On The Road Again with Frank Melton
Jaro Vacek
April 12, 2006
On Sunday, April 2, photographer Jaro Vacek and I went to Frank Melton’s home on 2 Carters Grove to meet with the mayor’s Mobile Command Center crew for a night on the town, so to speak. First, though, Melton showed us his home, his mammoth bedroom, his swimming pool underneath his bedroom (the room is the same length as the pool, he said), his “TV room” with a huge theater screen and 10 gray recliners, his “bat cave” (as Judge Karen Gilfoy used to call his office), his kitchen overflowing with food.
Melton also introduced us to all the young men staying in the house at the time, who were home, including former Northwest Rankin basketball star Jeremy Bibbs, as well as Christopher Walker, who is his key witness in murder cases against Albert “Batman” Donelson and his brother Terrell.
After serving us a meal of stuffed, baked chicken, English peas, rice, collard greens and buttered rolls—with cooking and clean-up help from Police Chief Shirlene Anderson—I watched as Melton strapped on his bulletproof vest and weapons standing in front of his dresser mirror. A red telephone without a dial—the hotline for murders, he said—sat next to his huge and unmade four-poster bed. People wandered in and out of the bedroom at will.
Melton wore a black WLBT polo shirt, black fatigue pants and black sneakers. He pinned on his “Mayor” police badge, and then stuck his old Jefferson Davis County deputy’s badge on the collar of Abby, his drug sniffer and long-time pet, a half German Shepherd-half Rottweiler. (When one of his boys saw the badge on the dog’s collar, he said to Bibbs: “He just put a badge on a dog,” and shook his head, leading to me to think that Abby’s badge was for my benefit.)
Outside, Melton handed me a bulletproof vest out of his car (Jaro brought his own), and then we loaded up in the RV with the mayor, Abby, Chief Anderson, Assistant Chief Roy Sandifer, and bodyguards Michael Recio and Marcus Wright. We headed out to do the nighttime “raids” that this group does several nights a week. We pulled out of Carter’s Grove, headed to the University Medical Center to visit one of Melton’s former kids, who recently had a lung transplant.
Then the call came: There was a shooting, right then, at UMC. Wright stepped on the gas as we held on.
April 2, 9 p.m.: Who Runs Jackson?
As the Mobile Command Center sped up Interstate 55, I held on like I was back on the subway in New York City. I quickly learned to climb onto a counter and mount my dark sneakers on a wall.
When we pulled up and jumped out of the RV at UMC, there seemed to be mass confusion, a car with the door open just outside the emergency room, young people running around with blood on their clothes. Because Jaro and I were dressed dark, and in vests, we apparently looked like SWAT members. No one stopped us from following Melton everywhere he went.
We soon learned that there had not been shots fired at UMC. Instead, two injured young people were driven there by friends from the Trustmark parking lot next to the Jackson Medical Mall, where gunplay had quickly turned deadly. A young man, Calvin Johnson, was dying in the emergency room.
Once we had the lay of the land, all six of us walked into the hospital following Melton—looking, I’m sure, like a band of terrorists. But doctors and nurses knew Melton; some smiled, some pointedly frowned. I would see that mixed reaction as I followed him the entire evening. We walked upstairs, without asking, to visit his young friend. Melton talked tenderly to the young man, barely skin and bones, for about 10 minutes while we waited. We then left the ward.
Back downstairs, the situation was a bit calmer, with police interviewing witnesses. Suddenly, a young man ran out of the emergency room screaming, as family members rushed toward him. Then, Kevin Johnson—the twin of Calvin, who was barely alive—started rolling on the pavement in agony. His muscle shirt was drenched in his brother’s blood.
Melton quickly went over, gathered him up and took him to the Command Center. We left the scene, taking Kevin with us. “I need to protect him,” Melton said as we drove away, ostensibly to look for the red Tahoe that Kevin said had fired the deadly shots. We went back toward the cruising area, but the mayor soon seemed to lose interest in looking for the vehicle. As Kevin sat in the rear of the RV, staring at his feet, a TV screen overhead playing crime shows, we pulled almost into the intersection of Northside Drive and Bailey Avenue and stopped the RV in the middle of the street, clogging traffic. Melton grabbed Abby, and followed by his bodyguards, went into stores in the area. He then started walking down the middle of the street shining flashlights in cars and telling people to put on safety belts, before entering The Spot convenience store, where he told a young man to “pull your britches up on your behind,” and a little boy patted Abby with glee. After about 20 minutes, walking back to the RV, Melton looked at me and said, “Donna, you know what? I run Jackson.” (More snickers.) “I do it in a weird way, but I run Jackson.” He then turned back to the bodyguards flanking him and said, “We just stopped that car over there, didn’t we?”
For the next 30 or 40 minutes, the RV drove to different intersections—many packed with cruising traffic—where we did much the same thing. In between, Melton talked to Kevin when he wasn’t on the cell phone with his family.
April 2, 10:10 p.m.: Time to Say Goodbye
We pulled up in front of the McDonald’s on Northside Drive near Hanging Moss, which was packed with young people hanging out. Kevin—who was carrying a handful of napkins—was clearly tired of the “raids,” and yelled at Melton: “Godd*amnit, I want to go back and be with my brother!” He jumped out and ran, dropping the napkins in the street. Melton ran him down and rolled around on the ground with him, hugging him. Then he brought him back, calmer. As Kevin got inthe RV, Melton picked up all the napkins gently, and we loaded up and returned to UMC, where the mayor calmly escorted Kevin and other family in to say goodbye before doctors took his brother off life support.
April 2, 11:15 p.m.: The Real World
The seven of us, and Kevin, then loaded back up and returned to the scene of the crime, where Kevin told the story of what happened. (See last issue and jacksonfreepress.com for details.) From the crime scene, Kevin went home with his family who had come there, eager to pick up his brother’s 1999 Crown Victoria. However, police impounded the car.
“Welcome to the real world,” Melton told me as we pulled away from the crime scene, headed for Subdivision #1, where he had planned to go earlier.
April 2, 11:40 p.m.: 30 Days’ Notice
Melton wanted to return to Subdivision #1, to a ramshackle house in the 3000 block of Washington Street, he said, to show me how some people were living. He had told me about a man there who has a tracheotomy in his throat, whose house drug dealers had taken over, he said.
Washington Street is small and closed in, and looked like it would seem dark even during the day. The houses, mostly rentals in bad condition, sit among many abandoned cars and an air of neglect. The RV seemed to take up the whole street as we crept along, the headlights illuminating a depressing scene.
“There he is,” Recio said as we pulled in front of the house. Jonathan (we are not revealing last names without permission) stood in front of the house, in his mid-40s, wearing a red doo-rag and baggy clothes. We stepped out into the quiet with Wright and Recio grabbing their submachine guns. Wright went first with a flashlight onto the porch, as Melton talked to Jonathan, Recio bringing up the rear. My heart raced behind the vest; I thought drug dealers might come out firing.
We went inside the house, with Melton pointing out the bad condition and the smell. I felt repulsed by the conditions and violated on behalf of Jonathan. Wright picked up an eviction notice from the landlord; he had 30 days due to non-payment of rent. I looked around at rotting wood and peeling paint and wondered how much he was supposed to pay, as Melton promised to get him help and asked him, along with another man eating oatmeal in front of the TV, the last time he did drugs. He told Melton that some kids across the street, a couple houses down, had some pot he had smoked. Melton left the house and headed their direction.
April 2, 11:55 p.m.: Surprise, Surprise
This time, my stomach was really in a knot, knowing that the people in this house had no clue we might be knocking on their door late on a Sunday night. I hung back at the street, as Melton roused the inhabitants—two young men and a young woman—and the guards searched the house with flashlights. I joined them, though, when it was clear that no one was likely to come out firing at the intruders.
On the porch, one of the young men told Melton he was studying graphic design at Antonelli College, and the young woman said she attends Hinds. Her boyfriend, however, said he had a hard time finding a job. Melton asked him how much pot he smoked. “Too much,” eventually came the reply. I would soon learn that many Jacksonians will tell Melton the last time they did drugs once he starts joking around with them.
