Jackson city councilman Kenneth Stokes thinks the city needs to change ambulance companies or go into the ambulance business.

He's upset that a shooting victim had to wait 21 minutes for help last Friday night. The shooting was at the Pleasant Oaks Apartments on Bailey Avenue in the inner city at about 10 p.m.

Stokes says the victim, 25- year-old Lee Joseph Martin, had to wait 23 minutes for help because police had not secured the shooting scene. He held a news conference at the apartment complex.

"You have got to take the risk. You can't let citizens die. Because if you are wounded, you say I'm not safe. Now if you can't assume the risk then give it to the person who can assume the risk," said Stokes.

Monique Watson, the mother-in-law of the victim, had called councilman Stokes about the incident. "If you are scared to come over here and get somebody off the ground that's hurt, then you don't need that job."

AMR spokesman Jim Pollard said it is national policy that ambulances do not go into shooting scenes until they are sure the scene is secure and that is to protect emergency personnel.

"It's a policy of virtually an ambulance service anywhere in the nation, to protect the medics and EMT's, if an EMT or medic gets hurt, they can't help anyone else," said Pollard.

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