A Hanging in Bladen County

[AthenaAwakened]

http://www.wect.com/story/27614486/fbi-looking-into-hanging-death-of-lennon-lacy

BLADENBORO, NC (AP) -
A prosecutor says the FBI is looking into the hanging death of a black North Carolina teen after his family questioned the official ruling that he killed himself.

Seventeen-year-old Lennon Lacy was found hanging by a dog leash and a belt from a swing set in a trailer park in August. The state medical examiner ruled it a suicide, based on reports from law enforcement and a county coroner. That coroner says he now questions if it was a suicide because of so many unanswered questions.

 

[ronburgundy]

http://www.wect.com/story/27614486/fbi-looking-into-hanging-death-of-lennon-lacy

View attachment 1746

BLADENBORO, NC (AP) -
A prosecutor says the FBI is looking into the hanging death of a black North Carolina teen after his family questioned the official ruling that he killed himself.

Seventeen-year-old Lennon Lacy was found hanging by a dog leash and a belt from a swing set in a trailer park in August. The state medical examiner ruled it a suicide, based on reports from law enforcement and a county coroner. That coroner says he now questions if it was a suicide because of so many unanswered questions.

Hmmm. I don't know. Are there many racists in trailer parks?

 

[Derec]

Of course even if it was murder we do not know by whom and for what reason. So a bit premature to blame "racists" for it or call it a "race based homicide" like NAACP is doing.
Reminds me of that "gym mat" case from Valdosta, Ga.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Of course even if it was murder we do not know by whom and for what reason. So a bit premature to blame "racists" for it.
Reminds me of that "gym mat" case from Valdosta, Ga.

Did anyone say it was racists?

Could be incompetence in the Bladen County Sheriff's dept.

But since I will most likely be going to the protest rally in Bladenboro Saturday, I will be sure to pass your expert analysis on to the boy's parents. I'm sure they will take it with all the gratitude it deserves.

 

[Derec]

Did anyone say it was racists?

Yes.

Lennon Lee Lacy was found last summer hanging from a noose on a swing set in Bladenboro. Family members and the NAACP have called his death a "race-based homicide" and asked for a federal investigation, saying local authorities rushed to reach a conclusion and did not fully investigate the case.

FBI to review Bladen teen's hanging death
Also ronburgundy, unless he was just taking the piss.

Could be incompetence in the Bladen County Sheriff's dept.

Could be. Of course it could still turned out to be suicide. That's not exactly inconceivable.

But since I will most likely be going to the protest rally in Bladenboro Saturday, I will be sure to pass your expert analysis on to the boy's parents. I'm sure they will take it with all the gratitude it deserves.

What analysis? I merely said we should not be jumping to conclusions that it was race based.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Did anyone say it was racists?

ronburgundy implied that two posts up from your post.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Yes.

Lennon Lee Lacy was found last summer hanging from a noose on a swing set in Bladenboro. Family members and the NAACP have called his death a "race-based homicide" and asked for a federal investigation, saying local authorities rushed to reach a conclusion and did not fully investigate the case.

FBI to review Bladen teen's hanging death
Also ronburgundy, unless he was just taking the piss.

Could be incompetence in the Bladen County Sheriff's dept.

Could be. Of course it could still turned out to be suicide. That's not exactly inconceivable.

But since I will most likely be going to the protest rally in Bladenboro Saturday, I will be sure to pass your expert analysis on to the boy's parents. I'm sure they will take it with all the gratitude it deserves.

What analysis? I merely said we should not be jumping to conclusions that it was race based.

I did not post from the WRAL site.

WRAL is in Raleigh while WECT is in Wilmington and has been in more contact with the family.

ALSO, you can't really say for certain what someone IMPLIES only what you have INFERRED.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

If it isn't racism, definitely march for better understanding of depression and suicide.

 

[laughing dog]

Did anyone say it was racists?

ronburgundy implied that two posts up from your post.

Funny, I thought just the opposite.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

If it isn't racism, definitely march for better understanding of depression and suicide.

Oh definitely.

I am not certain what happened that night, but I would like answers. Correct answers for once.

