Jada Henderson was 18, a first-year student at Jackson State University. Lovdai Poindexter was 20. Both were killed at about 1 a.m. on Nov. 1 at The Hideaway, a Jackson nightclub, where a crowd of young people had packed the dance floor for a Halloween costume party. Seven others were wounded.
On Friday, Eddie Collier Jr., 22, of Brandon, appeared in Jackson Municipal Court charged with two counts of capital murder and seven counts of aggravated assault. A judge denied bond on the murder charges and set it at $3.5 million on the assault counts. He has not been convicted.
What Jackson police say happened at the door is the part the city needs to answer for. According to WDAM’s report on the department’s account, the club was at capacity, and Collier paid a security guard an extra $20 to let him in through the back door carrying a gun. Police have said that, once inside, he tried to rob someone who was holding cash, and opened fire when another man pushed the gun down. The guard has not been named in any report we reviewed, and we could not find a charge against him.
Police also told WDAM that Collier was on house arrest in neighboring Rankin County and was wearing an ankle monitor that he was not keeping charged. That claim comes from one outlet’s account of the department’s statement, and we could not confirm it independently. If it holds, a second safeguard failed on the same night as the first.
The Hideaway has been here before. On May 17, a woman, Alana Duck, 19, was shot and killed in the club’s parking lot, and a 17-year-old was charged with murder. Two deaths six months apart at the same address on the I-55 North frontage road is a pattern, and the license, the capacity limits and the security staffing of a business with that record are public questions.
Jackson State canceled classes Monday and Tuesday, saying the shooting had “shaken our entire campus community to its core.” Jackson is a majority-Black city, and Jackson State is one of its historically Black universities. If a door that a $20 bill can open is what stood between a Halloween party and a gunman, the cost lands on the families of students who went out to celebrate.
The city should say what it knew about The Hideaway after May, whether the club was inspected, and whether the guard will be charged. Collier has not been tried, and the club’s license is the decision city hall can make now.
Have your say