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Ambushes and Drug Dealers · Between the Headlines: Columbus

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what he has come up with today to talk about.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not asking you to hide anything.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_05: You know, no, put it out there.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_05: Let the people see it.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've never not worked in a hostile working environment.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_05: You can't argue with anybody when they're putting facts in your face.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_05: Zach, that's a hard question.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_05: I have no answer for it.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_05: From the opinion page of the Commercial Dispatch.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_05: This is Between the Headlines.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: This week on Between the Headlines, we have the announcement of Jason Spears seeking the position of County Supervisor, position number two, where Trip Harston currently serves.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: And on down the line, the politics go.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: We'll talk a little bit about that.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_03: Also, more angst related to the trotter.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_03: We have the unfortunate responsibility of going back into that stuff.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: But we got a great guest today.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_03: His name is Merle Temple, and he's an author, and he's one bad dude.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: But first.
• 1:06
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• 1:10
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• 1:27
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• 1:30
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• 1:36
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• 2:05
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• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: In the heart of the friendly city, here we are again in Catfish Alley Studio where it is October the first.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Happy October to all of you out there.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Be sure to go out there and get you a pumpkin spice latte and then throw it up because it is still super hot out there.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_03: But we're glad to be here in the studio today.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: Top headline is Mr.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: Jason Spears.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: And um Jason Spears serves the is it Ward Six on the City Council?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_03: Moneyman, a lot of people refer to him as, but he's not been there a whole lot um long tenure.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: Fifteen months.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Fifteen months, and um for another job.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this opportunity has come available, um, well, potentially available.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: Let's get into it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: So the uh break it down to us.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so uh just going down the whole line and revisiting some things that we talked about last week, uh Chuck Younger, Senator for District 17, uh announced that he was going to run for transportation commissioner for the Northern District.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's that was the first domino to fall, which was the next one was Trip Arston, who has served uh District 2 on the Board of Supervisors and uh in Lowndes County, and is the board president saying, I am going to seek that District 17 Senate seat.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that domino fell, and what came after that now is Jason Spears, who is 15 months on the city council representing Ward 6 and is the finance committee chairperson for that body, announced that he now wants to run for District 2 supervisor.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um So, real quickly, the uh the political backdrop of this is um for uh for Trip Harston, this is sink or swim.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: He jumps out, if if he gets elected, he's in it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: If he doesn't, he's not eligible to be county supervisor, correct?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Jason Spears, however, if he happens not to get elected to that supervisor seat, well he can still run for re-election and keep what he's got.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's correct.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: But I still say of the three dominoes that we're talking about, one of them is not like the other two.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I I want to preface everything I'm about to say by saying that I like Jason.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's very effective on the council.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of my that's one of my points.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_02: But um Chuck Younger served, he'll have served thirteen years in the Senate uh by the time he figures out whether he's gonna be transportation commissioner or not.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: When he comes off the Senate, uh he'll have served thirteen years, uh done a good job for the area, um, represented it well.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Trip Harston, great job on the Board of Supervisors, has served there several terms.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Both of both of these guys can make a greater impact where they're trying to go.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh or they can make at least a different impact where they're trying to go.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: My issue with Jason n especially the timing of it, uh announcing that he wants to now run for District 2 supervisor while he's serving on the council threefold.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: The first being he's been on the council for fifteen months.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's hasn't even served half of his first term.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he's already looking for another position.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like you owe your constituents a term, especially in local politics, before you try to jump to another spot.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: Aaron Ross Powell That's the obvious thing to say.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but is it not also a little true that he will be representing the same people, just a larger area?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Aaron Ross Powell Okay, so that now you walked right into my second point.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: So why would Jason do this?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um he's not doing it for the pay.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously the pay for supervisor is greater than the pay for uh uh a council member, but he's not doing it for that.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that that's a that would be a dumb argument if anybody tried to make it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: But um Yeah he and I don't think he's doing it like if he was anybody else, I would say that the reason that he's doing it is because he's got him a taste of what that uh city government is like and he's trying to to catch the first worthy vessel out of port to go somewhere else.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: But if if we were talking about somebody else, that's what I would think was happening.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: But Jason served 10 years on the CMSD board.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: This is nothing.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Especially when you look at the 10 years that he did serve on CMSD board.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that was much more fraught than anything that he has seen on the city government side, regardless of how that has gone.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's like an extra oily duck.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, things just roll off of that man, and it's like you know, and he gets right back on topic.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's not scared of the controversy, he's not scared of the turmoil, the fraughtness isn't bothering him.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh if it was somebody else, I would say that's probably why.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: But with his with his tenure on the school board and especially and the fact that he tried to get back on the school board even after all of that, serving 10 years in that mess.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and it's much more stable now than it was when he first got on that school board.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and and I'll I'll want to say that out loud, but at the if you look back at the time that he was on that school board, it was well documented the things that they were going through.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so I don't think he's scared of taking fire.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think that he believes what you just said that I can represent the same people, I can la uh I can actually represent more people, and I can do more for them as a supervisor than I can do on the city council.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I can keep my contacts with the city and I can help build bridges between the county and the city, stronger bridges than it than than do exist now.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's all well and good in theory, but that's not how it works.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: As a supervisor, he would be diminishing his uh role or his impact on the citizens of Columbus by moving to the board of supervisors.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: He just would.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh because think about it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Who's paving your streets if you live in the city?