He flirted a bit with the young woman, while telling her to make her boyfriend stop smoking pot and get a job, perhaps with the city. "Why you are in there sleeping with him if he ain’t got no damn job?" Then, as our group turned to leave the porch, Melton turned back to the young woman and asked: "What time are y’all gone #### so I can come up in here and catch you? … I want to make life miserable for you."
"Frank!" she responded with shock.
April 2, 12:10 a.m.: Like A Band of Gypsies
Melton seemed eager to show that he also likes to surprise white folks on his midnight raids. He had told me several times that he goes to Pops Around the Corner in South Jackson and gets them to play “On the Road Again.” So that’s what we did.
When we parked in front of Pops, someone said, “Charles Hobby just pulled up.” Indeed, the investor in some of the strip clubs Melton recently closed (and one of his campaign contributors) had pulled up beside us in his white Cadillac. I wondered if there would be a verbal showdown.
Inside, Melton waved at an amused collection of folks who looked like they needed to go home soon. The Silverado Band had packed up for the night, but Melton asked the drummer and guitarist to perform his favorite Willie Nelson song. They unpacked enough equipment to do a duet, as Melton stood on the red-and-white dance floor alone, clapping not entirely to the beat and looking very much in control as the men sang, “Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway.” Hobby sat at the bar. No words were exchanged. We left right after the song ended.
April 2, 12:55 a.m.: Bad for Business
Melton decided to end the night with a visit to Birdland on Farish Street. Wright pulled the RV right in front of the packed dance club and parked, blocking the entire street. I walked into the club right behind Melton in a single file with Recio and Wright behind me, recognizing a number of JFP readers along the way. (One, Miss Keke, ran up and hugged me; I realized that probably wasn’t very SWAT team of me.) We walked slowly through the packed club as gazes followed us, some happy to see us, others shooting hatred. Melton talked to the deejay, then we left.
We then wandered down West Oakley Street, where a number of people were hanging out with barbecue grills, selling sausages and burgers to hungry partiers. We stopped at the house of a young man, “Blue Jean,” who seems to run several enterprises on the street—including charging $5 for parking—who is also the son of someone who worked for the Harvey Johnson campaign, Melton told me. Melton walked directly into his house with the bodyguards flashing lights all around.
Back outside, we stood and talked to a group around the barbecue for at least 20 minutes—an exchange that showed how much ease Melton travels with in the neighborhoods he freely calls his own. When we headed back to the RV, the manager of Birdland came up and begged the mayor not to block traffic and scare people away from his business again. “You do important work, but I have to run a business here,” he said, his neat dreadlocks cascading down his back. “OK,” Melton said.
April 9, 8 p.m.: Arresting the Witness?
Photographer Kate Medley and illustrator Darren Schwindaman joined me in another ride-along with Melton and his sidekicks. This time, JPD Sgt. Billy May—a long-time friend of Melton who assisted with Wood Street arrests—took the place of Chief Sandifer, who was out of town visiting his wife and children. We joined the brigade in progress at the Exxon on Bailey Avenue and Woodrow Wilson, where they had just made an arrest for pot possession. After we got on the RV, and followed by TV news crews, we headed to the apartment of the mother of Wood Street witness Christopher Walker, who has been living with Melton. The mayor surprised me by saying that Walker had confessed to him that day that he had assisted in the murder of Harrison Hilliard—Melton had told me that previously—and, thus, he had an arrest warrant for him. Melton approached the door with a brown shotgun—he looked like a black Buford Pusser to me—but Walker wasn’t there. Soon the other media departed after a short press conference in which Melton railed against “Batman” Donelson. Back to our core group, we soon headed toward the same heavy cruising spots we had hit the week before.
April 9, 9 p.m., Heart to Heart
First, though, Melton wanted to go check on “Poo Poo,” 19, whom he believes was the target of gunfire that recently hit a 7-year-old girl. In an apartment complex, near Bailey Avenue, we talked first to the boy’s mother, Vern, a former cocaine addict that Melton said he and his wife had moved to Tyler to help. Then Poo Poo arrived, and Melton sat in the courtyard at a picnic table and talked to him about why people were shooting at him. “How are you doing? Are you scared? Do you need to go with me?” Melton asked. The young man said no.
