Page 12 - IAV Digital Magazine #461

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Mississippi Family Seeking Justice For Black Man Found Hanging From A Tree
Willie Jones Jr. was found hang- ing from a tree outside at the home of his child’s mother on Feb. 8th in the Mississippi coun- ty of Scott County.
Now seven months later, his family has joined together with
the Scott County Chapter NAACP, the New Black Panther Party, the Jackson Chapter of the Malcolm X
Grassroots Movement, and two Jackson lawyers to learn more information about Jones death.
October 22 about two dozen people came to the Masonic lodge near the Jackson State University campus to plan the next steps to garner communi- ty support for the case the Jackson Free
Press reported.
“I can’t sleep, and I won’t sleep until justice is served,” Tammie Townsend, Jones’ mother, said.
In a statement released by the family stated Jones had been dating a white woman in her 20’s off and on for a few years and they had a child together. Jones accompa- nied his child’s mother to her home just before he died.
The woman and Willie were alleged to have an
argument, “Less than an hour later, Willie’s mother, Tammie Townsend, received a call saying her son was hanging from a tree in his child’s mother’s front yard” according to the statement.
Scott County Sheriff Mike Lee said that his
untimely death is consistent with suicide and has no evidence of a racially motivated crime according to the Associated Press.
Lee said witness- es told his office that Jones got into an altercation with his girlfriend and threatened to hang himself shortly before he was found dead near her home.
However, Jones mother does not believe her son committed sui- cide.
“Saying my son hung himself—I don’t believe it. I’ll never believe it,” Townsend said. “There is nothing they can do to make me believe my child hung himself. He didn’t have a drug prob- lem, he wasn’t depressed. He
was always smil- ing. He’d give you the shirt off his back. And I know this is what he would want me to do.”
Thomas Bellinder, one of the lawyers work- ing this case pro bono, stated that this case is ongo- ing and could appear before the grand jury in November.
Bellinder con- demned the legal system that he says is built to protect the inves- tigation, and “in reality the investi- gator.”
“We need all eyes on this case to pressure the county and the state to do what it’s supposed to do,” Bellinder told the newspaper.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine