Sept. 25--PASCAGOULA -- Jackson County Board of Supervisors President John McKay said Monday that Sheriff Mike Byrd can legally refuse to house fugitives from Ocean Springs and Pascagoula who are picked up on arrest warrants through the National Crime Information Center, but he must continue to accept NCIC fugitives from Moss Point.
Byrd last week sent a memo to the police chiefs of Ocean Springs, Pascagoula and Moss Point informing them they could no longer house NCIC fugitives at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center. In the memo, he said he would continue to allow Gautier police and the Mississippi Highway Patrol to house their fugitives there because of contracts between the sheriff's office and those agencies.
"We had wished the sheriff had communicated with us better, but he is within his legal right to do what he did," McKay said Monday. "Now, he does have a contract with
Moss Point and he does have a contract with Gautier and those will have to be upheld. Our disappointment is that we were caught flat-footed and didn't know anything about it. We just wish we had better communications so we are going to work on our communications with the sheriff."
Byrd has not returned phone calls from the Sun Herald, instead issuing written statements.
"I do not answer to the Board of Supervisors, area law enforcement chiefs or the media," Byrd said in a statement issued Monday. "However, I understand that working relationships must exist to promote safety and provide citizens with a sense of professionalism.
"If the supervisors had any concerns, they should have picked up the phone and called me with any questions. Instead, they ran to the media and the entire situation was made to be something it was not."
He added: "The cities of Ocean Springs, Moss Point and Pascagoula have their own jails. Gautier and the state Highway Patrol do not have a jail."
The sheriff described the situation as "heart-wrenching" but said it was not a new policy.
Moss Point police have a contract to house prisoners at the county jail, but Byrd is still refusing to house the Moss Point prisoners picked on the NCIC warrants.
Pascagoula and Moss Point police chiefs said last week they believe NCIC fugitives are considered state prisoners and should be the responsibility of the county to house them.
Police officers, during traffic stops and searches, often arrest fugitives wanted on out-of-state NCIC warrants. They are typically housed at the county jail. The Sun Herald contacted the state Attorney General's Office last week about the change and officials there said they would have to research the matter thoroughly before issuing an opinion.
But in 1988, Bay St. Louis requested an attorney general's opinion about whether it was responsible for paying the county to house a prisoner in the county jail if the prisoner was picked up on an fugitive felony warrant. The opinion said, in part, "... it is the opinion of this office that a person arrested by a municipal police officer on a fugitive felony warrant ... would be a county prisoner and the municipality would not be obligated to pay for housing that prisoner."
Moss Point and Pascagoula still have their attorneys researching the matter.
The sheriff's memo advising of his plans to no longer house certain NCIC fugitives came on the heels of the independent investigation into what Byrd has described as an accidental shooting at the Pascagoula office of the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County, which resulted in a leg injury to one agent.
Moss Point Police Chief Keith Davis called an emergency meeting of the NTFJC board after learning of the July 31 shooting and asked for the independent probe. The NTFJC board comprises the police chiefs in Moss Point, Ocean Springs, Pascagoula, Ocean Springs and Byrd. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is conducting that probe, which is ongoing.
Pascagoula and Moss Point have pulled their officers from the task force while the investigation is pending.
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