Disgust and Disgrace: A Racially-Driven Murder

August 11, 2011 By

The other day I was brows­ing through the news web­sites as I always do to see what was hap­pen­ing in the world.  The every­day sto­ries were there:  Polit­i­cal bick­er­ing, stock mar­ket going up and down, the newest tech­nol­ogy devel­op­ment.  But then I saw some­thing that filled me with utter dis­gust and con­tempt – con­tempt for those who would com­mit such a ter­ri­ble crime.

On June 26, 2011 [Yes, that’s Two Thou­sand Eleven, not 1911 or even 1961], James Ander­son, 49, a black man and an auto worker from Jack­son, Mis­sis­sippi, was going about his own busi­ness at a hotel on the south side of town.  Two vehi­cles filled with white teenagers from Bran­don, a town more than 16 miles away, then pulled into the hotel park­ing lot near him.  They were out joyrid­ing and decided that they would try to find a black per­son to tor­ment.  The teens, includ­ing an 18-year-old named Deryl Ded­mon, mer­ci­lessly beat Mr. Ander­son, then got back into their truck and pro­ceeded to run him over like he was noth­ing but an ani­mal.   “I ran that nig­ger over”, Ded­mon is said to have told his friends on a cell phone call later.  It appears these teens had a his­tory of beat­ing black home­less people.

After every­thing that has hap­pened in this state since the 1960’s, I thought we had finally been able to move past the stigma that the rest of the coun­try and the world has attached to us.  But then a per­son like Ded­mon and his actions put Mis­sis­sippi right back in that racist spotlight.

This does not occur every day and every­where in Mis­sis­sippi.  And this white-on-black crime doesn’t just hap­pen here, either.  It’s in every city and every state in the nation.  And, as we’ve seen in Lon­don over the past few days, it’s also in Europe.

The thing that dis­gusts me is that when it hap­pens in Mis­sis­sippi, the whole world soon learns about it.  It becomes a national and inter­na­tional event.  It’s as if the world looks at Mis­sis­sippi and says, “See?!   They ARE all racist!”  Trust me; I’m just as out­raged and dis­gusted at these teens as you are.   They are the low­est of the low — a dis­credit and a dis­grace to their race.  I truly hope that Deryl Ded­mon is tried, con­victed, and sen­tenced to death for his heinous and cow­ardly act.  This trash doesn’t deserve to see another sun­rise.  And to those that didn’t stop him or help Mr. Ander­son:  May you bear the guilt for your cow­ardice and inac­tion for the rest of your life.

Filed Under: Crime, Local Tagged With: , , ,

Thousands honor Sheriff Garry Welford’s life of service

July 26, 2010 By

Yes­ter­day evening approx­i­mately 2,000 peo­ple turned out for George County Sher­iff Garry Welford’s vis­i­ta­tion at Shady Grove Bap­tist Church.  Accord­ing to the arti­cle, about 1,500 bot­tles of water were handed out by 6:30 p.m. by the Amer­i­can Red Cross.  The wait was some­where around 90 min­utes to get into the church.  Here is a tes­ti­mony to the kind of man Garry Welford was:

The Rev. Bruce Mcken­zie, pas­tor of Shady Grove Bap­tist Church, said Welford was a ded­i­cated church member.

“I have talked to a lot of crim­i­nals in my tenure here. The crim­i­nals I’ve talked to, they respected Garry. When you have the respect of the crim­i­nals, the law­break­ers, the law abiders, that says a lot about the sher­iff,” Mcken­zie said.

His funeral is this morn­ing at 10:00 a.m.  Thou­sands are expected to attend.

Filed Under: Local, Sheriff Garry Welford Tagged With:

George County Sheriff dies in the line of duty; Update: Suspects denied bond

July 22, 2010 By
George County Sheriff Garry Welford

Update, 2:00 p.m. — Judge Nor­man C. How­ell denied bond for Brandi Williams and Christo­pher Bax­ter.  They both came into the court­room with no shoes on, still wear­ing the clothes they had been arrested in.  Reporters asked Bax­ter if he knew the sher­iff had been run over, he said, “No”.  Williams did not respond to ques­tions.  Brandi Williams was wear­ing a t-shirt that said, “Put your big girl panties on and deal with it.”  Well, let’s see her deal with life in prison or being placed on death row.

Update 1:33 p.m. - Williams and Bax­ter are sup­pos­edly enroute from Hat­ties­burg to Lucedale for arraign­ment on the charges of cap­i­tal mur­der of Sher­iff Garry Welford.  The charges carry the penalty of death or life in prison with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole.

Yes­ter­day after­noon a ter­ri­ble tragedy struck my com­mu­nity.  George County Sher­iff Garry Welford was in the process of lay­ing out a spike strip to stop flee­ing crim­i­nals when the truck they were dri­ving struck him.  He was Life­flighted to the Uni­ver­sity of  South Alabama Med­ical Cen­ter, where he died.

