Phoenix Man Gets 46 Years for Drugs and Shooting Another Man in Foot, Leg

"Crawl, punk!" the man known as "Mississippi" yelled, reloading his 20-gauge after blasting a man in the right foot. Then, according to a news release by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas' office, the 62-year-old man fired again, striking his victim in the left leg. The scene went down in a south...

By Ray Stern

February 2, 2009

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"Crawl, punk!" the man known as "Mississippi" yelled, reloading his 20-gauge after blasting a man in the right foot.

Then, according to a news release by Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas' office, the 62-year-old man fired again, striking his victim in the left leg.

The scene went down in a south Phoenix apartment complex in late 2007. "Mississippi," whose real name is Jimmie Lee Ford, (at right), was later arrested and charged with aggravated assault and drug possession. Today, Ford was sentenced to 36 years for the ag assaults and another 10 for the drugs. That's a lot longer than some murderers get, which says more about the criminal justice system than whether "Mississippi" deserves 46 years for his crimes.

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Ray Stern is the former news editor of Phoenix New Times. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Arizona for more than two decades. He's won numerous awards for his reporting, including the Arizona Press Club's Don Bolles Award for Investigative Journalism.