Mississippi’s capital city is moving closer to choosing its next chief of police.
Jackson Mayor John Horhn announced Wednesday the names of four finalists for the position of being top cop in the state’s largest city: RaShall Brackney, Joseph Daughtry, LeJon Roberts, and Wendell Watts.
“My main priority throughout this process has been to find the right leader to build trust, reduce crime, and strengthen the partnership between our officers and the residents they serve,” Horhn stated when announcing the finalists. “We started with 32 applicants from across the country, narrowed that group to seven, and are now down to four finalists after careful review, public listening sessions, and extensive vetting.
“This has been a deliberate, thorough process, and I am committed to appointing a chief who reflects Jackson’s values, listens to our community, supports our officers, and is ready to work on day one.”
Like the rest of Horhn’s administration, whoever is appointed chief of the Jackson Police Department must be confirmed by the city council.
In a release, Horhn provided biographies of the four remaining candidates:
- RaShall Brackney is a nationally respected law enforcement executive, scholar, and public safety leader with over 35 years of experience. She spent three decades with the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police and later served as police chief for George Washington University and the city of Charlottesville, Va. Brackney is currently a professor at George Mason University, where she teaches courses on advancing policing, public safety, and community trust.
- Joseph Daughtry has nearly 30 years of law enforcement experience, highlighted by his current position as chief of police in Columbus, Miss. In 2025, Columbus experienced a full calendar year without any homicides – an achievement that hadn’t been seen in over two decades. He is the former president of the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police and currently serves as vice president of the Greater Mississippi Chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives.
- LeJon Roberts has more than 27 years of law enforcement experience and currently serves as police major with the New Orleans Police Department, where he provides executive leadership within NOPD’s Field Operations Bureau, the division responsible for the city’s 24/7 public safety operations. He oversees NOPD’s most complex and high-risk operational components, including special operations in several of the city’s most violent districts. His portfolio includes command oversight of special units such as tactical platoons, K-9, explosives ordinance disposal, marine, search-and-rescue operations, traffic fatality investigations, and violent offender apprehension teams.
- Wendell Watts currently serves as the assistant chief of patrol operations for the Jackson Police Department, where he oversees citywide patrol operations, criminal investigations, the Crime Gun Intelligence Center, NIBIN operations, the Intelligence Unit, Special Operations, Community Engagement, and multiple interagency task forces. He has 30 years of public-safety leadership experience, including serving as chief of the Gluckstadt Police Department and at Merit Health Central Hospital in Jackson.
The four candidates will have their final in-person interviews on Thursday with Horhn and his police chief search committee, which has been working for months since Joseph Wade’s retirement to garner public input, examine applications, conduct interviews, and narrow the list down. The committee was aided in the process by the Police Executive Research Forum, a national firm credited with successful law enforcement hires in places like Boston and Denver.
Whoever is selected as chief of the Jackson Police Department will inherit a city that has made strides recently in curbing crime but has plenty of room to improve. In 2025, Jackson saw 75 homicides, a stark difference from its record-high number of 160 in 2021.