Mississippi police murder major college fooball recruit...maybe

If the girl's family called the police, wouldn't they get a message out on the radio to go pick up the kid? Why would a cop then randomly stop him for a "traffic violation?"

 

There's something we call "The Mississippi Way" when it comes to investigations like this (as well as most other aspects of government). It's virtually impossible to get information from law enforcement, regardless of the circumstances. The state's open records laws require police deparments and sheriffs to hand over almost nothing (and that's an improvement in the past year when a new open records law ratcheted that up from absolutely nothing).

Our paper filed a couple lawsuits in the beating death of a prison inmate in the Harrison County jail. Sheriff said the inmate was under the influence of PCP (turned out not to be true) before he had to apologize. He subsequently zipped his lip when the family sued everybody and the feds started serious investigations. The main guard eventually got life in prison for the crime, but we could not get our hands on the surveillance video until after it appeared in court. The feds and county played a friendly game of "you sue us? we don't have it? the other guys do" to keep the video from us.

Combine that with the small-town issues addressed earlier and we just don't get a lot of info out of police departments around here. It's the Mississippi Way.

 

I don't argue that the kid could have just gone off a cliff mentally and killed himself. Definitely. Even a kid with all the friends and fame and acclaim this one had.

But there's just so many things in this story that don't add up:

1. cops say the kid tried to break into a trailer (but there was no evidence of that, according to the story)

2. cop follows the kid for a mile and a half...in which he runs a stoplight and stop sign...but they don't radio that in to the dispatch

3. cop lets the kid get out of the car after running for a mile and a half

4. cop takes his license and turns his back on the kid...and never indicates seeing him pull a 12-gauge out of his truck

5. cops then don't preserve the window that the bullet went through

6. cops turn the truck back over to the family one day later...but nothing else

7. pathologist for the cops cuts out super important pieces of the kid's body and then doesn't give them back

8. cops don't turn over officer's uniform from that night...or the weapon the kid supposedly shot himself with

9. investigation drags on for two months...meanwhile everyone refuses talk (all the police involved, the pathologist, the girl or the girl's family).

10. dead kid has been described in reports as a great kid with no drug issues, no alcohol issues, no steroids, lots of girlfriends, with no police record other than being stopped for driving too fast, and nothing violent has surfaced in his past.

And as for it not being the 1960's anymore, there's a quote from a white kid in the story who describes his own town as a typical racist southern town...AND says the black kid sleeping with the white girl was an issue.

Maybe the kid killed himself and maybe he didn't. But none of it looks good.

 

Try getting information from Concordia Parish, Louisiana ... Yeesh.

 

Very old story. There was nothing new in what was done than what has already been reported.
I think the only reason why Yahoo went wild on it is because it's a black kid who died during a traffic stop by a white officer in Mississippi, a place that hasn't been the friendliest of states for minorities. This could happen in any state but they went a little overboard I think because it was in Mississippi.
While the story does have many holes in it, I think it was sensationalized just a tad.

 

Don't think they went overboard because it's in Mississippi. I think they did the blowout story because it's related to recruiting. And it's an interesting story that a lot of people (including me) hadn't seen.

 

Criminal investigation aside, every cop involved with this should lose their jobs for so completely fucking up the crime scene, evidence. And I don't buy the "they're a backwater department, don't deal with many murder scenes" cry -- any dolt with a TV who's watched half an episode of CSI knows enough to maintain the scene and evidence better than these idiots did. Gross incompetence at the very least.

 

Certainly, they were incompetent, but at least some of that is caused by not dealing it with it that often. It's great to get training, but you have to put that training to use or you lose it. Not defending them in the slightest, but just something to consider.

 

Yeah, but training would bring you up closer to expert level, Deeds. These guys fell well below the common sense level -- the simple level a layman off the street would apply. Whether on purpose or by oversight is the only thing left to be determined.

 

Yeah, I guess you're right. I was just pointing out that this should be considered. There are some pretty dumb cops out there, and if it's a real small department I could see it. But looking at Donuts' breakdown of all the mistakes it was beyond bad. That makes it looks more like a cover-up than incompetence to me.

 

A final note, from me anyway.
The Sun Herald reported on this story as well as any paper could have reported on it.
They were all over it, beat the local TV stations, and got all the info they could get for presentation in the paper.
Folks, like was said earlier, are battling "the Mississippi way" in dealings with the authorities.

Can't believe there was no dashboard camera on the cop car.
Everyone's got 'em these days.
Everyone but Lucedale.

 

Love all the conclusions people are jumping to based on the way information is presented in the story. You guys are journalists, for crying out loud. You know how information can be manipulated. A sexy read, no doubt. But I think it's safe to say Mr. Wetzel and Mr. Robinson didn't play this one down the middle.

There's just as much that doesn't make sense to those sitting on the non-conspiracy side of the fence. You guys think this kid was just going over to the trailer to get some early-morning ass? What about the fact that there was no contact between the kid and the girl, according to cell phone records. The officer might have violated police procedure, but the kid violated booty call procedure. Think about it. If you are heading over to your girl's house with benign intentions at 4:30 in the morning, aren't you going to at least shoot the girl a text?

I know it is fun to jump to conclusions, and Wetzel and Robinson could have done a better job of hiding the fact that they have fun with it as well.

There are a million explanations for the kid's behavior. Maybe the girl is pregnant. Maybe she cheated on him and he was despondent. Who knows?

Bush League Cops + Family Who SWEARS he couldn't have killed himself does not equal anything other than speculation.

Sure, maybe it sounds fishy that a all-american teen would kill himself. But honestly - isn't it just as fishy that a officer would randomly decide to kill the town's star athlete in the MIDDLE OF A FUCKING PARKING LOT at a time when a passing motorist or pedestrian easily could have seen the act rather than, oh I don't know, in the woods? Or that a cop trying to murder a kid would call in a traffic stop at 5:34, a suicide at 5:40, and in the six minutes in between have enough time to shoot the kid, break the window, and position the body and gun?

Sounds to me like some shoddy police work, mixed with a grieving community and a teenager who had a hidden dark side.