Mississippi, cops ran over a man and family of victim wasn't notified, that's right. In Mississippi, a black man was fatally ran over by a cop, and a cover up ensued. Look at the video >> Talking about the story of Dexter Wade, who we now know was killed less than a half hour after leaving his home back [00:00:17] in March. But his family only found that out this month. Wade was struck and killed by a Jackson police car, apparently as he tried to cross a highway nearby. And even though police knew exactly who they hit within days of that accident [00:00:34] officials say, his mother, Betterson Wade, would spend the next seven months, she would spend seven months looking for her son. It wasn't until 172 difficult days after Betterson last saw Wade that they came together again, [00:00:51] this time at his unmarked grave in a State run cemetery. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, this is tragic beyond belief to hear that they knew within days who they hit. And did not contact this family makes me doubt even a good progressive in the brother like Mayor Chokoi Alamumba, [00:01:10] who said he opted to call Dexter Wade's death a tragic. And unfortunate incident, but also stated there was no malicious intent on the part of city authorities who buried Wade without notifying his mother. According to WAPT Jackson news, the closest the mayor came to offer [00:01:30] some semblance of transparency was when he accounted for what led to the poor cities and police response to Wade's death. There was a lack of communication with the missing person division, the coroner's office, and accident investigation. Because of that, [00:01:45] they were unable to find desteway's family within an expeditious period of time. And he was later buried once the coroner went to them Hind's County Board of Supervisors, in order to get permission to do so, the mayor said. My god, listen, this statement is absolutely [00:02:01] disgusting from someone of a Lumumba stature. This is in full context Lumumba and I are close friends. I too am a mayor in a southern city, but before that, I was a consultant through democracy for America helping to get him elected. [00:02:17] This is absolutely disgusting behavior, not just because it was a black man, not just because he was 1520 minutes away from home. Not just because a couple of days they knew who he was, but because Lamumba chose to take this state and claim that he understands the intent of this officer. [00:02:36] He does not know the intent of this officer. And even if he did, the fact that they didn't call this person or knock on this person's door and talk to their family is absolutely disgusting. And you cannot divorce this incident from the history of how many black men swung [00:02:52] from trees in Mississippi not too long ago and at the hands of police officer. So this is absolutely disgusting, Yasmin. This behavior from anybody republican, democrat, black, white is unbelievable to me. Jackson is not a big enough city for you not to have time to knock on that woman's [00:03:09] door and tell her what happened to her son. And she spent 120 plus days looking for her son when he had been murdered, or I shouldn't say murdered, because that's a legal term. He had been killed by a police officer. >> Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, even giving the cop the benefit of the doubt, and [00:03:25] saying he didn't have a malicious intent, which, as you pointed out, there's no way of knowing what this cop's intent was. But even let's assume that he had no malicious intent, why did they not notify the mother? Why did they not notify the family? They knew that's, like, such basic decency to just do that much, right. [00:03:44] And it's important also that you pointed out that this is not a bipartisan partisan issue, right. It doesn't matter what party people are, whatever party lines you follow along. It doesn't matter who's running the city, who's running the state, the county, [00:03:59] whatever. There is common decency, and there's a way to go about doing things. And this mayor chose not to do that, this cop in the police department chose not to follow common decency. And it's really hard after you have ignored a mother's wishes, [00:04:14] you've failed to contact the mother after something like this happened, even if it was an accident, right? You failed to do the bare minimum, and it's really hard now in retrospect after so much time has passed to go back and try to pretend like you did the right thing. [00:04:31] And everybody was doing their best at their jobs when clearly they weren't. >> Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think it's also important to note that we as black people, especially southern black people, I don't need to say southern black people in this country in general. We don't have the luxury of giving cops the benefit of the doubt, [00:04:49] especially in incidents that happened in this manner. There was no forthcoming, if they knew in a couple of days who this person was then in a small town, small southern town, they absolutely knew his family was looking for him. They absolutely knew for seven months she was looking for him, and the fact that they didn't choose to share information, they didn't choose to reach out to