It was after 2 a.m. when the police chief called the mayor to report another night of violence in Greenville, Miss. This time, one of the city’s former high school football stars was fatally shot while visiting his hometown.
News of the death on May 28 of 18-year-old Alex Foster, a redshirt freshman on the Baylor University football team, ricocheted across the small Mississippi Delta city, and it was not the only case of violence in recent months. Days earlier, a 16-year-old boy was killed in a drive-by shooting while in the back seat of a family member’s car stopped at an intersection. Weeks before that, stray bullets struck the windows of a school building, forcing a short lockdown.
To Errick D. Simmons, the three-term mayor of Greenville, and Marcus R. Turner Sr., the police chief, this spasm of violence had plunged the city into crisis. Crime rates had spiked since January, a “surge” mostly related to gang activity and retaliations among minors and young adults.
So on the same day as Mr. Foster’s shooting, Greenville officials declared a state of emergency and imposed a temporary citywide curfew: With limited exceptions, no one would be allowed on the streets after midnight. For minors and young adults, the curfew was stricter.
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