Police officer Robert Williams puts on a pair of highlighter blue gloves before reaching for a chair, its leather ripped and peeling, discarded in the woods of McRaven Road in west Jackson.
Williams is one of two members of the Jackson Police Department’s neighborhood enhancement team, or NET. Formed in early 2024, the team leads efforts to clean up illegal dump sites across the city.
The duo performs daily patrols around Jackson, surveying common locations where people dump their trash, such as Shaw Road or Greenhill Place in southwest Jackson. Williams said in recent months, he’s noticed that a larger number of people who have been charged with dumping are traveling from outside of the city to dump sites in Jackson. They choose areas that are low-traffic without visible streetlights or cameras.
“It’s secluded,” Williams said, as he steered one of the team’s patrol vehicles down a road overgrown with weeds. “This is the perfect spot for them to come and take three to five minutes, dump some stuff and keep it rolling.”
On Aug. 12, the Jackson City Council unanimously approved an ordinance that created additional penalties for illegal dumping, including stiffer jail time, a minimum of 32 days, and the immediate seizure of the vehicle used for dumping…