Free Republic

Among our mayor’s greatest hits: • He once stopped a school bus on a busy interstate because he “needed a hug” from the kids inside. • He’s been known to strap weapons to his chest and leg that he has no authority to carry or conceal, then wear them in public. • He regularly suits up and leads SWAT-style “raids” on homes, businesses, and even roadblocks in busy traffic—without cause or a warrant. • He has tried to close down the city’s strip clubs for moral reasons, despite no authority to do so. • He once bulldozed an elderly woman’s...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mayor Frank Melton was back on the job Friday after the state Supreme Court ordered his release from jail, where a judge had sent him two days earlier for violating probation. "It was quite a humbling experience," Melton said after his release Thursday. He said he had helped clean three bathrooms. Judge Tomie Green ordered Melton's arrest after the flamboyant mayor was accused of violating his probation by breaking curfew during a late-night bar raid with police and traveling out of state for surgery. The high court vacated that order Thursday without explanation. The mayor's attorneys...

"Anti-Gun Mayor Pleads Guilty to Firearms Charges" (CNSNews.com) - "A Mississippi mayor has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor weapons charges after carrying a handgun on church and school property, and a gun rights group thinks now would be a good time for him to step down from Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG)." "Jackson Mayor Frank Melton, a Democrat, pleaded guilty Nov. 15 to the misdemeanors to avoid felony charges that would have cost him his job."

The national American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday accused the city's black mayor of civil rights violations including racial profiling in his crusade to stem crime in Mississippi's capital city. The accusations against Mayor Frank Melton and police are based on complaints from people who say they were pulled over on the basis of their race and searched without probable cause, the ACLU's national racial profiling coordinator, King Downing, said at a news conference. "For me to leave my office and come into one of the states means that there is a very serious problem," said Downing, who is based...