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Who's uh g getting you services if you live in the city?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Who's voting on those things?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Usually not the board of one out of ten the board of supervisors is voting on.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: The rest of them the city council is voting on.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have a much he's gonna have as much impact on Caledonia as a supervisor as he's gonna have on his own neighbors.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I really don't understand the logic of and I, you know, I don't think he's lying to uh the people.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think he's lying to his constituents that he can have a greater impact.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think that he just that I I disagree with that assessment that he that he would have a greater impact.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I'll tell you why.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: If he's on the board of supervisors and there is a I don't know, one point six million dollar error in the draft budget, what the hell is he gonna do about it as the District 2 supervisor and who's picking up that who's picking up that rake on the city council?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Well, this is your strongest point so far.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_03: It it it would be really great to have somebody with the money sense to come in and and be in Ward 6, you know, should it fall as it you know is I won't say forecast it, but you know, how we're kind of pontificating about today.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you this, though, when I go back to the local election last cycle that that redid the county board, one of the hot topics out there was that of race relations.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, we were talking about Harry Sanders and what the new complex was going to look like.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Of all of the people in local politics, of all of the white guys, shall I say, Jason Spears has been the most effective in terms of healing and bringing people together.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, that's just who he is.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: I have seen that.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: And and so but for those who still believe that the the county and the city need to do well in the race relations area, he's the top guy.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that that this transition from the city to the county is an asset in that regard.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm certainly not diminishing the point that he is an advocate for those relations.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not diminishing that at all.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that there's several uh people who on, you know uh across that racial divide that have uh done a hell of a lot to to to bridge it.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_03: But have they gotten the votes that he's gotten?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all wrote an an excellent piece uh yesterday's paper, I believe it was, that talked about um uh pushing the leadership forward from a local level to a state level and so forth.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: And and and when I think about shoot when I think about having uh someone in place who's who's able to push the narrative forward in a positive way, I mean I look at Jason's vote.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: He did it, and but but Jason, too, I mean, uh you look at that contentious meeting and how um the high pe high priest Jim Brigham came in there and and you know felt all offended.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: Well, at the end of the day, when that was over, he got a unanimous vote for his budget proposals, which I thought was amazing.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, look, I think that I mean, for the political savvy that Jason has shown and the intent that he has shown behind it, which I will give him credit for, we have talked about uh more than once um one side of Jason is sandpaper, it's the abrasive side, and he uses it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, I don't think that we should anoint him Pope of uh political uh diplomacy.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's just a dude.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: But that's right.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: You go on strike, he's gonna fire your ass off.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think that it is fair to say that he has been effective on that in that council role.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he is very that role is very critical uh to be uh to be done well, to be done right, and to be done with the right intent for the right reason.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: You have uh the next topic that we're gonna talk about is gonna be yet another example where it's like, hey, we keep doing these things in isolated incidents.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_02: What is our policy?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is our policy strong enough?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: Shouldn't we get that policy drawn up before we then start doing these isolated things or making these exceptions?
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: We don't even know what we're making an exception to until we make a policy.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: So he has been very good on that council doing that.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: He can't do that for the city as a supervisor.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I understand the supervisors, frankly, don't need that kind of help.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, look, nobody is going to be able to babysit that group and to make them follow their own rules.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: They're either gonna have to choose to do that or choose not to do that.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_03: Right now, Mayor Jones doesn't particularly seem bent toward making them follow their own policy, but we'll get into that.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right, yeah, we'll get into that on the next time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hang on.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_03: In closing on this, I just want to say it looks like if this falls through, the good will outweigh the bad.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you're gonna have those out there that, oh, we're sick of this politics where, well, who's next?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Who's in line for the next position?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Where are the outsiders?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: That kind of talk is always there, and I sympathize that with that and I understand it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: But at this case, the Lowndes County and the City of Columbus is underserved in the legislature.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: No disrespect to who we've got there now, but we've we've got kind of outsiders, you know, the uh YMCA director, you know, not particularly connected in local politics.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_03: Andy, I love you.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: I promise I'm not dogging you on this, but what I'm saying is the more experience, to Peter's point and to your point, that the more experience that we can bring in there, the more respect we can get down there in Jackson.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what we mean.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that when when, like I said, what Chuck is doing, I understand.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: What Tripp is doing, I understand.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that in each of those cases that you've either got a new way of affecting the same amount of people or more, or a better way of affecting the same amount of people or more.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't think that that's the case with Jason making the jump from counsel to board of supervisors, and I think that the timing is poor form because I think you should at least serve a full term in the position that you're in that you just asked voters to put you in before you start asking voters to put you in another one.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I say that with the utmost respect for Jason Spears.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because again, my third point, when there's a budget problem next year or the next year, and he's on the board of supervisors, who's picking up that rate?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was him this time.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: So who's doing it next time?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Or do we get another string of ten years of audits where everybody goes, what the hell is going on?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't want to use this microphone to sound like chairman of the Republican Party just rooting for a candidate who I I happen to be, you know, acquaintances and and friends with.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm I'm I'm trying to think of this from the standpoint of, okay, blank slate, what do we got?