them. [00:05:08] They didn't choose to post it on the news, in the newspaper, or on TV, that tells me something is wrong. And when I say wrong, I mean wrong against the community, but right in how America works as it pertains to black suffering, especially when it comes to police officers. [00:05:24] Wade's mother Betterston Wade has recently retained the legal services of civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who called this terrible ordeal a living nightmare for any mother. This is a living nightmare for any community. The secrecy surrounding Dexter's death, the alleged concealment of vital [00:05:41] information, and the callous barrier in a pauper's field are not just oversights, they are a grave miscarriage of justice, Crump said. This is exactly what I meant, and a lot of the times I have pushback on what Crump is saying, but this is a moment where I have no pushback. [00:05:57] The context that we have to bury this in, no pun intended, is the context in which Mississippi will allow black people in Jackson, this very city, to have nasty, dirty water and also try to restrict their political right. Yet and still they will try and kill them and [00:06:13] bury them without reaching out to their parents who are 20 minutes away from this unmarked grave where they bury their son. Yasmine, what are your take? >> Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, this is such a great example, too, of the fact that there is never just one bad apple as far as bad cops go, right? [00:06:29] This is so as you said, they've buried it, they made an intentional decision. They said, we're gonna do this, we're gonna bury him in an unmarked grave over here where the mother can't find him. We're not gonna tell the mother all of this happened with approval or at least the knowledge of people so high up, all the way up to the mayor's office, right? [00:06:48] There are so many things that went wrong with this. There are so many people who are to blame for the way that this was handled. So even, all things considered, maybe it really was an accent, maybe it wasn't. I don't know what it was, but all things considered, this is wrong, and [00:07:04] they knew what they were doing, and they should be punished for it. But the sad fact is that probably nothing's gonna happen because all the way up to the mayor's office, they're still just making excuses. >> Indeed and Betterston, which is Dexter Wade's mother, she had a statement in response to the mayor's comment. [00:07:20] And her statement was, you're gonna tell me that you're just going to get in touch with me by phone to tell me my son is dead? This is what she told NBC. What happened to a knock on the door to tell me my son is dead? Are you telling me that you all didn't tell me the whole time because you [00:07:36] didn't have the correct phone number? I paid dearly for a mistake when you could have just stepped on my doorstep? Stepped on my doorstep, that is a powerful statement. This Southern mother asking for what people call Southern hospitality. [00:07:52] She didn't even receive it in the terms of her son's death. We should go on in a note also from the Atlanta Black Star that no sobriety test was run on the cop who killed Wade. He was also never cited for violating any traffic laws. Authorities did, however, run a toxicology test on Wade's Bali, [00:08:10] which revealed that he had PCP and methamphetamines in his system. The family said he also suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, but there is nothing to connect the crash to his mental or physiological state at the time he was hit. And again, that's from Atlanta black star. [00:08:25] Listen, this idea that you need to know what's in his body, he wasn't driving a car. I don't even want to talk about what was in his system, the fact that the person that was driving wasn't cited for the crimes that he committed. Possible crimes he committed, or if he was under influence of anything, [00:08:44] we would never know, because what should have happened didn't happen. And that in itself tells us that there was no proper investigation into the death of Dexter Wade. And yet again, the state of Mississippi has claimed the life of a black man [00:09:00] with no repercussions, Jasmine >> Yeah, exactly, and whenever we talk about systemic issues in governance and in policing, this is exactly what we're talking about. Just the fact that simple protocol, things that would have been done for most other people in this officer's position were not done. [00:09:16] That he wasn't given this toxicology report, all these different things, there was no repercussions whatsoever. Just that on its own just shows that there is some systemic issues going on within the police department and all the way up to the mayor's office. They're not planning on doing anything, [00:09:33] the mayor has already released a statement. A lot of times, whenever they release these statements, what they're saying is, I've done what I'm going to do. That's the extent of it, I'm not gonna do anything else, it's done, case closed, we're moving on. And that's exactly what this mayor has done, and this is what the police department is telling us, that, you know what? [00:09:51] It happened, it's done. >> Speaker 1: That's a fact.