Over 200 offi­cers from numer­ous agen­cies, such as:  Mis­sis­sippi Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion; George, Greene, Jack­son, and Har­ri­son County Sheriff’s Depart­ments; and the Mis­sis­sippi High­way Patrol searched all night for the losers.  The scum­bags, 18-year-old Brandi Nicole Williams and 24-year-old Christo­pher Bax­ter, were arrested at 6:20 this morn­ing by the MS High­way Patrol and are now in jail in Hat­ties­burg, MS, where they have both been charged with one count each of cap­i­tal mur­der.  The rea­son they were flee­ing?  This is it:

Bax­ter was wanted on a war­rant for fail­ure to appear for sen­tenc­ing in a meth man­u­fac­tur­ing case in which he pleaded guilty.

Williams had recently entered a pre-trial diver­sion pro­ba­tion pro­gram on grand lar­ceny charges in Jack­son and George counties.

Below the fold I’ve posted pic­tures of the crim­i­nals.  Let this be a les­son to those of you who like doing drugs or man­u­fac­tur­ing drugs.  God be with these crim­i­nals, for no one else will.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Crime, Local Tagged With: , ,

Walking in Memphis

July 20, 2010 By
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Okay, so “rid­ing” more than “walk­ing”.  My wife and I accom­pa­nied her grand­mother and brother to Mem­phis to tour Grace­land and the city as a whole.  We hit all the major “touristy” spots:  The Peabody Hotel, the old Lor­raine Motel (where MLK was assas­si­nated), Sun Records, and of course Grace­land and Beale Street.

We even stopped at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hos­pi­tal.  I felt kind of like a jerk, because while we were walk­ing around the grounds tak­ing pho­tographs of the beau­ti­ful facil­ity, a small red car stopped at the front door of St. Jude’s…a small child with can­cer, wear­ing an oxy­gen mask, was assisted out by his/her par­ents.  It really made me won­der why on God’s green earth St. Jude’s is included as a tourist attraction.

I had never been to Mem­phis, and I’ve lived in the South all my life.  I guess I took the city and its rich his­tory for granted.   But I did enjoy it, and for the most part it is nice.  (We kind of got lost on Sat­ur­day and ended up in the not-so-touristy spots of Mem­phis.  We even ran into a funeral procession.)

The next time we go, it won’t be to do the tourist thing.  It’ll be to soak up Beale and hit Ren­dezvous for some deli­cious BBQ.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Local Tagged With: , , ,

Rising Stars to Perform at a Local Benefit

March 4, 2010 By

Two of Nashville’s hottest new acts will be home in Lucedale, Mis­sis­sippi, on Fri­day night to per­form a ben­e­fit for a fam­ily deal­ing with bone cancer.

Cold­wa­ter Jane and Bran­don Green, of the duo JB Rocket of “Can You Duet?” fame, will be per­form­ing at the George County Fair­grounds Fri­day night at 7:00 P.M. for Yulanda Coo­ley.  Mrs. Coo­ley was diag­nosed recently with bone can­cer and is receiv­ing care at the MD Ander­son Can­cer Cen­ter in Hous­ton, Texas.

From the Mis­sis­sippi Press:

For sis­ters Bran­don Jane and Leah Crutch­field, who make up Cold­wa­ter Jane, their par­tic­i­pa­tion in the con­cert is a fam­ily mat­ter. Both grew up in Lucedale and Coo­ley is their aunt.

“She is a won­der­ful, won­der­ful lady,” Jane said dur­ing a phone inter­view on Wednes­day. “She is such a bless­ing to our fam­ily, and she means so much to us.”

Cold­wa­ter Jane has just released their first sin­gle, “Bring on the Love”, which they are pro­mot­ing through their label, Mer­cury Records.  Bran­don Green was awarded a con­tract with Big Machine Records.

So if you want to heard some good coun­try music and help a fam­ily in need, come to Lucedale on Fri­day night.  Tick­ets are only $5.00 at the door and all pro­ceeds will be going to the Coo­ley family’s med­ical expenses.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Local Tagged With: , ,

B.J. Johnson Update — It’s official: It was an accident

February 17, 2009 By

The grand jury cleared George County sher­iff deputy Joe Sul­li­van of any wrong­do­ing last Thurs­day in the death of foot­ball player Bil­ley Joe John­son.  They ruled there was no way Sul­li­van could have shot and killed Bil­ley Joe — he was try­ing to move his shot­gun inside his vehi­cle.  But is that enough for the fam­ily and the NAACP?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Local Tagged With: , ,

B.J. Johnson Update: Grand Jury Findings to Become Public Thursday

February 11, 2009 By

Well, it’s about time.  The grand jury in the Billy Joe John­son case will release their find­ings of a two-month inves­ti­ga­tion into his death this Thurs­day at 1:30 P.M. CST.  It will take place at the George County Jus­tice Court build­ing in Lucedale.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Local Tagged With: ,

Saturday Summary for 12-20-2008

December 20, 2008 By
pen-paper

pen-paperA lot of things have hap­pened this week:  From the iden­tity of poor lit­tle Caylee Marie Anthony’s body to the gov­ern­ment bailout of the auto indus­try to the Illi­nois gov­er­nor being accused of cor­rup­tion.  Need­less to say the media out­lets have had a busy week.  And locally, we have had our share of tragedy.