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_03: Can he be a consultant and be a county supervisor?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you think they might come to him and say, hey, there's something funky about the books here.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_03: Can you look at it?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, of course.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, that's something that it's widely known he did that uh during the Robert Smith administration.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, ask anybody, they'll talk about it.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when he was serving on the school board.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: He did not do it in the Gaskin administration, and that's sort of my point.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, he showed up over there, the the story goes, he shows up over there and wants to help, and they told him to kick rocks.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_02: You think that Jones is gonna walk the budget over to his office next door and sit down and say, Help me, Jason?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: He wouldn't.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: He's not.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: The high priest might walk over the body.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: The high priest can't walk that far from City Hall.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: All right, we're gonna get we're gonna get in trouble here.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: But but uh but I'm telling you right now that that's that's what he's given up.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: If he maybe the answer is maybe, but the answer is if they go tell him to kick rocks, then he's gotta go kick rocks, whether he likes it or not.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: And it's happened before because it happened in the Gaskin administration, and and Keith will be more than happy to tell you that if you ask him.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Secondly, they can't tell him that now.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so it has a higher impact.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're in there and you're the finance chair and you know what you're talking about, and the people around you, your peers on the council, know that, yeah, you're gonna have those meetings next door, but um you're not gonna necessarily have them, and at some point you're gonna be told to kick rocks.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: So, how much more help are you gonna be from the outside?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well, but he would also be going to a position where there are uh slightly fewer voices in the room, and dollar per dollar there's gonna be uh potentially more benefit to be rendered.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you look at the size of the budget and the amount of money and the amount of influence coming in.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_03: I knew we were not gonna get through this episode without a sports reference.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_03: That all right, next little thing here, next little thing.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_03: Last time we talked about the Trotter, I went and looked at the video.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: This time I did not look at the video.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but um surprising to me when I when I read the story, the the angst came from the mouth of Mr.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: Gary Jefferson this time.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um can you give us the uh story as it is?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot to unpack here.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: They opened the work session Wednesday by forming a committee to talk about facilities use, including the Trotter and Regal Hall.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: So they formed that committee, people volunteer to get on it, et cetera.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you go down the agenda, and after they form that committee now, and and and Jason, I don't think is on this committee, but he is the one who suggested that this happen before anything else happens.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it looked like most of the committee members were on the council or Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's gonna be Levon as I understand it, it's gonna be Councilwoman uh Levon Harris, Councilman Roderick Smith, because he he jumped at the opportunity to get on this committee.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's gonna be uh Councilman Jefferson, it's going to be Regina Bonner who runs a Trotter, it's gonna be uh Greg Lewis who runs the parks, uh and probably Stephen.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'll table that, keep going.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so they um they formed the committee to talk about facilities use.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_02: The implication of that, I think, is the council understood it, was so we're not gonna take up any of these other issues until we've got the policy squared away.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Well, lo and behold, you get down from that was A on the agenda.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you get down to D on the agenda, and it's like three out of the next four agenda items were complimentary use of the Trotter or Regal Hall, which confused the hell out of everybody, and certainly got Roderick's attention.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: Roderick, who was uh Roderick Smith Ward II, joining from the phone was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: One, didn't we just form this committee?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_02: Why are we talking why we're talking about this policy?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Aren't we gonna form a policy?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: Why do we have these individual things on the agenda?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_03: And remember just last week, he was already up at arms about this very issue to a point we were like, what?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, so Stephen makes the argument that well, the council doesn't have to do what it doesn't want to do.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't want to talk about these, don't.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: But they're on, but and then Jason, well, Roderick, followed by Jason, followed by Gary, followed by Lavon, all say, Why are they on the agenda if we formed a committee?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Well, vote to take them off, then that's fine.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, so then they by acclamation they tabled all of those and said, All right, we're not going to touch these until we.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: get a policy.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, good.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that happens.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: The next thing that happens and Gary Jefferson has already kind of started to pound this drum of consistency and exceptions.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's already started that narrative um in his comments about the Trotter stuff.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well looking at the agenda, they have things on the work session agenda.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: It has an asterisk by it if they plan to vote on it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't have an asterisk by it if they plan to just discuss it and then put it on the Tuesday the following Tuesday's agenda.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: Well Greg Lewis had an event on there.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't problematic from the standpoint of free usage because it was just we're going to have a walk we're going to have a mental health walk at the river walk track.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: No big deal.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like fine.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And he said I'd really like for you to vote on it today so I can go ahead and get my advertisements out and all of that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well it wasn't on the agenda to vote for and that set Councilman Jefferson off.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_02: He he had had enough and and I and I he didn't go off like Roderick went off at the council meeting.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: He he was very measured but at the same time he's turning to the mayor and going we're not supposed to be voting on this today.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: Why is he a why is he here asking us to vote on it?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: And why are you supporting that we do vote on it today when we're not supposed to be doing that and there again Jones makes the argument well I just put it on the agenda he made the request the council can do whatever it wants whether it wants to make exceptions to its rules whether it wants to follow its rules this is up to the council and Gary looks at him and says you're the leader you're the mayor you have to learn how to say no and that's a paraphrase of what he said but um and then Stephen says oh I'm the mayor am I?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well y'all don't act like it sometimes and Jefferson just looks at him and says and you wonder why okay um and the meeting went on from there without incident but that was a very interesting exchange.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah that's that's mmm okay first off the agenda items okay uh I've been to council meetings in other towns and uh I've seen some for most places if you have an agenda item that uh I'm sorry if you have a non-agenda item they will or they will not allow citizens to come up to the floor and you're allowed to talk about something you're usually allowed something like three minutes.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Mayor Jones absolutely does have the authority to say well this cannot be formally on the agenda but you'll have your three minutes.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: He needs to utilize that.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well and I mean in in this particular case it was a department head that wanted to ask the council to make an exception for an event in the parks and Gary's argument put succinctly is that we make policies as a legislative body you're the executive branch execute those policies tell people no according to the policy.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Stephen's argument is I can do that I can tell them well the policy is this but if they still want to go before the council I guess whether it's a department head or whether it's a citizen or whomever if they want to go by uh in front of the council I am not going to deny a citizen of Columbus the right to go speak directly to their council.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: So those are both I mean well formed arguments.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Where where do you where do you stand there, David?