A few years back, there was a big corruption scandal in Bladen county. Deputies within the sheriff's department charged that Bladen county was a "Criminal Paradise." Now everything was supposedly cleaned up, people resigned, the whole thing.

I would hate to think that corruption has come back.

 

[EricK]

I was reading about this earlier today in an article written by his mother:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/my-son-lynched-police-lennon-lacy

(There you will also find links to the original reporting of his death:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...arolina-teenager-suspicious-death-lennon-lacy
and the update about the FBI investigation:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/12/fbi-investigate-lennon-lacy-north-carolina)

A lot of unanswered questions it seems.

Can anybody give an explanation for the shoes that makes sense in any scenario? i.e. even if he was murdered, and the murderer stole his shoes, why would that murderer not only leave his own shoes behind but also take the trouble to put them on the body?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Over the past few weeks, I’ve thought a lot about Ferguson and Staten Island. Lennon wasn’t killed by a police officer – of that much we can be sure. But there is a connection. My son, Michael Brown, Eric Garner – three black men who were all treated by police as though they didn’t matter. That their lives, and the circumstances of their deaths, were immaterial.

But we don’t accept that. We won’t accept that. My son’s life, and his death, are not immaterial. That’s why we’ll be marching on Saturday through Bladenboro to tell the town, the state of North Carolina and the whole of America that we care. That we demand a full and thorough federal investigation. We demand the truth. Tell us what happened to Lennon Lacy. Tell me what happened to my son.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/my-son-lynched-police-lennon-lacy

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

ronburgundy implied that two posts up from your post.

Funny, I thought just the opposite.

I wish that surprised me.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So many unanswered questions? I wish some article would go into a few of them.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Following Barber, the Lacy family’s attorney, Allen Rogers, unpacked the “right questions” Barber mentioned in his speech, which was largely directed at the noticeably absent district attorney.

According to Rogers, investigators have not questioned the ex-husband of the white woman in her 30s Lacy was seeing before his death. Investigators haven’t been able to provide a reasonable answer for where scratches on his body came from. And they haven’t been able to answer any questions regarding the flow of traffic in and out of the trailer park between the hours of 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., the time during which Lacy is believed to have died.

Though Lacy’s body was found on Aug. 29, police have yet to release an autopsy.

“We don’t have the power nor the skills to review the death claim, so we must rely on law enforcement, and we must ensure that law enforcement does not come up with a predetermined answer and then move to ensure that the facts meet that particular answer,” Barber said. “Instead, there needs to be an objective review and a thorough investigation.”

Though many of the speakers at the service, including Barber, conveyed their message to investigators using scripture and biblical passages about truth and the importance of people in positions of authority doing right by the people, Barber didn’t shy away from taking a more direct approach as well.

Barber spoke about how one of the reasons the NAACP was founded was to stop lynchings, and while he was careful not to say that is what happened to Lacy, he made sure to raise the possibility.

“The image of a black man or boy hanging by a rope is etched in the souls of all of us,” Barber said. “It’s in the DNA of America. And in 2014, we’re not accusing anybody. Our greatest prayer and hope is that this was not a lynching … We’re not suggesting what happened. Nobody knows, and that’s why there has to be a deep investigation. But you have to understand that the history of racism breeds distrust.”

http://www.indyweek.com/news/archiv...nvestigation-into-hanging-death-of-black-teen

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That seems like pretty weak questions. If he was killed, you'd expect "unexplained bruising", not scratches.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I was reading about this earlier today in an article written by his mother:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/my-son-lynched-police-lennon-lacy

(There you will also find links to the original reporting of his death:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...arolina-teenager-suspicious-death-lennon-lacy
and the update about the FBI investigation:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/12/fbi-investigate-lennon-lacy-north-carolina)

A lot of unanswered questions it seems.

Can anybody give an explanation for the shoes that makes sense in any scenario? i.e. even if he was murdered, and the murderer stole his shoes, why would that murderer not only leave his own shoes behind but also take the trouble to put them on the body?

The mother says she would have seen changes if he was depressed--yet apparently didn't see changes due to the ending of his relationship with the white woman.

This sounds to me like one of these cases where suicides go out of their way to make it look like murder to avoid the stigma.

