An email from Vicksburg Main Street director Kim Hopkins to Police Chief Walter Armstrong criticizes him for remarks he made to The Vicksburg Post over the hiring of a security guard by the city and the way the police department patrols the downtown area.

Hopkins also told Armstrong how he should have responded to a reporter’s request for a comment on the Board of Mayor and Aldermen’s Dec. 23 decision to hire Quality Security, a local company, without consulting Armstrong.

“I think that was one of most ridiculous responses that I have received as chief of police as relates to public safety,” Armstrong said of the email. “You cannot take a wrong and make a right out of it. That entire situation (with the security guard) was handled poorly and I am responsible for public safety in this city.”

Mayor George Flaggs Jr. declined to discuss Hopkins’ email, but said the aldermen received the agenda for the Dec. 23 meeting three days in advance and could have called Hopkins or Armstrong about hiring a security guard.

“I’m not surprised a communications breakdown happened,” he said. “That’s what happens when you have 3 or 4 people running the city. I publicly apologize that it happened and in the future I will try to make certain I stay on top of it closer. I’ll make certain the lines of communication are open.”

Hopkins said she sent the email to verify she spoke to deputy chief Bobby Stewart. She was also critical of The Vicksburg Post publishing an article about hiring the security guard.

“It doesn’t make sense why you do an article on something positive and make it negative. That’s what doesn’t make sense,” she said Wednesday, adding she signed the contract hiring Quality Security the morning before the board approved it.

According to the email, Hopkins said she consulted the police department about the security guard.

“I did discuss security with the police department,” she wrote. “It might not have been you, but it was your next in charge. If it is a communication problem within your department, then that is your problem, not mine.

“Do not throw that blame out to the paper on Main Street or me. I discussed the hours that Officer (Joseph) Stubbs and your other officers worked and when we would need security with deputy chief Stewart on more than one occasion. Officer Stubbs and I also had to call officer (Eric) Payman to get James Lee with Quality Security phone number so several of your officers knew what was going on.

“If you really had that much concern (about the security guard), I think you would of called me. I think Main Street, the mayor, and aldermen, all know to hire a real security company.”

She also objected to Armstrong’s comments to The Vicksburg Post over the way the hiring was handled.

“First of all, the professional thing to say (to the reporter) would have been that Mrs. Hopkins had not discussed security with me, but let me check with my deputy chiefs and see if she discussed it with them,” Hopkins wrote.

Stewart said last week he talked with Hopkins, who told him Main Street was thinking about hiring a security guard. In a Dec. 23 interview after the board’s action, Hopkins said she never told Stewart the city was going to hire a security guard.

“Thinking about it and actually doing it are two different things,” Armstrong said, adding since Hopkins did not say there were plans to hire a security guard, Stewart “apparently didn’t see any need to inform me, because nothing had been executed, nor did she say she was definitely going to be hiring security.

“When she made decision to hire, that’s when she should have spoken to me and got my take on it,” Armstrong said.

After criticizing Armstrong for his comments to the paper, Hopkins accused the chief of not always being available when she called him to discuss issues affecting downtown, and criticized the way the police patrol the area, writing she has brought complaints about vagrants and panhandlers and needing for foot patrol downtown in the area to his attention and claiming the officers are not doing their job downtown.

“Then if you really want me to get down to it, your patrol at night does not need to just sit in their vehicle at Riverstage parking lot,” Hopkins wrote. “They are down there to patrol on foot and walk around.

“That means check the parking garages, walk between Cinnamon Tree and Peterson’s on Crawford Square onto Gordon’s alley and walk around to the Theatre side on Clay Street and down to Rusty’s and back up the sidewalk. That is foot patrol not sitting in a vehicle in a parking lot across from one bar.”

Armstrong said he has received emails from Hopkins outlining problems with vagrants and panhandlers, even about litter downtown. He said the downtown area “gets police security several hours a day as well as night from VPD. This is the only part of the city that gets that level of police protection for the citizens and the residents and the merchants downtown.”

Downtown, he said, gets police protection almost around the clock and he has have an officer assigned to the area Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and officers at night patrol the area from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m.

“We have made it a priority over the last two years to add extra security downtown,” he said.

He added the officer Hopkins refers to as sitting at the Riverstage parking lot is on special assignment because of complaints from residents living downtown about loud music, and because of calls about fights downtown.

“While I don’t necessarily disagree with having an extra set of eyes and ears downtown, it’s imperative that if you’re going to do it, the chief should know it,” Armstrong said. “Just as she copied me and everyone else about the negative letter, sent out in terms of my handling the security, she very well could have done the same thing with the plans to hire the security guard.”