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: It doesn't mean that it has to have a motion or a second.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I guess that it just strikes me as something where the mayor and the council have joint responsibility to follow their own procedure.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I'm with you on that.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: But Mayor Jones may say all day long we can do what we want to no Mr.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Mayor you can't do what you want to every single I mean yes technically that's true but you gotta stop saying that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta well he's also uh Stephen is also saying uh you want me to say no so y'all don't have to well the way that government works is the legislative body sets a policy they've already spoken through their policy.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: They've already the the the council and city attorney Jeff Tarnage loves to talk about how they speak through their minutes.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well they've already spoken through their minutes when they make a policy so execute the policy.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: However I do understand if the mayor is telling people this is the policy so you're not supposed to do this and they're wanting to appeal okay appeal.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: I can understand that logic but appeal it from the standpoint you're asking to appeal a policy that's already on the books.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: You're not asking the council to make an exception for a policy that they have on the books you're asking them to change a policy if it's bad because I d I think that the council making exceptions is bad business.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's bad lawmaking.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Make a law follow the law and if you have an appeal beyond the executive branch that you want to challenge you're not challenging it as an exception.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're challenging it as a rule and that's how people should be bringing things to the council in my opinion because that's the way government's supposed to work with that's that's that's civics.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: But anyway Well and it would it would take the angst out of the room because none of them want to look at the Girl Scouts and say no you can't I mean at this point I just want someone to go with the master key lock up the trotter and say nobody's using the trotter without paying the fee.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody I don't care if it's the Lou Gehrig's disease association sponsored by the whole city of Columbus and everybody's in invited no no no it's locked nobody gets in this building until the amphitheaters completed just saying there you go.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: So it'll be a while.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: So so let's talk about just real quickly these three events it was uh keep Columbus Beautiful uh year end event it was uh mayor's youth council pinning and it was the Public Works Christmas party and employee recognition whatever these are I mean these are very squarely city events that that would qualify city events within the existing policy and Steven makes a good point that if who's gonna pay for that it's gonna be the taxpayers anyway because the city's going to be paying itself for the venue and I think that there needs to be room in this policy for that.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: But one thing that I did talk to Stephen about and he is very open to this line of thinking um yeah I don't think that the city should have to charge itself to use its own facility.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's silly I agree.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_02: However I do think that there needs to be a discussion about capping the number of events that can be complementary.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: First of all reducing them entirely to city events defining what a city event is over a certain population you gotta have four hundred folks or something.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Go ahead I'm not even gonna go that far but you define a city event and you do do it very clearly to where it can't be messed with but then you also need to because the trotter and Regal Hall and other things are supposed to be generating revenue and city event or not if you've got a city event in the lower level of the trotter that is an opportunity for revenue that is lost to complementary use.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: So yes the city should be able to use its own facilities but there should be a cap on the number of times that they can use that they can take revenue opportunities away from themselves.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked Stephen that question and he said that is something that would be worth looking at because that's a good point.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you've got 120 city events at the Trotter over the course of a year they may fit the the definition of a city event and they may follow the policy but that's a hundred and twenty revenue opportunities that you've taken away from that space.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: So there's got to be a balance of consideration of making sure that the city isn't uh kneecapping itself.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: So that goes beyond the fifteen hundred bucks that it costs to operate it I mean I I'll say this in closing about that one.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: You take a fifteen hundred dollar hit out of your budget for your department if you use that facility.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: And therefore if you've got something to plan bring it up before the budget.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: You know that is a really good I like that I like that.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because money is money is money department is going to I like that now that I'm thinking of it.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: I hadn't thought of it that way but that's a really good I I don't know if it's practical but but it really hits me in the chest well they're not gonna do it because David Chisholm said it behind this microphone but it's so what what you're saying is if you're public works and you want to have your Christmas party in the lower level of the trotter that is something that is budgeted out of your department every year.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely absolutely because it's money got to come from somewhere doesn't grow on trees all right well hopefully we are done talking about the trotter for at least a minute we've got a great guest coming in after a break check this out.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_03: Hot outside cold inside that's exactly how we like it for three generations family owned Brislinated has been keeping our neighbors comfortable no matter what our Mississippi weather throws our way Brislinated comfort runs in the family.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: At this time we are pleased to welcome into the studio Captain Merle Temple who is retired from the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics and for today's purposes author of the book A Ghostly Shade of Pale.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome in here now I've got to ask off the top is that a kind of a playoff of that uh Prokel harem song it is yeah it is that's a great song by the way I interviewed in uh Orlando once and I thought they used that as a bumper music and I said oh I like that bumper music and uh yeah that's uh I'm a big I use a lot of music in my books and because it'll take you right back to where you were people read it and they hear that as a backdrop it's like another uh a way of being descriptive you know you'll feel what you felt back 30 years ago and that kind of stuff.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah I always love that song.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Well now how how does someone with uh I mean you've had a very storied career in in law enforcement in your retirement going into writing books, podcasting, uh doing the types of things that you do now?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well I asked myself that question quite often and uh I don't know I had I'd always liked to write uh and I would write uh political speeches back when I was in in in politics and when I'd lost my mind I was in politics and uh and then do uh op-ed pieces and things like that and uh people would say well you know you you're a good writer and I thought well one day I'd say well you know a lot's happened to me in my life and uh I I think it would make great fodder for a guy in his old age to write about.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll see if I can write a novel, but writing a novel is a whole different thing than what I was used to.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard at first.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um so I s I tried uh tried to write in the first draft I wrote it uh I thought it was the worst thing anybody'd ever put on paper.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I I just and then I but then uh uh I let it I set it down for a while and uh and I went back to it and and uh uh I went into each scene and started putting descriptors into each scene and then the characters began to not be flat.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: They jumped up off the page and lived and breathed and you could see what they saw and that's I had to learn how to do that.