Mississippi’s attorney general says authorities used reasonable force in five shootings

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – Law enforcement officers appropriately used force in five shootings in Mississippi between 2021 and 2023, including a shooting involving escaped prisoner– state Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced on Monday.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation investigated each of the shootings, and the attorney general’s office reviewed the findings.

Leake County Sheriff Randy Atkinson, three of his deputies, four Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agents and one National Park Service ranger were involved in a confrontation with escaped inmate Dylan Arrington on April 26, 2023.

Arrington, 22, escaped from the Hinds County Jail and barricaded himself in a home in the Conway community near Carthage, about 70 miles northeast of the jail.

Atkinson said Arrington set the house on fire after exchanging gunfire with officers. Arrington’s body was found in the charred house.

Fitch said the remaining shootings occurred on Nov. 17, 2021, in Waynesboro and involved two Waynesboro police officers; April 17, 2022, in Horn Lake, with a DeSoto County Sheriff’s Department agent; March 22, 2023 in Southaven, involving one detective from the Southaven Police Department; and May 23, 2023, in Columbia, which involved two Marion County Sheriff’s Department deputies.