The family of a 21-year-old Black man found hanging from a tree in his girlfriend's Scott County yard three years ago will be awarded $11 million in a civil suit related to his death.
Willie Jones Jr., 21, was found hanging from a tree in front of his white girlfriend Alexis Rankin's home the night of Feb. 8, 2018.
Jones' family sued Rankin, her stepfather & several others for not acting to prevent Jones' death, according to court documents filed in December 2020 in the Hinds County Circuit Court. The lawsuit alleged stepfather Harold O'Bryant, with the help of others, either hanged Jones or failed to stop Jones from taking his own life.
Jill Collen Jefferson, one of the family's attorneys, said in a news release that Judge Winston Kidd awarded the family $11,391,662.40.
Evidence found during an independent investigation — done by the Bellinder Law Firm, Jefferson & the People’s Advocacy Institute, a Mississippi based organization dedicated to transformative justice in the South — contradicted an initial ruling of suicide.
“I’m thankful, but justice for my son will only come fully when criminal charges are brought," Tammie Townsend, Jones' mother, said in the release. "They must really pay for what they did to my baby.”
Jefferson said she and her team are now working to get the Scott County district attorney to reopen the case & bring criminal charges against O’Bryant & others involved in Jones' death.
“Willie’s death is just one example of how lynchings have never stopped,” Jefferson said. “And they keep happening, in part, because, until this verdict, there has been no accountability from anywhere for these absolutely heinous crimes. But this judgement is more than someone finally being held accountable.
"It is a first step to putting evil perpetrators on notice that we will come for you."
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Source: Clarion Ledger
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