County Mayor Weston Wamp, in a speech Friday, said he did not understand how the man charged with murdering Chris Wright was cleared to live in the public, urban setting of Patten Towers.
He told members of the Civitan Club that Darryl Roberts had been arrested 66 times and never served longer than six months in jail. He also had a criminal record in North Georgia.
“There were no doubt failings at multiple levels,” he said.
He said of the 1,100 people in the county jail Friday, 594 have been arrested 10 or more times and more than 100 have been arrested more than 40 times.
“It’s uncomfortable to know there are a lot of people in our community with big criminal records like Too Tall,” County Mayor Wamp said.
He said that Chattanooga’s high violent crime rates are “not necessarily in shared spaces” like downtown or the Hamilton Place Mall area. He held that the fatal shooting of Chris Wright outside Patten Towers was abnormal, but he’s increasing police patrols in shared spaces to calm impressions of insecurity.
“Perception is reality,” he said.
The county mayor said most county inmates serve 11 months and 29 days and need a better reentry program which will provide the “single greatest return on investment” by aiding the road to a productive future.
He said he will bolster the prisoner reentry program with career-training programs in the fields of cosmetology, electrical, carpentry and welding.
On another topic, County Mayor Wamp listed his support for relocating Moccasin Bend Hospital.
He advocated relocating the state mental facility off the Moccasin Bend peninsula, relocate other “nonconforming uses” of the archeological site and turn the historical land over fully to the National Parks Service.
He said it should become a “Central Park-scale public park.”