Mississippi police murder major college fooball recruit...maybe

That's the way I read it, that the kid went over there to get some, probably pounded on the door then went to her window and she wasn't having it. So she calls her mom, and mom calls the cops saying he tried to break in. No way a kid of that size and strength can't get through a shitty trailer door if that's what he wants to do.

As for convicting the deputy in the thread title, I said "maybe". And that's all those cops deserve considering they refuse to talk about what happened that night. Doesn't anyone else think it's odd that this has gone on almost two months, with no comment from the cops, no comment from the family? And meanwhile, the pathologist is cutting out pieces of the kid and not turning them over, the cops are busting out a window, the police follow a kid for a mile and a half and supposedly let him get out of his car and then go back to the car and get a 12-gauge? It stinks to high heaven.

Yeah, maybe the kid lost his mind and killed himself (which I still think is far fetched). But the cops didn't help with all the mistakes, or by refusing to comment, or by taking their sweet ass time with an investigation, or by telling the family of the girl not to talk.

 

A.) the girl was home alone. So how would the mom call the cops?

B.) He was supposedly pulled over for running a stop sign or a stop light or something. Had nothing to do with his visit to his gf's house.

C.) Story clearly states he could have kicked the door in if he wanted to.



I have no idea what happened, and neither do any of you. But to read that and say it seems "pretty plausible" that it was a suicide when the timeline was shot all to hell in the story (no pun intended) seems like you're willfully ignoring more than half the story.

 

Great story, but I wasn't really enamored with the ending. Seemed a little forced or abrupt to me. A few thoughts:
1.) I definitely can't see how anyone could read that story and find it "pretty plausible" that the kid killed himself. Too much just doesn't add up.
2.) We're not talking about NYPD here. These guys probably don't deal with murder/suicide scenes that often, so mistakes are going to be made. Which would explain the window being broken (accidentally or not) and the uniform being sent to the dry cleaners.
3.) It did seem to me that the officer was shaken up, which made me think the OTHER officer might be involved, since he reportedly arrived within a minute of the shooting. My gut tells me that he arrived from the GF's house and was pissed about him harassing the (white) girl and took care of it. Now the chasing officer is helping him cover it up. Just a theory.
4.) Don't see how he could have done much at the GF's house to cause him to kill himself before he is found out. And why would he try to get out of the ticket and then do something that drastic? Makes no sense.

 

This is an old story, for most Mississippians, Mobilians and Gulf Coastians.
The topic of steroids has been bandied about on the street, from time to time during the investigation.
No real reporting has been done on that topic, that I'm aware of.
Steroids, and how they affect one's behavior. Whether or not this kid used them.
That sort of thing.
It's certainly been mentioned out of print. I have no way of knowing if he used them.
I never met the guy or ever even saw him play a down of football.
To me, it seems logical that he panicked with the gun in the car and moved to do something with it, and it went off accidentally.
Lucedale has quite a bit of interracial relationships and dating, compared to other nearby areas in southern Mississippi and the Coast.
FWIW

 

It says in the Yahoo story that his toxicology report came back clean for steroids.

 

Yeah, it mentions steroids and says there was no evidence. I guess there would be the possibility that they'd worked out of his system. But it's not like the kid was gigantic. 5-10, 205 pounds. He looked big, but not THAT big.

As for the other stories that had been done, this report looks like it's the most comprehensive. Nothing else seems to tackle the timeline and how it relates to questions, forensics, inconsistencies and mistakes that were made. The report makes the whole investigation look like a clusterfudge.

 

Many inconsistencies.
A shame there was no dashboard camera, like the Ole Miss hoops coach had when he was arrested in Cincy recently.

The mention of steroids is good to see, because the topic has been passed around on the street.
Good reporting on what is truly an old story.
Hopefully some closure can eventually come for the family and the curious public.

 

Yes, I'm ignoring half the story... The part where the grieving parents and their lawyers make a host of excuses and wild claims (yeah wild) as to why their son was murdered..
That story has a LOT of speculation. It makes a lot of leaps, with little proof on both ends.
I've covered a couple of similar situations and I can safely say in ALL of those cases the cops were not at fault.
In one case, where two kids were out joyriding and tried to elude cops at 100 MPH, crashed and died, the cops did NOT say a word for weeks. Weeks! The gossip was ridiculous. It was police cover up. Tunred out, the chief didn't want to further upset the parents.
When they got the ME report it turned out the kids (15) had been drinking. The chief played things close to vest - small town community - and didn't want to upset the parents.
There are a lot of questions, but in my mind ... the kid killed himself.

You guys believe what you want, but suicide seems much more plausible than a cop cover up of a murder.

 

Two weeks? This has been two MONTHS. And please, explain to me why the kid had pieces of his head cut out - half his skull, his brain, his jaw, his tongue - and those parts still haven't been turned over to the pathologist that the family hired. That doesn't strike you as odd, on top of the fifty other stupid things the cops did? I mean, damn, one thing, two things, even three things I could understand. But it just goes on and on in this story....on top of the fact that what appears to be a popular kid with big time prospects ahead of him just inexplicably blew his own head off a few seconds after giving a cop his license and an excuse about his sick mom.

 

Odd? Maybe.
I did see where the attempted to interview the ME or the Coroner. I have no idea why they would keep that stuff. Neither does the writer.
What are the 50 mistakes the cops made?
Not following proper procedure, there were some variations there, but this is a small town and the kid was known to officers for traffic violations. Were the mistakes?
Did the cops do aynthing that would lead them to either kill the kid or make the kid take his own life?
The kid didn''t have to be on steroid or drugs to take his own life in that situation. Search he internet and you'll find stories of kids (at least one who dinged dad's car, wnet hime and blew his head off). Hormones rage throgh kids. They are rash and impulsive and wreckless.
The circumstances surrounding this would make suicide a plausible possibilty. a lot more than dirty cops killigng black kid for dating a white girl. Not saying its not possible, but this ain't the 1960s anymore.

 

Great story! Thanks for posting.

 

I agree that there are just too many inconsitencies. But I see Evil's point. The first part of the story I was very skeptical and thought the family was just upset/trying to pin the blame on someone else. And that could be the case. But it all is just too strange and seems unlikely to me that he just suddenly snapped and killed himself. And it's pretty damn tough to kill yourself with a shotgun, as stated in the story, because of the kick/length of the barrel. Not saying it can't be done, though.
Steroids was my first thought. I know a few people who have killed themselves over the years, and nearly all were on or thought to be on steroids. The story seems to address that, but it could just be that they weren't detected.