People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2016, attorney says(npr.org)
npr.org
People have been buried behind a Mississippi jail since 2016, attorney says
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/12/1224449631/mississippi-jail-graves-investigation
7 comments
NPR is very much implying the "paupers grave" is being used by the police to dump "inconvenient bodies"
These things happen.
Bettersten Wade told the anguishing story of how, months after she filed a missing persons report about her son, Dexter Wade, she was finally told that her son was dead at age 37. The police also told her that county officials had buried him in the local pauper's field, she said.
Police investigators said Dexter Wade had been struck and killed by an SUV driven by an off-duty Jackson Police Department officer on Interstate 55, just hours after his mother last saw him. The police report said Wade was on foot at the time.
These things happen.
The NBC article they link to (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bettersten-wade-dexter-...) says that it wasn't the just family making repeated calls to the police asking about the guy they hit, the coroner’s office was too. There was something very wrong with that police department.
Welcome to government in the South
It’s hard to understand the mindset of casual incompetence and corruption if you’re not from there. Local government runs on nepotism and good ol boys networks - it’s such a standard ingrained practice that it is not even surprising or cause for concern when you notice it. It’s part of why these areas stay perpetually poor and get brain drained to hell
It’s hard to understand the mindset of casual incompetence and corruption if you’re not from there. Local government runs on nepotism and good ol boys networks - it’s such a standard ingrained practice that it is not even surprising or cause for concern when you notice it. It’s part of why these areas stay perpetually poor and get brain drained to hell
Sounds like thats a feature not a bug for the police.
> These things happen.
"It's not a placed to dump inconvenient bodies, it's just a place where at least some of the bodies are people of known identity who were killed by police or corrections officers that cleared themselves of wrongdoing and somehow forgot to tell anyone."
Very reassuring. I think we can all agree that this isn't worth investigating because Mississippi has always been a place bereft of racial bias and government corruption.
"It's not a placed to dump inconvenient bodies, it's just a place where at least some of the bodies are people of known identity who were killed by police or corrections officers that cleared themselves of wrongdoing and somehow forgot to tell anyone."
Very reassuring. I think we can all agree that this isn't worth investigating because Mississippi has always been a place bereft of racial bias and government corruption.
A racial breakdown of the dead would be illuminating.
It's been over 2 whole years since they removed the confederate stars and bars from the state flag, why always with the prying questions?
Cop kills someone (allegedly by accident) and then the police bury him in a pauper’s grave and don’t inform any relevant parties.
>> These things happen.
No, they really don’t. That’s why it has made national news.
>> These things happen.
No, they really don’t. That’s why it has made national news.
I secondly agree with you. You can't just even pauper graveyards. That is all terrible.
A charitable reading of the post you're responding to would probably note some sarcasm in that quoted line.
Oops! Definitely. It actually looks to have been a clever use of irony. The internet is such a hard place to be clever though, in that people tend to take things at face value.
I believe defrost was being satirical.
we can identify 215 individuals that were buried behind that jail, and their families have not been notified
> These things happen.
215 times, apparently.
> These things happen.
215 times, apparently.
These things should never happen. They only do happen in a horrendously corrupt system.
the medical field has a corresponding term (Never event):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_event
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_event
That might be true of many of those buried there. But the story describes someone who wasn't unidentified; he was buried with his ID in his pocket and his family had been looking for him for months. At best incompetence, but given the circumstances (evidently he was killed when he was hit by an off duty cop's car) it looks suspicious, like they might have been trying to cover it up.
According to some posts I read on Reddit about this it was likely a retaliation thing after a family member of the victim was beaten to death by a fellow police officer who is now in prison.
unidentified persons
> These persons are either homeless people, inmates from local jails who died but relatives never claimed their bodies, unidentified persons who officials were never able to connect with family, or even persons who died" whose families couldn't afford a funeral.
"Inmates from local jails" and "unidentified persons" are separate categories.
"Inmates from local jails" and "unidentified persons" are separate categories.
the legal system is more than willing to prosecute a John or Jane Doe
Another issue with this burial arrangement is that the deceased are interred in a restricted area.
This is completely counter to the long established design and custom of cemeteries - which is to be a welcoming place for loved ones.
And counties bury paupers in established cemeteries. Hines county certainly did as well. And did so long before this dumping ground was started. The procedures to inter these people in public cemeteries where already in place. They simply needed to be followed.
There is no need to put grieving families though a restricted entrance process, just so they can visit their loved one's graveside.
This is completely counter to the long established design and custom of cemeteries - which is to be a welcoming place for loved ones.
And counties bury paupers in established cemeteries. Hines county certainly did as well. And did so long before this dumping ground was started. The procedures to inter these people in public cemeteries where already in place. They simply needed to be followed.
There is no need to put grieving families though a restricted entrance process, just so they can visit their loved one's graveside.
> Another issue with this burial arrangement is that the deceased are interred in a restricted area.
Perhaps even more tragic is that these sort of burial arrangements are commonplace at state psychiatric hospitals.
These hospitals are where they send the worst of the worst: uncontrollable, criminally insane, extreme and present danger to self and others. And then, of course, people die in custody and they are sometimes buried on the grounds, behind bars, essentially, in a cemetery where nobody can visit them, except perhaps the staff of that self-same hospital, who aren't likely to care in a month, much less 20 years down the line.
Perhaps even more tragic is that these sort of burial arrangements are commonplace at state psychiatric hospitals.
These hospitals are where they send the worst of the worst: uncontrollable, criminally insane, extreme and present danger to self and others. And then, of course, people die in custody and they are sometimes buried on the grounds, behind bars, essentially, in a cemetery where nobody can visit them, except perhaps the staff of that self-same hospital, who aren't likely to care in a month, much less 20 years down the line.
Sounds like it’s a dumping ground for anyone the local police accidentally (or intentionally) kill
sure does... makes the nationwide database maintained by the Washington post seem incomplete (the one about fatal police shootings)
https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/tree...
https://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/tree...
I first thought this was one of those cryptic YouTube things. Holy smokes is this terrible. No person deserves an unmarked grave. Everyone deserves a proper burial or cremation.
Interesting which non-tech news stories make it on HN.
What surprise me the most is that when I usually post stories like these, they get buried/flagged almost right away... luckily it didnt happen in this case.
Man, it really seems like the police shouldn't be legally allowed to murder people.
psynister(1)
An investigation would be a very good idea just to make sure that none of those bodies were being dumped there by the prison or by the police. Especially since the police were lying to families about the "missing" relatives that ended up there.