And, after the break, some shots from Prentiss.

A few notes about Prentiss: It’s a town of about 1,000 people that’s on the economic skids. Even before Katrina, Prentiss was lost about 10% of its population between 2000 and 2004. After Katrina? Things just got worse. I talked to several people who’ve been unemployed since what they’ve now just started calling “The Storm.” There’s still quite a bit of damage in this area that has yet to be cleaned up.

The downtown area of Prentiss presents this odd juxtaposition of new-looking promotional banners touting “Historic Downtown Prentiss” hanging over a downtown that is, basically, empty. It’s kind of a sad place. There are a few nice houses just outside of downtown but the people I spoke with say they’re mostly older folks who made their money a long time ago. Anyone under 50 with any money at all has the good sense to leave. There are also a few fast food joints, gas stations, and a couple of strips mall on the south side of town. But it’s probably fairly revealing that the the biggest employers down there are the schools, the government, and the Prentiss hospital.

Race is inescpaable down here. Win a black resident’s trust, and they’ll rattle off a dozen stories of race-based discrimination, harrasment, or police excess that’ll overwhelm you. I guess the difference between what you’ll here in Prentiss and, say, the same stories coming from someone like Cynthia McKinney, is that when black folks in Prentiss told me horror stories, I found them entirely convincing.

The white people I spoke with in Prentiss generally think Cory Maye got what he deserved (though there were a few exceptions). One interesting thing, though: Many of the people I spoke with didn’t actually know the details of the case. Many, for example, thought police found a substantial amount of drugs in Cory’s apartment, and that Cory, not Jamie Smith, was the original target of the raid. Explain to them that Maye’s name doesn’t appear on the warrants, that his daughter was in the home at the time of the raid, and that he had no criminal record, and you see wheels begin to spin. Throw in the town’s untoward firing of Bob Evans, and the people I spoke with seemed to come around a bit to Cory’s side, more so with younger people than with the town’s older residents.

Let me also add that I met some very friendly, hospitable people down there. I met several who weren’t so friendly, of course. And more than a few who said things like, “you’d better watch youself around here,” the kinds of things you’d expect to hear in a movie. I guess my point is that I don’t mean to disparage everyone in the town. I met some very fine people there. But I’m hoping to paint an accurate picture of what life is like for the people who live there. Which is to say that it isn’t the easiest living for anyone. And it’s a hell of a lot tougher if you happen to be black.

I found quite a bit more out down there beyond what I’ve reported on this site, but I’d like to save much of it for the article I’m working on. But I thought I’d give those of you following the case some shots of the downtown area, enough at least to give you a setting in your mind’s eye when you read future updates.

BTW, if you’re wondering, the “Longleaf Trace” is an old rairoad line converted to a hiking and biking trail through the federal Dept. of Transportation’s “Rails to Trails” program.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 9th, 2006 at 11:26 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Cory Maye. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.