Tag Archive for: Tippah county

“Life is tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”

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NEMiss.News Bogue and McCammon arrested

 

An odd-ball series of crimes in five or more north Mississippi counties required attention from several law enforcement agencies during the first two weeks of March.

Two individuals are in custody on a variety of felony charges. Apparently, the two individuals know one another, but it is unclear whether they were working together. One may simply have been a victim of the other. The known facts raise questions about whether the two miscreants were dim-witted, chemically impaired or just somehow lacked the skills required for a successful life in crime.

The twisted tale goes like this:

NEMiss.News Kenneth Bogue

Kenneth Bogue

Thursday, March 2, Marshall County

On Thursday, March 2, Kenneth Bogue, Jr. appeared before Third District Circuit Court Judge Kent Smith in Holly Springs, Marshall County. Bogue had been convicted in Judge Smith’s court at an earlier date, and the purpose of the March 2 hearing was for sentencing.

  • Judge Smith sentenced Bogue to 20 years in the Department of Corrections (DOC).
  • But, then Smith suspended the sentence, allowing Bogue a form of “house arrest” that gave Bogue limited freedom of movement while wearing an electronic tracking bracelet on his ankle.
  • The deal was that if Bogue got in trouble, the court would then go ahead and remand him to DOC for his 20 year sentence.
  • A DOC officer locked the tracking bracelet on Bogue’s leg and released him near the Love’s Truck Stop in Holly Springs that same afternoon.

A few hours later – 6:30 p.m, March 2, Union, Panola Counties

  • A 2012 Freightliner truck tractor was stolen from where its owner had parked it near the Walmart in Holly Springs.
  • Later still, on the same March 2, the same Freightliner truck tractor was seen at some storage units in Etta in Union County. Someone had broken into the storage units. Union County deputies, when they reviewed the security video at the Etta facility, spotted the Freightliner on the video.
  • Law enforcement officers had begun to suspect Bogue had stolen the truck, but did not know for sure at that point. Data from the tracking bracelet showed Bogue had gone to Batesville in Panola County.
  • It was later learned that Bogue had cut the tracking bracelet from his leg. It was found in a road ditch in Panola County.

It was, indeed, Bogue driving the Freightliner spotted in Etta, and:

  • A short distance from Etta, near Highway 349 and Highway 30, Bogue spotted an empty 48-foot 2019 Great Dane flatbed trailer sitting near the road.
  • He hooked the flatbed to the stolen Freightliner and stole the Great Dane trailer, too.

One might say Bogue was on a  pretty good roll for a small-time player in the tricky game of larceny.

Friday night, March 3, Benton County

The next night, Friday March 3, law officers spotted the Great Dane trailer parked at Christy’s Truck Stop in Hickory Flat in Benton County. They recovered the trailer.

Tuesday, March 7, Union County

Four days later, Tuesday March 7, someone spotted a Freightliner truck tractor on a side road near the Myrtle-Poolville Road. It was stuck in the mud and out of fuel.

NEMiss.News Tindall McCammon

Tindall McCammon

Wednesday March 8, Union County

The next day, Wednesday March 8, a Union County deputy spied a blue Toyota pickup with an expired license tag. The deputy made a traffic stop. The driver of the pickup was Tindall McCammon, age 51.

  • The deputy discovered McCammon was in possession of a quantity of methamphetamine, and may have been impaired.
  • He also had in his possession a handgun, and was a convicted felon.
  • McCammon was arrested and booked into the Union County jail.

A female passenger was with McCammon when he was stopped. The deputy determined that she was not impaired, so allowed her, with McCammon’s permission, to leave with the blue Toyota pickup. A warrant was secured for a search of McCammon’s home. A much larger amount of methamphetamine was found at the home, enough that McCammon faces charges of trafficking, as well as simple possession.

Thursday, March 9, Tippah County

The Union County Sheriff’s office got a call the next morning, Thursday, March 9, saying that Bogue was at McCammon’s residence at 1152 County Road 50. The report said Bogue was now driving McCammon’s blue Toyota pickup and that he was loading items, including an all-terrain vehicle, onto a trailer. This while McCammon himself was locked snugly away in the Union County Jail.

Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards NEMiss.News

Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards

A number of officers, including Union County Sheriff Jimmy Edwards, sped to the McCammon residence on County Road 50. Edwards spotted Bogue in McCammon’s pickup and gave pursuit. It was raining heavily, and Bogue drove at high speed through a construction site, trying to evade Edwards. When the sheriff slowed up to avoid the possibility of injuring a construction worker, he lost sight of the blue pickup. Edwards and other officers continued searching for Bogue on several roads in that part of the county.

