Less than 48 hours before his first appearance in federal court on civil rights violation charges, Jackson Mayor Frank Melton had other things on his mind Monday.
Dressed in white shorts and a white golf shirt, the mayor was preparing to teach swimming lessons to a group of youths at a city pool on Mill Street.
“I promised the kids last week that I would come out and work with them in the water,” he said Monday afternoon. “It’s a stress reliever. It gets a little stress off of me.”
The first-term mayor is under a lot of stress these days. Last week, a federal grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Melton and his two police bodyguards, Michael Recio and Marcus Wright, who now are on administrative leave from the Jackson Police Department.
