Writer: Brittany Miller
Published July 21, 2022
WGXA News
"Calm down" were the words of the mayor of Milledgeville, Mary Parham Copelan, after a shootout that left five people injured late Saturday night.
Copelan along with other city leaders spoke at a press conference Wednesday afternoon hoping to comfort residents in light of the violence.
"It's a gang problem and we've addressed that and I think we've made everybody aware that that is the problem," Police Chief Dray Swicord said.
The city's gangs are who Swicord says is behind the weekend shootout that sent five people to the hospital.
"Beefing on somebody else territory or property," he explained, "That's basically the bottom line of all these shootings. Territory and rights of what gang wants what."
The block party shooting is the most recent incident where multiple people were injured in Milledgeville but it's not the first of its kind this year.
In early July, three people were shot at an apartment complex. Weeks before that, four people were shot at a billiards hall.
The mayor says the city's youth could be exacerbating the problem. She believes a curfew could be a solution.
"I do believe any child under 16-- they don't need to be out at certain times of night," Parham Copelan said. She adds though that before instituting on, the city would have to consult the county, or else a curfew wouldn't be effective.
While the city works to consult the county commission, they're also waiting on its strategic plan from the Carl Vinson institute that could include a crime initiative.
"The strategic plan was not done because of the crime piece, it was done because we needed a strategic plan for our community," city manager Hank Griffeth explains.
Griffeth compared the plan to the ones cities like Macon have. He said Milledgeville does not have a crime problem like the nearby metro area and would not need to create a plan solely to address crime.
Throughout the press conference, leaders were adamant that the city is safe. Emphasizing that the violence Milledgeville is seeing is being seen all over middle Georgia and the rest of the country.
"This has always been a quiet, quaint place to live, work, and play. And that's one of my mottos. That's something we do well here,"