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Probably overdid it at first and had to go back edit some of it out.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: And then uh and lo and behold I you know got the book published and uh and it w that book went on to be the all-time bestselling novel in history of the Barnes and Noble store in Tupelo.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and then Criminal Minds read the draft and called me to Hollywood and it just uh took off and schools started using the books and stuff and so I went on to write.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: I've written eight books now and it's a very cleansing thing and uh you know much to my surprise you know people actually read them.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well now these uh a these books that you're writing though a lot of a lot of what you're inserting now I know they're they're they're they're fiction by Bent but the but you're inserting a lot of your own experiences in law enforcement in these stories, correct?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah the first uh the first six books of the Michael Parker series and uh people figured out pretty soon you know that Michael was me or I was Michael names change to protect the innocent and the guilty keep me from getting sued and uh and everything.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah th those books pretty much they had some fiction in them but they by and large those six books pretty much followed my life and I learned a lot about my younger self you know by writing those books and it's very therapeutic and cleansing for me like I said and and uh so I just keep on and I'm gonna keep on I started a new series now excuse me and um uh it's uh fiction but it's still drawn from things I've known and things I've seen maybe things I didn't use in the first six books you know and uh uh that's where I hopefully the you know the books have a uh ring of authenticity to them.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Well now uh gotta ask you this when you're when you're when you're writing yourself into a character, writing your own experience into a character and you're talking about how it teaches you something about your younger self, when you get to a decision that you looking at and you're like, man, I wish I'd have made that different you can literally rewrite it in that moment.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do you stay true to what happened in those things or do you occasionally go, no, we're gonna make the right decision in the or we're gonna make the different decision this time around.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well I pretty much I I I think with exception of one thing that happened to me I think I I I enhanced a little bit but most of it I just let it speak for itself even though you know like Jim Clemente asked me one time when I was lured out by Hitman to be killed near Memphis and I let him actually get in a car with me.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long story but he said what were you thinking?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: I said well Jim I was young I thought I was going to live forever.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was immortal bullets bounce off of me you know and I found out really that wasn't true but but I said so so I left that to stand uh people make their own judgment you know and but I cringe when sometimes when I look back at some of those things I just wandered into and and God just brought me out of those things.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when I I should have probably suffered some some real consequences like when I was kidnapped working undercover, you know, down in South Mississippi and they held me at gunpoint and they ate razor blades and swallowed them and swallowed fire and I was I'll I alone know I knew who I was.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: There were many of us in early days.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of things have happened to me and uh and uh uh God has delivered me.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well that's that's pretty fascinating.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Swallowed razor blades.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah they oh double-edged razor blades if you're probably too young to remember them I started shaving with them you drop them in and tighten it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah those things would cut the end of your finger off.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact right there is where I grabbed one wrong one time that cut the end of my finger off and uh he bit them in two and uh chewed on them.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: He'd just gotten out of angle of prison and I guess he was trying to impress me if he if he was trying to be sure he did.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he chewed him and swallowed them.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it seems like incredible but he he then he smiled at me when he did the blood just uh oozed between his teeth and ran out on each corner of his mouth bubbled up and ran down and he put his hands in his mouth and said want some?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: I said I don't believe I'd care for any and uh so so uh appeals court judge read that book when it came out describing that and he said Merle that was great writing he said but yeah they're eating razor blades and everything uh he said that's probably a little over the top I said that's what I thought when I was watching he said you mean that was real I said yeah that was real and uh so seen a lot seen a lot of things and uh uh have a few illusions uh left about uh how the world is and how it operates and uh and everything.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we're coming here into Columbus to meet you all that uh so many memories swept over me here, you know, not only the ambush that we're going to talk about in the great article in the dispatcher uh and that horrible day, but other times down here too.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: I worked undercover here in the early days and and everything.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: And um uh there was a guy here once in Columbus who when we arrested him here in Columbus, he had like twenty twenty-five thousand rounds of machine gun ammunition in his basement and he was tied up in those days with uh drug dealing and the political far left the communists they they were almost inseparable at times and uh uh when he uh he went to prison he wrote a violent group uh Liberation Army in Atlanta and told him one thing was keeping him alive was sort of killing me when he got out.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then so they they intercepted that letter and then they followed him for a while and then he uh he came into the uh Columbus ER one day, kind of like Al Pacino and Scarface that he was getting into his own wares and he was zoned out on cocaine.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I got a tip, you know, that he'd he'd come in and his physician had threatened the hospital and told him not to tell anybody, you know, that not to tell us that he had come in there.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh a patriotic person did get word to me and we went down and seized the cocaine and uh arrested him and he threatened the hospital to take his business out of the hospital if they didn't find that that person and the employee and fire them.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And they were really closing in on her and and uh a friend of mine down here who was with the police department called said anything you can do, Merle.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said, do they know who I am?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: He said, yeah they know who you are I said tell them they got a simple choice to make you know they can uh you know protect that uh that uh that good employee and who did what she should have done.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: I said or they can bend to the will of the doctor and they can watch me on the evening news telling the Golden Triangle that they coddle drug dealers and punish patriotic medical people and everything.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I just knew they needed a little encouragement.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: They thought about that and decided to tell a doctor take a hike.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so just so many memories just flush over me when I drive into Columbus just like wow like I've gone in a time machine I'm back in another era.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully it's not PTSD.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think it's really PTSD I have some of that but I don't think uh I don't think it's that's what I get when I come here.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh in a in a strange way it feels like I'm coming home and coming closer to friends who are no longer here, you know and uh and uh I almost feel like if I turn on one corner or the other I'll bump into them.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: It really is a strange feeling like I know they're here somewhere and uh I hope to go out to the scene of the uh the ambush if I can find it.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: If I tried to find it years ago and then got lost but I mean things kind of changed over the years.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's been a long time.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so that's Pickensville Road south kind of near the river.