- - - Updated - - -

I was reading about this earlier today in an article written by his mother:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/12/my-son-lynched-police-lennon-lacy

(There you will also find links to the original reporting of his death:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...arolina-teenager-suspicious-death-lennon-lacy
and the update about the FBI investigation:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/12/fbi-investigate-lennon-lacy-north-carolina)

A lot of unanswered questions it seems.

Can anybody give an explanation for the shoes that makes sense in any scenario? i.e. even if he was murdered, and the murderer stole his shoes, why would that murderer not only leave his own shoes behind but also take the trouble to put them on the body?

The mother says she would have seen changes if he was depressed--yet apparently didn't see changes due to the ending of his relationship with the white woman.

This sounds to me like one of these cases where suicides go out of their way to make it look like murder to avoid the stigma.

 

[ronburgundy]

Funny, I thought just the opposite.

I wish that surprised me.

You're both wrong. I was making a joke by pointing out that a racist murder in a trailer park would be not be too surprising. While closer to JH's interpretation, the joke doesn't presume that is was in fact a racist murder, just that such an explanation is made more plausible by the fact that it occurred in a trailer park.

Going beyond that, and assuming there is evidence of it being murder, how plausible is it that it was racially motivated? I am guessing that any applications of statistical info related to such types of crimes (such as would be done by a competent FBI agent) would find that a racial motivation for such a murder is highly plausible. Hanging people is a rather needlessly involved method just to kill them. It implies an attempt to send a message. It is also tough to do for a single perp, unless he killed or drugged the victim first, then hung him. If he was killed by the hanging itself, then there is a high probability that it was a group of people involved who went out of their way the use the method of hanging to kill this black man. Any rational observer would consider racism as one of the more plausible motives for such a murder.

So Athena, given that racism is in fact a highly plausible factor, if this was a murder, did you really post this with no thought that it might be an instance of modern lynching? Was the only reason you put this in "politics" because it suggests that this DA is incompetent?

 

[AthenaAwakened]

I wish that surprised me.

You're both wrong. I was making a joke by pointing out that a racist murder in a trailer park would be not be too surprising. While closer to JH's interpretation, the joke doesn't presume that is was in fact a racist murder, just that such an explanation is made more plausible by the fact that it occurred in a trailer park.

Going beyond that, and assuming there is evidence of it being murder, how plausible is it that it was racially motivated? I am guessing that any applications of statistical info related to such types of crimes (such as would be done by a competent FBI agent) would find that a racial motivation for such a murder is highly plausible. Hanging people is a rather needlessly involved method just to kill them. It implies an attempt to send a message. It is also tough to do for a single perp, unless he killed or drugged the victim first, then hung him. If he was killed by the hanging itself, then there is a high probability that it was a group of people involved who went out of their way the use the method of hanging to kill this black man. Any rational observer would consider racism as one of the more plausible motives for such a murder.

So Athena, given that racism is in fact a highly plausible factor, if this was a murder, did you really post this with no thought that it might be an instance of modern lynching? Was the only reason you put this in "politics" because it suggests that this DA is incompetent?

Wether or not it is a lynching is not a point one can make without a thorough investigation. Such an investigation was denied in this case, and that is an afront to the deceased, his family and the community at large. Before you get to lynching, you need to deal with the worth of the deceased. It is custom here to count black life cheap, and that is why we fight, why we protest, and why I posted.

Black Lives Matter

 

[ronburgundy]

Here is a forensic research article related to the thread and to .

The article points out that suicidal hanging occurs about 100 times more often than homicidal hanging. Thus, without evidence pointing to homicide, the odds overwhelmingly favor suicide. Failure to observe clear evidence consistent with a suicide would not be close to enough to favor homicide as an explanation. Thus, you'd need pretty strong evidence of homicide to claim the police and DA were incompetent in treating this like a suicide.
OTOH, the article makes my same points that hanging is rather difficult to pull off, especially by a single person. This supports the argument that if there is evidence of murder, the hanging method suggests particular types of motives and likely collaborators, and racist lynching would be a clear plausible candidate for a group of people having a particular shared motive to kill a person is such a manner.

In sum, good evidence of foul play is needed to favor murder over suicide, but if murder is plausible, then racist lynching becomes a highly plausible motivation for that murder.