Edwards spotted Bogue again on Highway 2 headed toward Blue Mountain in Tippah County. The sheriff pursued Bogue east on Highway 2 and met a westbound Mississippi Highway patrolman, who turned around and followed Edwards in the pursuit.  Tippah County sheriff’s officers also joined the pursuit.

Finally, Bogue abandoned the Toyota pickup near the Hell Creek Wildlife Management area and fled on foot. Officers of  the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks joined the search. Bogue was found cowering in the weeds a few hundred feet from the Toyota pickup and was arrested by Sheriff Edwards.

In the Jailhouse Now

As fortune would have it, Circuit Judge Kent Smith was holding court at the Union County Courthouse in New Albany that week. It was therefore convenient for the sheriff to march Bogue before Judge Smith in New Albany. Smith immediately remanded Bogue to the Mississippi Department of Corrections to begin serving the 20-years prison term to which Smith had sentenced him on March 2.

McCammon will face charges for drug trafficking and felon in possession of a firearm.

As for Bogue, he could face grand larceny charges for stealing the Freightliner, the flatbed trailer, McCammon’s Toyota pickup; that’s up to the District Attorney and a grand jury. First, of course, is that twenty years he owes Judge Smith.

Several thousand dollars worth of meth is off the streets, and two veterans of the criminal justice system have stumbled into jail yet again.

Sheriff Edwards, reflecting on the events involving Bogue and McCammon, recalled a favorite quote from John Wayne: “Life is tough. It’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”

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FINALLY: true high-speed internet service will be available in 2023 for folks in Union County, parts of surrounding counties

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NEMiss.News PSC Commissioner Presley and NALGW manager Mattox

 

 

Residents of New Albany and all other customers of New Albany Lights, Gas, and Water (NALGW), will finally have true high-speed internet service available starting next year.

The result of several years of work by Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, NALGW General Manager Bill Mattox and others, installation of fiber optic cable for high-speed internet service is scheduled to start early in the coming year.

The service will make available 10 gigabit symmetrical broadband service throughout the NALGW service area, including New Albany and large parts of Union, Benton, Tippah and Marshall counties. This is approximately ten times the internet speeds that are now avail from internet service providers in the service area.

NEMiss.News NALGW manager Bill Mattox

NALGW General Manager Bill Mattox in his office in New Albany.

Bill Mattox told NEMiss.News Friday afternoon, September 23, that the broadband service will be available to every home and business throughout the NALGW service area – without an installation charge. Installation charges for rural customers in the four-county area may now run as high as $2,000, if furnished by the companies that now provide minimal internet service speeds.

High-speed broadband service for rural and small town Mississippians has been the intense focus for Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley for the last several years. Presley has worked continually with federal, state and local agencies and many thousands of rural families and business now have high speed internet as a result.

A joint announcement yesterday by NALGW and ACE Fiber of Corinth gave further details of the new service coming next year. Here is the full text of the announcement made Friday:

Two years ago, ACE Fiber had just begun deploying fiber broadband services to its membership in Alcorn County. Today, ACE Fiber and The City of New Albany Light Gas and Water (NALGW) are pleased to announce a partnership to bring network services to all NALGW electric customers in New Albany and parts of Union, Benton, Tippah and Marshall Counties.

The internet service provider, currently serving nearly 7,000 subscribers in Alcorn County, was one of the first service providers in America to offer 10 gigabit symmetrical broadband to 100% of its service territory.

After completing the mainline build to envelop the entirety of Alcorn County in less than two years, the for-profit, wholly owned subsidiary of Alcorn County Electric Power Association has its sights set on increasing the scale of its network operations by utilizing excess fiber that will be built by NALGW for the purposes of grid modernization.

“We are very fortunate to have an opportunity to scale our network by leveraging the infrastructure that will be built by New Albany Light, Gas and Water,” said ACE Fiber’s CEO, Eddie Howard. “The partnership we are creating will benefit both Alcorn and Union Counties, respectively.”

The sentiment is shared by NALGW, “This project offers a lot of promise for our electric system,” said Bill Mattox, NALGW’s General Manager. “In addition to constructing a network to facilitate our grid modernization efforts, all of our customers will now have access to world class broadband service at an affordable price. We are very appreciative to our Mayor and Board of Aldermen for having the vision to pursue this project.”

Alcorn County Electric Power Association is one of seventeen electric cooperatives in Mississippi that formed either a subsidiary or a division, with the purpose of providing broadband services to their electric membership.

As of the end of August, those cooperatives have invested over $650 million, running over 21,000 miles of fiber-optic cable, and serving over 80,000 homes and businesses.

“We have seen that the fiber infrastructure that is being built by the electric cooperatives has proven to be superior to what the incumbent providers have been offering for far too long,” said Sean McGrath, Chief Financial Officer with ACE Fiber. “New Albany and Corinth are very similar in a lot of ways. We feel like we had a good game plan for Corinth and that we can replicate that in New Albany by offering a world-class internet service, backed up by a customer service experience that is second to none.”

