by J. Pharoah Doss
Last year, I wrote a piece called “Looking for a lynching while ignoring high rates of Black suicide.” It was about Demartravion “Trey” Reed, a 21-year-old Black student at Delta State University in Mississippi, who was found by campus personnel hanging from a tree.
The university police confirmed that there were no indications of foul play. The Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s autopsy findings were consistent with the initial investigation, determining that the cause of death was hanging and the manner of death was suicide.
Given Mississippi’s tragic history of racial violence perpetrated by Whites against Blacks, left-wing online agitators ruled out suicide, spread rumors that Reed’s body was discovered with shattered bones, and indicated that he was lynched.
The county coroner refuted the rumors, stating that Reed suffered no lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, fractured bones, or injuries associated with an assault. The police commissioner added, “We haven’t had a documented case of lynching in decades.”
Nonetheless, Reed’s family questioned the autopsy and hired civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump. Crump announced that he will collaborate with other civil rights organizations to conduct an independent investigation, while former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick offered to cover the cost of an independent autopsy.
The NAACP stated, “While initially offering no evidence of ‘foul play,’ you’d have to excuse our skepticism amidst growing racially motivated violence targeted at our communities across the nation. [But] we offer this piece of history with a level of certainty: Our people have not historically hung themselves from trees.”
I argued that the official determination that Reed’s death was suicide would have been easier to accept if Crump, the NAACP, and Kaepernick had acknowledged the surge in suicides in Black America over the last decade.
In 2015, JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) published an alarming study titled “Suicide Trends among Elementary School-Age Children in the United States.” It indicated that suicide is the leading cause of death among children younger than 12, and the number of Black children—mostly boys—under 12 that have committed suicide doubled from 1993 to 2012. The researchers added, “To our knowledge, this is the first national study to observe higher suicide rates among US Black individuals compared with White individuals.”
In 2020, MD/PhD Joshua A. Gordon, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wrote, “One often overlooked aspect of the rising rates of suicide in the U.S. is its impact on youth—and in particular, its impact on Black youth. Black people face increased rates of risk factors, including experiences of racism, higher rates of unemployment and financial and food insecurity, disparities in other aspects of health, and limited access to care, all of which result in an increased burden of mental illness in Black communities. Despite this heavy burden, Black people and individuals in other racial and ethnic minority groups have historically had relatively low rates of suicide. But this has been changing recently, especially for Black youth. As of 2018, suicide became the second leading cause of death in Black children aged 10-14 and the third leading cause of death in Black adolescents aged 15-19.”
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, suicide rates among Black youth aged 10 to 24 increased by roughly 37 percent between 2018 and 2021.
I concluded that Reed’s death should have brought attention to the disturbing suicide rate among Black youth in America, rather than serving as a reminder of Mississippi’s racist past.
Nick Judin, an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Free Press, recently interviewed Reed’s family. His article was entitled “Trey Reed’s Family Says Crump Never Shared Final Independent Autopsy Results, Stopped Responding.”
Judin said that nearly a year later, Reed’s family members believe they have been abandoned by the lawyers and organizations who first came out on their behalf when Reed’s death made national headlines. Reed’s mother told the Mississippi Free Press that she had been calling Ben Crump often. She had not heard from him since he promised to get back to her between Christmas and New Year’s.
Reed’s family feels Crump has moved on to the next high-profile case.
Judin reported that Crump has since taken cases in Mississippi, including the police shooting of infant Kohen Wiley in Senatobia and Nolan Wells’ death on Horn Island. Crump also conducted independent autopsies in both cases, with preliminary results available within weeks.
This time, right-wing content creators gleefully cited Judin’s report as proof that Ben Crump was a race-baiting grievance hustler who exploited the tragic situation for his gain. These right-wing content creators were so focused on exposing Ben Crump that they neglected to highlight the most important part of Judin’s report.
Judin indicated that during conversations with Reed’s family, they revealed a vital piece of evidence that had previously been kept from the public. Reed’s girlfriend, at the time of his death, provided investigators with suicide text messages he sent the evening before his body was discovered.
Reed’s mother stated, “The message read that he was going to hang himself.”
Reed’s grandmother also saw the suicide messages Reed wrote to his girlfriend, but here’s the most important fact: the messages also confirmed that Reed made a previous suicide attempt but failed.
Right-wing content creators continue to criticize Ben Crump, but they, like their left-wing counterparts, have ignored the high rates of Black suicide.
