Mississippi police murder major college fooball recruit...maybe

The most logical explanation is that the gun went off accidentally.
I've said that from the get-go.

That doesn't mean something else might not have happened.
But that's the most logical explanation.

 

I won't speculate all over the map as some have but can clear up a few things about the topic of roids

First, a clean tox report means nothing if he was using and had cycled off for a significant period of time.

Second, a user who does cycle off can suffer terrible mood swings as well, and episodes of depression.

Third, did the baseball guys caught with PEDs teaching us nothing about the fact that you can be doing roids or HGH or whatever else is available and not look like Ahhnold?

 

That was the only real conclusion I jumped to, armageddon. If he did kill himself, I'd bet on that being a reason. Of course, he could have just been reckless/depressed. But I knew three people in high school who were on steroids, and all of them are dead now. And all three killed themselves. Not that that proves anything, but that's been my experience.

 

Fact of the matter is that with the lack of concrete evidence, the truth will never be known.

 

I thought it was pretty balanced. Kind of hard to play it all the way down the middle when one side refuses to take any questions. That said, I think the two guys who wrote this have reputations that speak for themselves. And I mean that in a good way.

 

Things that make you go hmmmmm?

 

Couple thoughts, after reading the whole thread and then reading the story:

- The thread title is insulting. There is absolutely no evidence, nor even much speculation outside of a couple quotes by a grieving father, that "Mississippi police murdered a major college football recruit." Absolutely uncalled-for, unless or until there's some reasonable cause to believe that might have happened. Right now, nobody knows.

- Even taking into account this story's blatant speculation and sensationalism, there seems to be a mountain of evidence that the investigation was mishandled by the local cops. Just a shoddy job all-around, and I can't imagine there's anything they could say -- when they finally do start talking -- to make up for or excuse that fact.

- The on-and-off girlfriend is the key to this whole story. Sounds like her mother is a kook, who may or may not have held a grudge because her white daughter was dating a black classmate, but the girl knows something. Either something about Billey Joe's possible state of mind or something about their encounter that morning (what she'd say to him before he finally left?) or something about their relationship in the previous days and weeks before his death ... something. Whether that information explains what happened an hour later is TBD. But she's the one who can open up some leads.

- I'll end it on this: Suicide is a strange, strange creature. Don't for one second believe that his teammates or family -- especially his parents -- have any idea if he was "capable" of committing suicide. You don't know who's thought about it, you don't know who's attempted it, you don't know what demons people might be fighting even if their lives seem to be perfect on the outside. That shit can affect anybody, even promising football prospects who like to have fun and hunt and drive a little too fast on country roads late at night. You just don't know.

 

The three best pieces of evidence that can help solve this scientifically are:

1 - The deceased's skull
2 - The car
3 - The officer's uniform.

Of those, a good portion of the skull is missing or the state is unwilling to allow it to be examined, the car window with the gunshot hole was destroyed, and the officer's uniform cannot be or was not examined. So, the chance of this being solved from a strictly forensic standpoint have virtually been eliminated--you decide if that's strictly coincidental or not. I know I lean heavily to not.

The skull pieces being withheld are the most interesting to me. That would really tell a lot about angle of trajectory, etc. that could potentially rule out the deceased being able to fire the weapon himself. And they would have also been able to match that up with the shot through the window to get even more definitive in terms of the angle and direction of the blast.

If I'm an official with the state or municipality and I know I'm clean on this, I'm getting as much information out in public on this as I can to support my case. When the exact opposite is happening in terms of releasing information and withholding evidence, it only leads me to conclude the opposite.

 

And if you tried to do that, any lawyer worth his salt would duct-tape your mouth shut before you said anything stupid.

When you're not involved, it's easy to say "if I had nothing to hide, I'd make sure to let anybody know." That's not the way it works in the real world.

 

May have not phrased this right, because I wasn't inferring just any state joe would go popping off, but rather the person in charge at the top could control the release of at least some information favorable to their cause if the facts supported their story. If the truth was on their side, the higher ups should know how to provide certain details that support their side of the story and give it their spin.

 

Kind of reminds me of a similar story from a small Mississippi town several years ago. A kid Raynard Johnson? (I think was his name), was found hanging by a belt from a tree, and it was ruled a suicide. He had been dating interracially, and his family said he wasn't depressed, had everything going for him, wouldn't kill himself and all that. They also said they didn't recognize the belt that was used to hang him. The NAACP got involved, Jesse Jackson held a march, 20/20 did an investigative story. Pretty much everyone assumed he was killed, and it was covered up.

Later it turned out info on his computer showed he was depressed, and camera at a gas station he went to earlier showed him wearing the same belt his family didn't recognize. More information came out that made suicide look more plausible. However, 20/20 didn't do a follow-up and Jackson didn't come back down. I don't know the truth, and maybe no one ever will, but suicide is a personal thing and you never know what might push someone over the edge.

I don't want to paint 2009 Mississippi with the brush of 1964 Mississippi, and having had a past there and an interracial family, I can say sometimes these things are just the same kind of sad tragedies that could happen anywhere, and aren't always the product of racism.

 

Not sure it's related, but there are some similarities (without the racial undertones) and I thought of this thread when I read it. Just shows that seemingly good kids sometimes kill themselves:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/article974034.ece