Both parties hope to begin the initial design and architecture of the network by the fall of 2022. It is believed that fiber services to New Albany and surrounding areas could begin as early as the third quarter of 2023.

“Working together with local leaders, we have searched and searched for a permanent solution to get high-speed internet service to every customer of New Albany Light, Gas and Water for several years,” said Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley. “Once again, we see how community partnerships solve problems. This partnership with ACE Fiber both closed the digital divide for NAGLW customers and makes good financial sense for everyone involved. I’m honored to have worked alongside these two good organizations. We can now say, without hesitation, that help is on the way.”

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Strong winds, possible lightning strike cause widespread damage Wednesday in northeast Mississippi

NEMiss.News Storm Damage

 

A powerful line of thunderstorms that swept through northeast Mississippi Wednesday evening caused widespread damage, but no deaths or serious injuries according to preliminary reports.

Serious fire damage was reported to the First Assembly of God Church in Amory in Monroe County. It was believed the fire may have been started by a lightning strike to the church steeple.

Union County Emergency Management Director Curt Clayton told NEMiss.News that wind blew a tree onto a house in the 1900 block of County Road 47. There were no injuries.

In Corinth a tree caused major damage when it was blown over on a house. There was other damage to commercial buildings and some local flooding in Corinth. No serious injuries have yet been reported in Alcorn County.

Damage was reported to a public school building and to private homes in Falkner in Tippah County.

There were trees downed and damage to some dwellings in Pontotoc County, but no injuries reported thus far.

Lee County Sheriff Jim Johnson told NEMiss.News he was aware of no major damage or injuries in northeast Mississippi’s most populous county.

 

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Christmas season tornado wreaks havoc in North MS; 7 dead, 1 missing

Nearly a full day after the Dec. 23 tornado damage in Mississippi, a coherent picture finally started  to emerge as to the human cost of the storm.

Seven deaths have been confirmed in north Mississippi with one person still unaccounted for in Benton County, as of mid-afternoon Christmas Eve.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency in Jackson confirmed that there had been four fatalities in Benton County, two in Marshall County and one in Tippah County during the long-lasting Wednesday evening tornado strike.

No reliable account was available late Thursday afternoon as to the number and severity of non-fatal injuries.

The worst damage occurred in Benton, Marshall and Tippah counties.

Scores of homes and other buildings were totally destroyed or severely damaged, a few hundred people had become suddenly homeless, and thousands were without electrical service as dark fell the night before Christmas

Preliminary reports from the National Weather Service (NWS) said that a single tornado, up to one mile wide, had remained on or near the ground in Mississippi for more than two hours and for a hundred miles or more. The NWS said it was rare for a single tornado to plough such a long path of damage. The tornado was believed to be at least of EF3 strength.

The single tornado first touched ground south of Clarksdale in Coahoma County, caused structural damage near Como in Panola County  and continued on a northeasterly path that eventually crossed into Tennessee from the Brownfield community at the far northern end of Tippah County.

Shelters are open at the Clarksdale Auditorium on East Second St. in Clarksdale, at the Marshall County Multi-Purpose Building on N. Memphis St. in Holly Springs and at Harmony Baptist Church at 28840 Highway 15 in Walnut.

To volunteer or donate to help those affected by Wednesday’s storms, go to www.msdisasterresponse.org. You can register to volunteer or even make monetary donations on the website.

For more information, see Sheriff’s Office helps out

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New Albany threats being investigated by Tippah Sheriff

Update, Sunday evening, May 17th,

The search for those responsible for making at least two telephoned  threats to two New Albany businesses Thursday has been narrowed to one Tippah County family.

The telephoned threat of an AK-47 attack on the New Albany McDonalds came mid afternoon Thursday, May 15. The threat of a bomb placed at the  New Albany Walmart came around 6 p.m. the same day. Police responded to both business locations. The buildings were cleared of employees and customers and searched, but no firearms or bombs were found.

New Albany Police Chief Chris Robertson told NAnewsweb.com Sunday evening that ownership of the cell phone used to make the threats has been traced to one family in Tippah County. The phone was in the hands of law enforcement personnel by midday Friday.

Because the calls were made from Tippah County, the Sheriff’s department there is continuing the investigation of the threatening calls. Robertson said the Tippah County authorities are working to determine which of several juveniles related to the family owning the cell phone were involved in making the telephoned threats.

All of the threatening calls were made to a non-emergency telephone number at the New Albany Police Department.

Because the culprits are juveniles the criminal justice system is limited as to what prosecutions and punishments may be  considered.

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