On April 29, the relatives of 25-year-old Rasheem Carter, a black man whose decapitated body was found on October 2, 2022 in Laurel, Mississippi, led a protest in Taylorsville, Mississippi, demanding justice for Carter after the discovery of more human remains.
The family, dissatisfied with how the police handled the case and accusing authorities of obstructing the investigation, organized the protest.
Rasheem’s mother, Tiffany Carter, reported her son missing in October 2022 after he called her saying he was frightened by a group of white men in trucks who were harassing him. Tiffany shared the chilling account of her son being chased by three truckloads of white men intending to hurt him. She had urged him to seek shelter at the nearest police station.
Laurel Police Department Chief Tommy Cox, who managed the initial missing person case per the family’s request, confirmed that Carter visited the Taylorsville Police Department twice before disappearing. A month later, his remains were discovered in a wooded area near Taylorsville. Although foul play was not initially suspected, the investigation continued.
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents the Carter family, said earlier that Rasheem’s head had been severed from his body and some body parts were missing.
Carter’s family believes his death was a “modern-day lynching” and seeks more information from law enforcement. In March, police stated there was no evidence of murder, suggesting that animals might have caused the damage to his body.
A deer camera captured Carter in the Mississippi woods on the day he disappeared. In an interview with Insider, Tiffany Carter voiced her conviction that her son was fighting for his life in those moments.
On Thursday, Attorney Crump announced that the Mississippi Crime Lab informed the family that another set of remains, found in February, were linked to Carter.
The family now calls for a federal investigation into Carter’s death.
Modern-day lynchings refer to racially-motivated acts of violence against individuals, primarily targeting African Americans, that evoke the historical practice of lynching in the United States. While the term “lynching” is often associated with hanging, modern-day lynchings can involve various forms of violence, including beatings, shootings, and other brutal attacks. These incidents are fueled by racial hatred and can have lasting effects on the targeted communities.
Although lynching is no longer a widespread practice, several cases in recent years have sparked concerns about the resurgence of racially-motivated violence reminiscent of historical lynchings:
In 1998, a 49-year-old black man, James Byrd, Jr., was murdered in Jasper, Texas by three white supremacists. He was tied to the back of a pickup truck and dismembered while being dragged for three miles. The inhumane nature of this crime evoked the brutality of historical lynchings.
In 2020, a black man named Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was chased and killed by three white men while he was jogging in a Georgia. The attackers said they thought Arbery was a burglary suspect.
The 2020 Minnesota killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, by a white police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes, caused widespread protests all over the US against police brutality and racial injustice.