State senator says he’s one of eight whose car was broken into in Northeast Jackson on Sunday

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A State Senator said he’s one of eight people who had their car broken into in Northeast Jackson over the weekend.

Senator Tyler McCaughn said crime in the Capital City remains a top concern for him and other lawmakers.

It happened just outside of Char while the sun was still shining. Bits and pieces of glass were still scattered in the spot where he had parked as of Tuesday.

“If you come over here and we go to dinner, I’d like to think that we’re going to be safe. I don’t know that people are confident that they are safe right now, and we’ve got to do something to fix that,” McCaughn said.

In the 30 minutes that McCaughn was inside the restaurant, the thief or thieves managed to steal checkbooks, sunglasses, and a weapon.

“You have 122 in the House of Representatives, and you got 52 in the Senate that are coming in for three months out of the year along with the staff, which provides a boost in economic activity,” he said. “We want these people to come back.”

McCaughn said legislators have taken steps to extend the Capitol complex in hopes that Capitol Police can become more influential in the fight against crime, which was a “good start.”

“My concern is that we have a wonderful downtown that could go through some additional revitalization. If we can ever get to the point where we take the stagnant title off of Jackson and say that ‘we’re growing’ and ‘we’re building back,’ we may be able to actually bring people back to the downtown area.”

The senator said he expects some of the metro Jackson lawmakers to come up with additional plans.

“There’s no way to make someone a good person, but there’s a way to enforce the laws. Whether we need to add additional officers, increase pay for these officers who are out there risking their lives, or encourage more people to go into law enforcement... I don’t know what the answer is, but I do think those are things we’ve got to be looking at.”

McCaughn added that there’s not a community out there that doesn’t have a crime problem to some degree, but it’s just about whether police can control and prevent it.

He said officers haven’t yet caught the person or people responsible for breaking into his car.

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