April 9, 9:25 p.m.: I Need Protection
This time, Melton was almost singlemindedly focused on confiscating guns. The shooting the week before had made an impression on him, with him calling me Saturday to tell me he was going to outlaw gun shows in Jackson. We spent most of the next couple of hours watching Melton and other officers—we were joined by some we didn’t know as well—walking down Bailey Avenue or Northside Drive, approaching cars and asking if he and Abby—who he said could sniff out guns—could search the vehicle. No one said no, although some clearly wanted to. Others seemed happy to see it happening.
Melton found several semiautomatic handguns in cars. But every one of them turned out to be legal. The mayor kept asking the same question, as if he had never considered the proliferation of guns before: “Why are you carrying a gun?” The answer was always the same: “For protection. Everyone else has a gun.”
While they were searching, a member of the Donelson family called me on my cell phone to tell me Melton had stormed Batman’s mother’s house earlier that night. “He don’t have no business going on people’s property, going up in there with machine guns,” she told me as I watched Melton search cars.
April 9, 10:05 p.m.: Past Curfew
Melton approached a car on Bailey Avenue with a 15-year-old on the passenger side. Melton smelled pot and asked the young man the last time he smoked. He finally said, “About two hours ago.” Melton then lectured him on the need to put the pot aside and make something of himself, adding, “You know, I can put you in that bus and you to jail right now.” He didn’t, though.
April 9, 10:30 p.m.: Don’t Cry, Son
The RV pulled into a gas station on Bailey Avenue. Recio saw a Cadillac with young men who seemed too young for curfew. He told them not to pull away on the loudspeaker. However, they started to pull anyway. The cops hopped out of the RV and ran after them, as I hid behind a gas pump. As Recio approached, he said he saw a weapon in the driver’s lap. The police all drew their weapons. I ducked farther behind the pump, as a man next to me getting gas talked casually about how glad he was that Melton was doing this. I approached and stood next to Melton after police had taken the gun.
Melton talked to the 21-year-old, Brandon, who was wearing a big jeweled cross, and crying and stuttering with fear. “No, no, no, don’t cry. Dry your eyes,” Melton said. “Is this legally registered?” It was. “Why do you carry a gun?” the mayor asked. “For protection.” “Why?” “Because people are crazy.” He said he was afraid someone would try to rob him for his rims. He bought the gun, he said, at Academy Sport with a credit card. Melton sifted through his wallet, and at least a dozen credit cards fell out. “Hell, I didn’t have a Cadillac in college,” Melton said. “You’re advertising that you want to be robbed. If someone wants your rims, son, you park your car, get out and give them to them.”
Melton told the young man, who is taking 16 hours toward a computer technology degree at Jackson State, to call the city about a job the next day. “Maybe you can help us fix our Web site,” he said with a snicker.
April 9, 10:45 p.m.: Rules of Life
We visited with “Boomer” on Baker Street, whom Melton had taught to swim at the YMCA. We walked into the house, and Melton started yelling for his mother to come out, but she refused, yelling back she wasn’t coming near “that dog” (meaning Abby, who wasn’t inside). Soon, though, the sister emerged from her bedroom, blinking back sleep. As we stood under a heart-shaped “Rules of Life” signדShare, obey, be kind, listen, wash, floss, flush, recycle and call your motherԗMelton told Boomer the city needed lifeguards, and he would train him: “There’s no one I trust around water more than you, Boomer.”
Melton updated him on what “your brotherԗMelton’s biological son, Matthew—is up to in Texas. Outside, he greeted some women who came out to say hello, including two evacuees from New Orleans they had taken in. “Now that’s grace and benevolence,” he said. “And we need to do something about that boarded-up house over there,” he said, pointing across the street.
April 9, 11:30 p.m.: My ‘Education’
We returned to Farish Street—this time down Oakley so as not to hurt Birdland’s business—and walked through Blue Jean’s house again. After that, we flitted through City Lights—where Recio said I would get an “education,” which apparently meant to see gay people. They then took us to a boarding house on West Street where a couple of transvestites lived. I told them afterward I had covered the East Village in Manhattan, so I was hard to shock. Then about midnight, the RV dropped us at our cars in front of Cups in Fondren, the first time all night we had been east of Bailey Avenue.
Note: Two quotes above have been tweaked and expanded based on transcripts of the night's events.
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