........a young man with a bright future ahead of him is dead. That can't be overstated. It's a horrible tragedy. The other reason to be sad is that this is another unfortunate case that leads people to believing this state is still nothing but some backwoods, corrupted, racist cesspool. Maybe I'm just biased, but I believe that couldn't be further from the truth. This state, in my opinion, has come much further in race relations than many states, including ones that aren't even located in the southeastern US. There are a lot of reasons to be proud of where we stand today, yet isolated and mysterious incidents such as this one only seem to perpetuate many myths that keep hanging over our heads.
Now I too am not an "NAACP type," as others have said. In other words, I believe that when such an organization comes out so quickly and makes a determination that an incident was "not a suicide," it only serves as a detriment to a proper investigation. Because when they do that, all they're doing is stirring up people unnecessarily before all the facts come to bear. How do they know what the truth is, except for what they'd like to believe that's necessary to serve their own agenda?
All I can say at this point is that I believe the whole situation is very mysterious. On one hand it seems there's no way possible this young man would have killed himself, but I don't know how many times that people say they would have never imagined it possible when a person commits suicide. Sometimes it just happens, with no particular rhyme or reason known to others. This could also very well be a rare case of an officer who a) screwed up royally and tried to cover it up, or b) is a closet psycho killer. Hopefully the investigation finds out whether either are true, or if this was just a suicide. I just wish people wouldn't jump to conclusions before investigators release their findings and/or charge someone with a crime.
This sort of incident doesn't just happen in MS, ya know.