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Aaron Ross Powell Yeah I think so yeah that's what uh I read and and uh and so uh I don't know if it's changed a lot but I went out there many years ago when I first when Ghostly first came out I came down here to sign books out at Reed's uh Lex Jackson's and I commuted uh our last year to Ole Miss together and uh but I couldn't find it uh nothing looked right but uh now I've got some more information so I'd like to go out there and just uh I couldn't confront any ghosts that are lingering around might be a crypto center out there just getting heads up on it but uh anyhow well well let's go back to that now first of all you were uh you worked out of Columbus for how long well I uh uh well I worked undercover in Columbus and then uh I became an investigator and then I got promoted and uh the first when I first got promoted to office was here in Columbus but we didn't stay here very long we decided to recolocate to Tupelo where I'm from and uh so I went to uh to Tupelo and uh then the agents were working undercover.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And what year was this roughly uh uh well uh 76 was when ambush occurred and uh uh I became supervisor in 75 and uh so the agents had bought heroin from these guys and uh yeah it looks like they were it was high grade heroin and they were which was highly addictive and uh they would uh cut In and create a heroin market, you know, people and then and when people got hooked, then they would cut that cut down on the purity of it and drive up their profits, you know.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so we decided that we made several buys from them to dri do a uh a big deal, one that uh might draw out anybody anybody anybody who was backing them.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh certainly we couldn't let that money walk away.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was ten thousand dollars, and uh the director would have probably hung me on Main Street and let that money get away.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh uh$10,000 was big money then, but it's really big money now.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think in a paper, they said it'd be what, like$56,000 or something.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh so I went to I I when I was going to college, I uh uh I part worked part-time most of all the time, and I worked at the Lyric Theater, and I knew my boss that weekend in November, I knew he would have the money.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: He'd be the only one on the weekend who would have that money, uh, cash on hand.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: I went in there and wrote a check,$10,000, and uh he got it.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's when I went uh back to the office, and then I was going to meet the agents at the Holiday Inn in Startwell to set up the parameters of the deal here in Columbus.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I was running late like I always was and still am.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I uh ran down to my car, apart right with the federal building in Tupelo and jumped in my car and cranked up when I put my hand on the gear shift.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's when the spirit filled up my car.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't walking with God then, and uh it scared me to death.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Not much scared me, but that scared me.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was wrapped all around me, all through me, permeating every molecule of my body.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I clearly heard go back for the bulletproof vest, shh, and it was gone.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no one wore vests back in those days, everybody does now, and we only had two for the north half of the state, and they were just uh kind of like nylon uh vests, no armor in them.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_01: They stopped maybe a small handgun.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I said, I uh I'm losing my mind.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where that came from.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: I just didn't like to wear them, even though it was cold, they're bulky, and uh and uh and we had two that we'd never use, nobody had ever worn them.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, I'm losing my mind.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_01: I put my hand back on the gear shift, shame right back in the car again, times a hundred.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it wasn't optional, go back for the vest.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I went, okay, okay.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I got the vest and and uh but I was just driving to start well, I was just churning, like I just knew something was coming.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I knew something was gonna happen.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I got there and told the agents that I'd like for them to wear the vest, and they didn't really want to, and I said, Well, just humor me.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't think they were ready to hear it, I wasn't sure I was.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so I told them, I said, Y'all y'all keep it in town here in Columbus uh when you do the deal.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: Try to do the deal in town.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: We'll have buildings to hide behind it.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: We can stay close on y'all on uh surveillance.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so but you know, when you get into uh doing a drug deal, you there are things that you want it to go this way, and it you it's kind of fluid, you know, it goes uh uh gets away from you at times.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so sure enough, we're listening on the body mics, and uh the the one dealer said, Follow me, and he took out down that way uh to that road.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh so I was really nervous, and uh we were sitting back, we had agents on either side, uh, chief of intelligence and I, my best friend, and Claude Stuckey is gone now.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um we were in the one car and um uh the body mic was cutting in and out, you know, and uh and I was banging on it, you know, because probably cursing our procurement officer, but it really wasn't his fault.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty, pretty good little mics we had.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we're out there on top of that levee road, and uh we couldn't get too close because you know you could see so far that the the violators would say, Hey, who are those guys down there?
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh so uh but they they parked up there and walked down the slope of the hill uh and to do the deal.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, right up uh uh intersecting with the uh levee road there, you know, was a railroad trek and it was a trestle there.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_01: And right where the it joined into the uh the road, it was a clump of pine trees, and that's where the sniper was posted up right there.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh so I heard them say, you know, uh, you know, that looks good, you know, usual banner and doing a deal.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then later I heard say you're bureau narcotics, you're under arrest, and it and it mic popped off.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: And when it popped back on, I just heard tow tow tow tow, you know, and then the agents all around erupted on the radio said moral, they're taking fire.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And Claude and I came in across the um across the levee, and it was so cold that night.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: I saw on your old archive paper they talked about the the ice and the coal that came in.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: It was so cold that night, it just pr froze up everything.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh uh it just there was gun smoke hanging in the frigid air when we came across the the and the sky was like unlike any sky I've ever seen sent before or since.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was just a rolling, boiling cauldron of faces and images that seemed to like to be forming and reforming in the sky.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was really weird and strange and ominous.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh so we came across and we were caught in the crossfire, and then uh the female agent, uh Sarah Neal, who later got the Parade Magazine Police Service Award for her actions that day.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right, um she um radioed me, she said, Merle, she said, Jerry's hit bad.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm gonna take him to the hospital, and I shot one of them.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the one on the scene went stood stood back and went into his coat, and as he was drawing out, she shot him right through the wrist.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh and then uh and then so that was the first person that she had shot.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and just seen her partner riddle the bullets.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Jerry was hit three times and she just shot her first person.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we were all young then, but I was but she was, I think, probably about twenty-one and and uh you know when I saw her later in the hospital, like I said in the article, she looked like she was eighty-one because the weight of the world was sitting on her.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I told her, I said, sir, you you you you did you did good and uh and you handled it just like you should have.