Legendary civil rights attorney Ben Crump will represent a Mississippi woman who said her son, 37-year-old Dexter Wade, died because of the actions of a Jackson authorities.
Wade was struck by an off-duty Jackson police officer driving an SUV on the interstate, According to news reports. (Read more Here).
Crump said Wade left his mother’s house on March 5, 2023, and never came back home. His mother, Bettersten Wade, said she reported her son missing on March 14. However, she was not made aware of his death until August 24.
In addition, Wade said that Dexter’s body had been discharged by the morgue and that he was buried in a pauper’s field.
Crump stated:
“Dexter’s story is a living nightmare for any mother. The secrecy surrounding his death, the alleged concealment of vital information, and the callous burial in a pauper’s field without his mother’s knowledge are not just oversights – they are a grave miscarriage of justice. The fact that Dexter’s tragic end involved an off-duty police officer only deepens the wounds of this community and raises troubling questions about the integrity of those entrusted with upholding the law.”
Crump also said that an investigator from the coroner’s office was able to identify Dexter using fingerprints and allegedly gave it to Jackson police to do the standard death notification on March 9. Wade said she didn’t receive any answers until August.
During the State of the City speech, Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba responded with the following explanation.
“I know attorney Ben Crump well, you know, and so I don’t have any reaction. And I still stand by the position that it was a very tragic and unfortunate circumstance and that we should be in prayer for that family. To lose a child is is is a devastating thing, but at the end of the day, it was an accident, and we need to make certain of that. And the failure was a communications failure. I don’t see any malice or any police misconduct.”
Though Lumumba is trying to smooth things over in this heinous situation, nothing can justify the police department’s actions.