Leland police dispute ends with firings after special meeting
A special-called Leland meeting ended with Chief Jimmy Myrick and a sergeant fired after alderpersons split 3-2, with no public explanation given that night.
The Leland Board of Alderpersons ended a special-called meeting at City Hall by firing Police Chief Jimmy Myrick and a police sergeant, closing a dispute that had surfaced earlier in the session over dispatch staffing. Alderwoman Nancy Jo King said she and one other alderperson voted against the terminations, while three alderpersons voted in favor.
The May 14 meeting in Leland covered three agenda items: the mayor’s youth council, the parks and recreation department, and police department personnel. During the police discussion, Myrick proposed hiring two people as dispatchers for the Leland Police Department, a detail that underscored how staffing and control of the department were already under pressure before the executive session began.
No reason was given publicly for the firings that night. The lack of an explanation left the city’s residents with a decision affecting public safety, dispatch coverage and trust in the department, all in a community of 3,950 people, according to the 2020 Census. The police department operates from 320 North Broad Street in Leland, a small Washington County seat where city politics and law enforcement can quickly overlap.
The personnel action also came after a year of intense scrutiny surrounding the department. Myrick had led the Leland Police Department through the October 2025 homecoming block-party mass shooting, when 20 people were shot and seven people were killed. Authorities later announced nine arrests connected to that case, making the leadership changes especially significant for a department still carrying the burden of that investigation and its aftermath.
Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act allows public bodies to move into executive session for certain personnel matters, but state guidance says the reason for doing so should be specific and discrete. Mississippi municipal law places hiring and firing decisions with boards of aldermen, while the mayor oversees daily operations and votes only to break a tie. In Leland, the vote at City Hall showed those powers colliding in a public dispute that moved from staffing questions to the termination of two senior officers.
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