nuke
vimto1
no2liberals
Robert D
Murder of Ravens
Beto Ochoa
swampie
thea
jseedubya
cesarzambrano
epicsurvivor
Federal investigators are re-examining 43 decades-old unsolved killings in Mississippi during the civil rights years of the 1950s and ’60s. At least six of them are southwest Mississippi cases, the FBI announced Thursday. Among those cases is the Oct. 13, 1961, death of Eli Brumfield, who reportedly was shot dead by a McComb police officer who claimed self-defense and said Brumfield had pulled a knife on him after a traffic stop.
In February 2006, the FBI began to examine all unsolved fatal hate crimes that occurred before 1970. Federal, state and local law enforcement partners, as well as community leaders and civic organizations, provided information on unsolved violent crimes from the civil rights era.
Funding for the investigations comes from the Emmitt Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which was signed into law in 2007. [snip]
Another case being re-examined is the Aug. 14, 1959, ambush slaying of Samuel O’Quinn of Centreville.
According to an Aug. 17, 1959, Enterprise-Journal article headlined “Slain Negro Believed Killed By Own Race,” then-Wilkinson County Sheriff J.T. Falkenheimer told reporters after the killing that a group of black Wilkinson County residents had written an unsigned letter threatening O’Quinn days before the killing.The former sheriff said the letter claimed O’Quinn was a target for participating in NAACP-related activities.
Years later, the letter’s authenticity is questionable.
The 1959 newspaper article stated, “The letter said in effect that Negroes of Wilkinson County were ‘well satisfied,’ that they had the finest schools in the South, that they had no desire to associate with the white people, and wanted to be ‘left alone.’ It added that Wilkinson County Negroes wanted nothing to do with the NAACP … and urged the organization to ‘stay out.’ ”
I don’t know if the investigations will result in bringing justice to the murderers. These crimes are in some cases over 50 years old. Evidence will be hard to come by. Many of the people involved are dead.
But, still, it is time. It is long since time. The families of the dead deserve the closure that can only come with the truth.
Tags: Culture | Crime | civil rights | NAACP | World | federal | John | INVESTIGATORS | YEARS | KILLED | south | Black History | county | VOTER REGISTRATION | Wilkinson | unsolved | unresolved | decades-old | Amite | Mccomb | re-examined | Emmitt Till | Bennie Thompson | Enterprise-Journal | Naacp-related | Hurst (historical)
Filed under: News and politics
I don’t know, nuke.
While I like the idea of the families of murder victims having closure, this rehashing of those crimes, does more to maintain the victim mentality so many use for political purposes.
I have a SIL that is an FBI agent, and based on the types of cases he has been working on, I would hate to see him taken off of such important work that can keep Americans safe, and go trudging around interviewing elderly witnesses and suspects, who may not be capable of providing reliable information.
Sometimes, people just need to let go.
yeah, I understand. I’ve heard about these cases all of my life.
I was a small boy when most of this occurred, and I still have strong memories of the times.
It will be good to move these cold cases to the closed files. The families need it. Mississippi needs it.
But, many people agree with you.
I’m not being heartless about what the families have suffered, but I have serious doubts about the overall usefulness of working these cases, and believe FBI assets are better used elsewhere.
Just look at the number of agents that have been reassigned to investigate the various Wall Street banks. They don’t have an endless supply of field agents, and what will be unwatched could get us killed…terrorism.
I remember the problems too, though I was in East Texas, we had the Freedom Riders come rolling through our town. Some were redirected, so they couldn’t come into our town, while those that did, and caused a big riot in the center of town, they got hosed down with fire trucks. My Dad took us to see it.
I often spent time with my grandmother at work, when I visited for the summer, and she was the Registrar of Voters in a small Parrish in NW Louisiana. She got the job because of the way she felt about Black Americans, not because she was PC. Her grandfather, who she never knew, came home to die after the wounds he received fighting in the War of Northern Aggression.
I know how things used to be, and most of those folks are long gone, which makes me think this is more of a politically fueled action, rather than one seeking justice.
It was sad what happened to Emmett Till, but at that time, a young black man making sexual innuendos toward a white woman, especially one that was married, was known to get your butt in serious trouble. The men responsible for that crime have been punished, haven’t they? Having this brought out to relive again, only serves one purpose, and that is to equate the crimes of the past, with Whites in the South, all over again.