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh but anyway the uh uh so I I recovered the money too, and the agents thought I was crazy because I walked out in the open with my gun.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but I had I had a strong sense that the f sniper had fled.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: I could just feel it.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: He had fled into the swamp.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um and I could see that$10,000 blowing down the hill, and I was I could see my director off in a distance somewhere where you better bring up money back.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I scooped up the$10,000 and uh asked the chief of intelligence to take over the crime scene.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I was going to the hospital because I knew I wanted to check on Jerry and Sarah, and I knew the violator was wounded, he would have to come there too.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when I came in and saw Sarah and talked to her, and then I walked in and uh uh arrested the violator who had been shot in the hand.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's when I walked into the ER, and the doctor was there in the ER, and uh he was standing over over Jerry, and they they'd cut off his clothes, and they were cutting off that white vest, and it was just crimson soaked in blood.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, just like uh all your nightmares come true all at once.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and so as I walked up, he said, Merle, look at this.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: He said, one round hit him low.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and another one struck him right through the arm, and he said, This one hit him right here in the chest.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: He said it penetrated the vest because it wasn't designed to stop a high-powered rifle.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but uh it when it penetrated the vest, it kicked it, and it went in behind his right breast and skittered around the barrel of his ribcage and popped out behind his left breast.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: And he had his hands up in the entry wound as he's talking to me.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, Morphy hadn't had that vest on.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: It'd taken out his heart and lungs, he'd have been dead before he hit the ground.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I still get chill bumps right now after 50 years, and I told everybody later you could almost hear the shuffle of angel's feet around us there in the uh in the ER.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the first time I knew that we and I were not alone, and and uh I must have looked uh really stressed because Jerry lying there all shot.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Jerry looks up at me and he was a steady guy.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: He really was a great guy.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he just passed away not too long ago.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh but he looks up at me and says, It's gonna be all right, Merle.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: I said, Jerry, I think I'm I'm the one who's supposed to be telling you it's gonna be all right.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and then we went out and then of course tried to pursue and break up the uh uh the little alibi and conspiracy they had going on that day.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the card game.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: The card game, yeah.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody was told, you know, we've been here all day playing cards.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the story.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's so cliche.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, nobody believed that.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh plus if you're gonna do if you're gonna construct an alibi, you know, you really lit need to limit the number of people who are in the alibi.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: They put too many people in the alibi.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh because I guess all it does is give increase the chances of a guy like me uh finding one of them if you can turn around.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh you know, we hours that next morning uh you know Claude and I were interviewing people, they would all come in and yeah, we were playing cards, and yeah, that's right.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's my I said, you gonna stick to that story?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sticking to that story.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: We were all playing cards and uh and uh then uh uh we got the youngest member of the Alibian, and I knew right away.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just knew when he came in this is gonna be the guy.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I I told him, I said, uh son, I I think they made you say this.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, sir, that's the truth.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: I said, I think they made you do this.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he's getting caught up in something here, and I said, You're you know, if that agent dies over there in surgery tonight, you you might be an old man when you get out of parchment.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: And his lower lip started to tremble and quiver, and uh I knew we had him, and I said, I think they made you do this, didn't he?
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Yes, sir, they made me, they made me, I wasn't there, it it's all a lie.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he I said, Okay, we're gonna write all this statement out.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then the others couldn't wait to get back in, then to change their their testimony.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we we thought about it, we remembered.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: We weren't there.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: We we were we weren't playing cards that day.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why we told you that.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no mice, no moss.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and uh so uh and then about three that morning we got the sniper in and and talked to him and uh and he confessed and uh and uh and everything.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so we had uh there was all kind of intrigue too going on.
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_01: There was uh I won't go too deeply into it, but uh there was someone here who uh under the color of law was trying to thwart us and somebody I never trusted and wouldn't tell anything.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh we uh we uh early that morning uh we had surveilled him going into an organized crime lawyer's office here to get his instructions.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he um he tried to tell uh the DA that he was in the next room.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: He heard me deny the shooter his rights to an attorney.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh the DA said, Well, that's all good and well, you won't testify to that, but he said there were five other people in that room with you, they didn't hear that at all, so you go ahead and I'll indict you for perjury.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so then he they must have really had something big on him, you know, to get him to try such a dangerous gambit as that.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, but it confirmed everything I knew because that lawyer, when I first got promoted, he contacted me.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: He could move in on you when he if you got a little semblance of authority and move in on you.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_01: He had uh called me and uh congratulated me and want me to come out to one of his famous barbecue quail parties out of his house here.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh uh I already knew who he was.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was in our files.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_01: I said, gosh, I wish I could.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't have any time.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: But he would get people out to that party, those parties, and he would find out whatever their weakness was, and he would give it to them in in spades.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh um and so he later was murdered himself here in real life.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, There's just a lot of stuff going on down here, and I always tell people, y'all think this stuff doesn't happen in Mississippi, but it does.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: It did then, it still happened in Mississippi.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: People still call me now.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they ask me to come out of retirement uh to work cold cases or work something that's going on.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I told them, I said, uh, well, sometimes I told them like my last book was based on a one of those cold cases, and I said, Well, yeah, I had to turn that down because I told him the case was too cold and I'm too old.
