Tutwiler Has Big Dreams for Its One New Cop

Just one more cop will bring the Tutwiler Police Department to four full-time employees. Town officials say it will make a difference.

Additional police officers are headed to 20 communities across the state – their salaries paid for three years with stimulus funds. MPB’s Cari Gervin looks at the difference just one additional cop could make in a small Delta town.

Tiny Tutwiler in Tallahatchie County is like a lot of other rural communities in the Delta – blink, and you might miss it.

So you might wonder why Tutwiler and its 1300 or so residents need $236,000 in stimulus funds to hire a new police officer. When cities like New York, Pittsburg and Houston all were passed over for the grants.

Especially after Tutwiler mayor Genether Spurlock says crime isn’t really that bad in her town.

“The crime rate is not high - mostly young people with nothing to do. And you know they gonna stand around and smoke weed and, uh, maybe break into something every now and then.”

But with just three full-time officers and two part-time officers – and not enough money to offer a competitive salary or pay much overtime – that one extra cop will go a long way. Chief of Police Tommy Harris:

“You gonna have a big impact, because the more officers you got, the crime is less.”

Harris is the acting part-time chief of police in Tutwiler – he actually works in the wastewater department, and he’s just filling in until the town can hire a new full-time chief.

Mayor Spurlock says she hopes that the stimulus funds mean the new chief will be the town’s first certified officer. And she hopes the new chief will do more than just fight crime.

“Hopefully he can maybe develop programs or do something to kind of relate to the young people in the community and get them involved in something other than crime. Let them see there’s a life beyond Tutwiler, you know, and beyond those streets out there.”

Out of the 20 communities in Mississippi that received stimulus funds to hire additional police officers, half were in the Delta.

For MPB News, I’m Cari Gervin.