- The uncle of Mia Sims, who was fatally shot in July on Jackson's South Side, wants to reduce violence in his neighborhood.
- Pastor Shaunta Patton's idea: to restart neighborhood watches.
- Patton says knowing neighbors are watching, talking, and looking out for each other deters violence.
WATCH THE INTERVIEW WITH PASTOR PATTON:
"I don't want another family to deal with this," says Pastor Shaunta Patton, uncle of Mia Sims — the young woman who was fatally shot here in front of his South Side Jackson church on July 27th.
Patton says Mia's death is spurring him to bring people together to deter violence.
Patton says His niece had just gone out to her car…in front of her uncle's Church:
"Someone yelled: 'Mia was shot!' We all rushed out there to her aid…"
Broad daylight. Sunday.
"And...life changed from there. Best way to say it," says Patton.
In the wake of the tragedy, Patton is hoping he can bring the community together to do more to deter violence:
"The best thing that we can do is start a neighborhood watch.…I don't want not one more family to lose their life."
He says what happened that Sunday has lit a fire in him.
"I'm going to ward meetings, social media, I'm going door to door, and I'm trying to get a neighborhood watch in every ward, actually, so we can have the whole city covered, and we can protect the whole City of Jackson," says Patton, hoping his efforts — nicknamed "SOW and Protect" — will spur Jackson neighbors to become more watchful and more in touch with each other…and that signs of this will deter the violence.
"Our main goal right now is: get everybody together, right? Everybody's got to come together. When we are together, we do better."
I reached out to both Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the Jackson Police Department for the latest, but they were not available.
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