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but uh, you know, those things uh never leave you.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: And uh uh if I uh if I had my way, we almost had a cold case uh podcast series, and Jim and I were developing one called Mississippi Murder, and I was already interviewing people in cold cases and uh and uh and we're going to follow and and saw some cases, you know, somewhere there's always someone who didn't want to meet their maker with that on their conscience, even if they didn't do it, they know who did it.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh uh we had it all set up and we're just about to do it, and uh and then the legislature in Mississippi did something that Hollywood didn't like, and Mississippi became radioactive, and Jim called and said, Merle, we can't sell anything with Mississippi attached to it.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so that killed that too.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, but anyway, it's been been quite a journey, and I made so many friends, and uh and I miss all the guys uh that were on the team back in those days.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were good, hardworking uh patriots.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_02: Well now, uh and you were you've talked about uh Jim a couple of times.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's w one of the writers for Criminal Minds.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jim Clemeny uh was uh, you know, Criminal Minds was so popular for about 13 years on CBS, and uh he helped them set that up because Jim, after he was the first responder at Ground Zero, uh he he kind of retired and left the FBI and they they were just setting up criminal minds, and Manny Potamkin came and actually met with him.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so he came went to Hollywood and became their uh source to approve everything that went on air for as being real and legitimate.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh he was in the behavioral analysis unit.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was a profiler, and he can, I tell you, he can sit down here, he can tell he can look at all of y'all within five minutes he can tell you things about you that you wouldn't believe.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: He he could glean just from what how you look, how you how you sound, what you say.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so uh so he went to Hollywood and made it big out there, and um and uh he uh did they do a lot of specials on his uh uh production company and everything.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_01: But he invited me out there and I went out and signed books for the cast of Criminal Minds and did radio and TV interviews, and uh I felt I felt like I was a Beverly Hill Billy come to town.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_01: And uh they put everybody said, You talk funny.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_01: I said, No, y'all talk funny.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I told people though, I said, Man, I'll tell you one thing, right out there is no shortage of people to witness to in Hollywood.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_01: But it's been uh been a great journey.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_01: And if you'd asked me back in the Bureau days when we were down here doing our thing, if uh I'd be doing any of this in my old age, I would have I would have said, we need to get you somewhere and get you some help, you know, some professional help.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: And uh but you know, you never know, you know, what's uh what's waiting for you.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Columbus was uh a lot of stories here.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh certainly never thought that as a writer uh that I would ever sell any books, and I certainly never believed that people would write me from all over the world and tell me that the books had uh changed their lives, especially Ghostly.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: That was the first book that people got a hold of in prisons and shelters and and everything, and uh gang leaders would lead gangs, and it was and that was all that was intentional.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tell a good, exciting story, but weave in there timeless messages.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we appreciate you coming and uh and talking to us today.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a fascinating interview, and it was really nice to meet you.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I enjoyed it so much.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you all for having me.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: Special guest today has been Captain Merle Temple.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh it's been a long time somebody called me Captain.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_03: Three things to know.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Three things to know.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: Number one, Munson and Brothers will host the seventh annual Oktoberfest celebration Friday through Sunday at the eatery across from the Roger Short Soccer Complex.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: Good food, good beer, which I always like, and good entertainment if you're into that sort of thing.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, a burn ban is in effect in Lowndes County through October twenty-fifth due to dangerously dry conditions.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: Burn bans restrict any outdoor burning that involves an open flame and produces an ember.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_02: Things like campfires, bonfires, and fire pits are not allowed.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Gas grills, charcoal grills are allowed.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_03: I tell you the air in Lowndes County was full of smoke last night.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know anything about that?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: I don't.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_03: There was something going on.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if it was Caledonia or Alabama.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all be careful out there.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_03: If it doesn't rain good this weekend, we're gonna end up with wildfires and stuff.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, and this one's got some this one's got some mustard on it.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: Lownds County cut the ribbon this week on its$209,000 pavilion behind the courthouse.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're feeling like an outdoor lunch, you too can eat at the pavilion that must be sitting on top of Scrooge McDuck's vault or something.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_03: That that's not a headline, that's an opinion.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_03: Look, I had to check this thing out.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  SPEAKER_03: I when I first heard about it, I went out there and there were stakes in the ground, and I was really worried because these stakes were awfully close together for this thing to cost as much as it did.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_03: I I just gotta be real, it's nice.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure it is, it oughta be it's better be.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's got plenty of concrete, it's got the brick pillars, and and it's well constructed, but somebody's already lit up out there.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_03: It smells like marijuana already, Zach.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, six picnic tables and they're not bolted down, which might turn into a problem itself.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm worried about it.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I'm just thinking about all of the uh I'm thinking about the fact that the majority of that board of supervisors is Republican.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking about all of the arguments that they've had about this and that and the other and what they can afford.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking about all the times that they raise taxes, and Trip Harston sat in the conference room at the commercial dispatch and justified all of those tax increases.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking about all of those times And I'm thinking about what else you can build with two for two hundred thousand dollars.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people can build a livable house for that.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_03: Well, there's no question about it.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_03: I mean I would have thought it would have had a a nice restroom facility for that price instead of just left over weed seeds or whatever going on.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, okay, so I like the idea of having a uh I like the idea of it and what they're trying to accomplish with it.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_02: Let people let people eat lunch out there if they work at the courthouse, or really the public from anywhere eating.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's a nice green it's a nice green space.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh they can have their ho ho's after they get the contact eye.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_02: Everything's great.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing wrong with that, David.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: Everything's fine.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah why does that thing cost$209,000?
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_03: Well that reminds me that's it.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's all that I gotta say.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_03: It it reminds me of something that Mom Donnie put on the internet about uh a roof uh for a building that costed seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and I just I don't know how it would ever cost seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to re-roof a building or two o' nine for a few picnic tables.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so just so I'm clear on this, you've just made a direct comparison between Mom Diney and the Lyons County Board of Supervisor.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to make sure I've got that.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_03: Oh boy, I knew eventually I would get in trouble behind that.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_03: Zach, it it's it's the blunt that got rolled out here that that's got me uh I've got a problem.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_03: Zach, maybe you're just more of an edibles guy, I don't know.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_03: Do you ever smoke weed?
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_03: You can let it roll.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_03: I don't care, Peter.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_03: I I've had one joint in my life.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_03: And you know how a lot of people get paranoid the cops are gonna come get me.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_03: I've smoked a joint.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_03: No, I thought I was going to hell.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_03: I thought the ground was gonna open up and swallow me, and my Sunday school teachers were watching me.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was a dark experience, and I'm glad because I'll never do it again.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, well that good on you, David.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_03: That I think we've got a good episode today.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_03: Let's let's go ahead and um keep it friendly and keep it real.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_05: I'm just a simple old country boy, but um I I think that makes sense.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_05: I've stepped out and I've said what I had to say.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_03: You've been listening to Between the Headlines with Zach and David.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's what old people do.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: That is This is Peter Rimes, publisher of The Dispatch.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, we try to keep news and opinions separate, but reporters have a unique insight into the workings of local government, and their analysis can be helpful for readers and listeners.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: The dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity, and our reporting will always reflect that.