“The young man was not dangling from a tree. He was not swinging from a tree. The rope was wrapped around his neck. It was not a noose. There was not a knot in the rope, so therefore, it was not a lynching here in Vance County.”
Umm, are you saying it wasn’t a lynching on a technicality? Everyone in the south must be Olympic level mental gymnasts. In particular to say there’s no evidence of foul play, at least.
This is like Russian dissidents falling out of windows or down stairs.
The legal definitions can be far removed from normal usage: in California “lynching” is when a crowd forcibly removes a suspect from police custody, which historically was often a prelude to what we would recognize as actual lynching (presumably it was defined that way so participants could be charged even if they were stopped before harming the victim). But it’s been used in more recent times to charge protesters with “lynching” for interfering with the arrest of other protesters.
That is interesting that it has bespoke legal definitions. The Wikipedia entry is what I expected
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an extreme form of informal group social control, and it is often conducted with the
I guess based on that definition, since it wasn’t proven yet that a group of people did this, it does not meet the criteria.
He said Magee went to a nearby Walmart shortly before he died. That is where he is believed to have bought the rope found around his neck.
If this young man bought the rope himself, if there is evidence of this like surveillance video, that paints this situation in a pretty different light.
Edit: I want to be very clear that the police should be presenting any evidence they have of this. I would not take the police at their word. My comment here hinges on the report being true.
I want to be very clear that the police should be presenting any evidence they have of this
Are you willing to wait for the investigation to finish, or do you prefer to have incomplete information so you can jump to conclusions sooner?
Brame told ABC11 that there were no signs of foul play in Magee’s death.
Suicide and lynching can look similar. The officer said no signs of foul play first, then got a little too technical on the details of lynching as a response to speculation which probabky contained those details.
Yes, the response about specific details sounds ridiculous in a vacuum. But keep in mind that what he is saying is also a way to describe why a suicide isn’t a lynching.
At least the police are reaching out to an external agency to hopefully provide some conformation on the circumstances.
I would love to see someone explain how you could commit suicide by having an untied rope around a tree.
D E D I C A T I O N
Rope was wrapped around his neck, and wrapping rope around a rough or aoft object a few times can create enough friction to keep it from moving. So loop it around the neck a few times, and around the trunk a few times, and it will behave the same way as being tied on both ends with some tension if the loops are pressed against each other.
So from a standing position loop it around the tree a few times, the neck a few times, and then sag so the friction keeps it in place. My understanding is that people who die from autoerotic asphyxiation sometimes have the rope looped around their neck without tightening it thinking it will slip off if they pass out but end up hanging themselves instead because it doesn’t slip off. Someone who is committing suicide could have the same end result if they left it untied just in case, but if it tightens and gets stuck they will still die from strangulation.
This could be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Reminds me of the episode in The Wire where the various departments wouldn’t take responsibility over the dead girls in the can because of they could t pinpoint where exactly they died and when. They care too much for the state. God forbid there’s a lynching and instead of admitting they have a problem they focus on cooking the stats.
Read between the lines, from what they revealed.
His feet were on the ground.
He bought the rope himself.
He was found not far from his semi.
The rope was wrapped around his neck and not tied together.
The guy was doing some self choking to get off. His “safety” was thinking that if he blacked out the rope would drop off him, but it didn’t work.
Given that the sheriff in question is black, and that he has requested investigations from outside parties, I think we should give him the benefit of the doubt until the investigations are complete.
Just like internalized misogyny is very much a thing in women, internalized racism is a thing, too. It’s sort of like a poor person aligning themselves with the rich against their own interests, if that’s easier for you to visualize. All that to say, I agree with the other commenter— that cop is blue.
OK, like, MAYBE everyone should quit knee-jerking and claiming being experts off a headline, and maybe this guy is a grown-up who understands the situation more than you do?
I could be wrong. But the pitchfork mentality and outrage addiction is even worse on Lemmy than it was on Reddit, and that’s really not a good thing.
There are a concerning amount of not-a-lynchings in this country.
“Lynching-lite”? “I can’t believe this is not a lynching”? “Lynching adjacent”?
What are we going with for the new term?
I can see why the sheriff doesn’t want to rush to call it lynching when there isn’t evidence of lynching specifically. BUT it appears to be a horrific and violent crime that surely should be their first priority. Sheriff’s statement is downplaying the whole thing.
There are 50,000 suicides a year in the US and only 22,000 murders, but y’all suspect it’s more likely a guy with his feet on the ground, a rope not even tied, no defensive wounds, and a rope he bought himself, is a murder victim instead of the far outnumbering suicides.
What was the rope for if it was a suicide? Seeing that we know he wasn’t hung by it.
What do you mean we know he wasn’t hung by it? What gave you that idea? The rope was tied to a tree and he was hanging. Just not so high that his feet couldn’t be on the ground. Read up about how Kung fu star David Carradine died.
I would say this department is full of “bad apples.” You might remember the kid being slammed a few years back. Even if the event was a suicide, the community will always wonder. They like to hid stuff and pay corrupt sheriffs.
