the age of the seven hospitalized children is under 2 years old.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Whooping cough cases increase in Mississippi appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article presents a straightforward, fact-based account of rising whooping cough cases in Mississippi without ideological framing. It cites official sources such as the Mississippi State Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, offering context, statistics, and public health recommendations. While it mentions a 2023 federal court ruling that allowed religious exemptions to vaccinations—a potentially contentious topic—it does so factually without editorializing or assigning blame. The overall tone remains neutral and informative, aligning with public health reporting rather than political advocacy.

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Mississippi Today

Driver’s license office moves to downtown Jackson

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mississippitoday.org – @MSTODAYnews – 2025-07-17 12:31:00


The Jackson driver’s license office has relocated downtown to 430 State St. as the Mississippi Department of Public Safety prepares to move its headquarters to Pearl in Rankin County. The new office is in a former car dealership and aims to provide easier access and better service for residents. Customers report good service despite some wait times. The department’s new headquarters will consolidate multiple divisions, enhancing efficiency and collaboration. The move, planned for over five years, follows neglect and disrepair of the old Woodrow Wilson Avenue building. Some lawmakers prefer keeping state government in the capital.

The driver’s license office in Jackson has moved downtown as the Mississippi Department of Public Safety prepares to shift its headquarters from the capital city to suburban Rankin County. 

The department last month announced it was closing the license office that had operated for decades next to its headquarters just off Interstate 55 at Woodrow Wilson Avenue, near the VA Medical Center.

The new office is at 430 State St., near Jackson’s main post office and a few blocks from the Capitol.

A logo marks the main entry of a driver’s license office in downtown Jackson, Miss., on Tuesday, July 8, 2025.

“This location provides easier access for those who live and work in the area and ensures we can continue offering vital driver services in a more convenient and accessible space within the city of Jackson,” said Bailey Martin, spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety.

Mississippi has 35 driver’s licenses offices. The new Jackson office is in a former car dealership – an all-white building with floor-to-ceiling windows that fill the space with sunlight. On Wednesday, customers sat on black benches, chatting or scrolling on their phones while waiting to be called up to get or renew a license.

Carlos Lakes of Yazoo City speaks after renewing a driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

Carlos Lakes, 34, from Yazoo City, said he first went to the Richland office that issues commercial driver’s licenses but couldn’t get what he needed there. He said he then went to the old office on Woodrow Wilson and saw a note on the door showing the office had moved.

“So, it’s been about two hours of running around,” said Lakes, a truck driver.

He said the customer service at the new office was good, aside from the long wait time.

Medical student Seth Holton, 22, had a similar experience. He drove in from Flora, in Madison County, and went to the Woodrow Wilson location before finding the new office. He said it was his first time getting his license renewed. 

Seth Holton of Flora waits to renew his driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 16, 2025.

“I think it looks nice,” Holton said of the new location. “I think it’s organized. There’s good seating. It’s pretty quick, for the most part.”

Student Marquerion Brown, 19, posed for photos with a large cardboard frame of a driver’s license in the corner of the new office. He’d just passed his driver’s test for the first time.

“I’m just lucky and thankful to get this one this time,” Brown said. He hadn’t decided where he wanted to drive first. “I got a lot of places in mind.”

Marquerion Brown speaks after receiving his driver’s license in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 17, 2025.

The Department of Public Safety headquarters will open in Pearl within the next year, near the state’s crime lab, fire academy and emergency management agency.

Martin said the new headquarters will allow the department to have its divisions in one place – the highway patrol, bureau of investigation, bureau of narcotics, homeland security office and commercial transportation enforcement.

“As such, this move will enhance operational efficiency with other public safety partners, improve interagency collaboration, and position the department for future growth,” Martin said.

The headquarters move has been in the making for over five years. Public safety officials said the old building on Woodrow Wilson fell into disrepair after years of neglect. 

Sen. David Blount asks questions during a TANF hearing at the State Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, December 15, 2022.

Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, was part of a group of lawmakers who proposed moving the headquarters to a different location inside Jackson. 

“I personally think that the state government should be based in the state capital,” he said.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The post Driver's license office moves to downtown Jackson appeared first on mississippitoday.org



Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.

Political Bias Rating: Centrist

This article from *Mississippi Today* offers a factual and neutral report on the relocation of the Jackson driver’s license office and the broader headquarters move by the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. It includes quotes from officials and everyday citizens without editorializing or promoting a specific viewpoint. The inclusion of Sen. David Blount’s comment presents a mild political contrast, but it is balanced and not framed in a confrontational or ideological way. The tone remains focused on public service logistics and community impact rather than political narrative.

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