BUZZ
OPINION: Al Sharpton, Ben Crump, and others imply Nolan Wells likely victim of racial attack because he died in Mississippi
The tragic death of a community college football player continues to spark insinuations of a hate crime, despite an extensive grand jury investigation resulting in no criminal charges.
Since the tragic Fourth of July death of Southwest Mississippi Community College athlete Nolan Wells on Horn Island, the race hustling industry has been in full motion suggesting racial motives behind the fatality. After all, Wells was on the island with his three white friends, and Mississippi has a history of racial violence. So goes the argument.
Proponents of the racism theory cannot accept the possibility Wells stayed on the island to socialize with a woman, as his friends maintain.
Tawana Brawley spokesman Al Sharpton naturally is leading the murmuring campaign. “I don’t know what happened. But I got your history of Mississippi,” Sharpton said in August. “And the history tells me: Black boy (who) goes out with three White kids. Three White kids come back. There’s a blurred story on what happened.”
The insinuations have not stopped despite a Sept. 18 grand jury decision, which included five black Americans, to not move forward with any criminal charges.
Attorney Benjamin Crump shared what he saw in messaging on Wells’ phone during a recent press conference. “The messaging, as I said, was very telling … some of his own friends were concerned about (how) people on Horn Island can be racist,” he (pictured) said.
Crump, for his part, has reportedly ghosted a prior client’s family after he promised to have an independent autopsy conducted into the black college student’s suicide.
Other commentators and academics have promoted the hate crime theory.
“Despite all of the attempts from people on social media, as well as communities fighting to see something done in this case, it ultimately has ended with no one held accountable for Wells’ death,” George Johnson wrote for Huffington Post.
Johnson sees a broader issue at play: “The ongoing conversations about Black people in predominantly white spaces has once again been brought to the forefront, with many people vocalizing that a reversal of the circumstances would never have played out this way,” he wrote. “Law enforcement would not rest if a white teen, out with his Black friends, met the fate Wells did.”
(Nevermind that a prosecutor having a grand jury review evidence is law enforcement looking into a death).
University of California Los Angeles “expert” Terence Keel, director of the school’s “BioCritical Studies Lab,” likewise did not accept the grand jury’s conclusion.
“We already know that this investigation got off on the wrong foot when police preemptively came out and said they didn’t expect any foul play,” Keel told Fox 5 Atlanta.
He suggested Crump’s team is going to continue investigating the issue (the same thing Trey Reed’s family believed).
Keel said several days ago the Snapchat messages would be “revealing” and “fascinating.”
“The forensic data doesn’t show tampering with Wells’ phone, though some messages were deleted,” the Clarion-Ledger reported on Sept. 28. The full messages can be read here.
Wells’ friends have subsequently accused Crump of stoking outrage, leading to threats against them.
That won’t bother Crump or Sharpton – their main goal is getting media attention and creating racial hysteria, not getting justice for victims.
MORE: ‘No evidence’ to support numerous racism claims, Georgia high school says