Tragedy in a Small Town

I’ve already writ­ten a cou­ple of posts about it, so I’ll just pro­vide some updated infor­ma­tion that our local paper has put out.  Appar­ently, Billy Joe John­son was a sus­pect in an attempted breaking-and-entering that hap­pen less then 5 min­utes ear­lier.  That is why he was dri­ving fast through town, ran a stop light, and then ran a stop sign.

The Dis­trict Attor­ney finally came out yes­ter­day after­noon with an inves­ti­ga­tion synopsis.

The report said that a girl, a minor, and accord­ing to friends, Johnson’s for­mer girl­friend, was alone at the Lamar Street home when she heard some­one attempt­ing to break into the front door. She looked out the win­dow, the report said, and saw John­son get­ting into his truck parked across the street from her home.

He then fled south away from the scene and she called the cops.  They were in the process of tak­ing her and her mother to the police sta­tion to file charges against him when they received the call for assis­tance from the deputy sher­iff who pulled Billy Joe over.  He had just shot himself.

Rest of the story is here.  I think the offi­cer and his fam­ily now need an apol­ogy from the NAACP and Johnson’s fam­ily for try­ing to impli­cate him in the shoot­ing.  It should be clear now as to the cir­cum­stances behind Billy Joe’s death.  The case should be closed.

Hol­i­day Mad­ness about to ensue

On another note (and a hap­pier one), today I’ll be spend­ing the day shop­ping for Christ­mas gifts.  I hope every­one else stays home — haha!  (Some­how I don’t think that will hap­pen).  So wish me luck on the shop­ping.  Hope­fully there will still be some gifts left.  And for a lit­tle bit of hol­i­day fun, here’s a funny song to sing along with!

Filed Under: Local, News, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Billy Joe Johnson Update: Questions being raised about wounds

December 18, 2008 By

A local news­pa­per, The Sun Her­ald, has this arti­cle this morn­ing regard­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into the death of local high school foot­ball star, Billy Joe John­son.  Appar­ently the family’s lawyer and the NAACP are con­cerned about some of the wounds on the body of Billy Joe John­son.  The civil rights group is also pay­ing for a sec­ond autopsy after the state examiner’s office is com­plete with their autopsy.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Local, Sports Tagged With: , ,

Local football player shot, investigation underway

December 16, 2008 By

I didn’t get to com­ment on this imme­di­ately as when I first heard of it, I was on my way out on sea tri­als and was gone until Sat­ur­day morn­ing.  Since then, I’ve been try­ing to read up on the story and get some facts.  And that’s all I’m going to com­ment on right now — the facts.

Here’s what we know so far:  At 5:34 a.m. on Mon­day, Decem­ber 8, George County Sher­iff Depart­ment offi­cer Joe Sul­li­van sees a red truck run a red light, headed south through the inter­sec­tion of Win­ter and Church streets in Lucedale.  The truck pulls in to the Ben­ndale Car­pet park­ing lot after run­ning a stop sign, and the dri­ver — Billy Joe John­son — gets out and approaches the offi­cer.  Billy Joe tells the offi­cer he’s on his way to see his sick mother and that’s why he ran the light and stop sign.   The offi­cer asks for his license and tells Billy Joe to sit in his truck while he checks it out.

As the cop returns to call in the license, he hears a gun­shot and glass break­ing.  He then sees Billy Joe fall to the ground and the weapon fall on top of him.  He then advises the dis­patcher to send help; the sub­ject just shot himself.

That’s a syn­op­sis based on the inci­dent report filed by the offi­cer.   (Here’s the inci­dent report.)  All we know is a young man is dead.  The fam­ily wasn’t sat­is­fied with the inves­ti­ga­tion, so they call in the NAACP, and now — accord­ing to this story — they are “soothed”.  I’m not a con­sipiracy the­o­rist, so I’m not going to say the offi­cer shot the foot­ball player.  I’m going to say that he’s inno­cent until proven guilty.  It very well could be that Billy Joe had a loaded weapon in his vehi­cle and was try­ing to unload it when it dis­charged.  It could be that sim­ple.  But we won’t know until the inves­ti­ga­tion has been com­pleted and the autopsy report is com­pleted.  So all you local yokels out there — please don’t spec­u­late.  Let the author­i­ties do their jobs.  And a word of cau­tion to the NAACP — don’t turn this into a race issue.  Right now it has noth­ing to do with race, and the only way it could is if you make into one.

My prayers are with Billy Joe’s fam­ily, as well as the offi­cer and his fam­ily — no, every­one involved.  This is a sad sit­u­a­tion, and it’s a shame this young man is gone.  He had a promis­ing future.

More on this as I find out.

Filed Under: Local Tagged With: , ,
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