When Bettersen Wade's son Dexter went missing, she didn't know what to do. Distraught, she searched for answers, but no one seemed to have any information.
Until now. Recently,
215 bodies were discovered in a pauper's graveyard behind a county jail near Jackson, Mississippi. Dexter was among them.Dexter's mother
learned that a police officer had hit Dexter with his car and killed him - then brought his body to the mass gravesite behind the jail, where he was buried without ceremony. No one ever notified his family, even though he had a wallet in his front pocket with his name, address, and ID. It was still there after his body was exhumed.
Sign the petition to demand justice! The U.S. Department of Justice must investigate this corrupt and chilling county, now!Lying near a nondescript dirt road, the graves are unnamed, each marked only with a metal rod and a number. According to civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump,
there are actually at least 672 people buried in that field - but it's only been possible to identify 215 of them, due to incomplete coroner records.
While the group of people buried is multiracial, those subjected to this horrible fate have been disproportionately Black.Usually, the protocol for when a person dies at the hands of police or while in custody is that authorities are supposed to exhaust all resources looking for their families or next of kin. But in Hinds County, that didn't happen.
Even worse, the county is demanding that relatives actually pay a fee to retrieve their loved ones' remains from this field of horrors. There is no way to justify such inhumanity.
Families are working together with Mr. Crump to demand a full investigation into how such an atrocity could occur. We must stand with them and demand answers now! Sign the petition to urge the Department of Justice's immediate involvement!