Calls for fed probe after Mississippi man killed by police and buried without family’s knowledge – National & International News – THU 3Nov2023

Calls for feds to probe death of Mississippi man killed by police, buried without family’s knowledge.

Alabama court OKs state to put inmate to death with experimental method.

Growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza with more than 9,000 dead.

NATIONAL NEWS

Calls for feds to probe death of Mississippi man killed by police, buried without family’s knowledge

On March 5, 2023, Bettersten Wade had an argument with her son Dexter, 37, after which he left her home. That night, Dexter was struck and killed by an off-duty Jackson police car as he was attempting to cross an interstate highway on foot. Police identified Dexter by a prescription pill bottle he had on his person. Officials say they attempted to reach Bettersten but were unable to. Dexter’s body then lay unclaimed in a morgue until he was finally interred in an unmarked grave at Hinds County jail’s penal farm.

But, Wade’s mother knew nothing of this. Dexter, a father of two daughters, had a history of mental illness and addiction, so when she hadn’t heard from her son for a few days after their argument, Bettersten feared the worst. Just days after she last saw Dexter, Bettersten filed a missing person’s report with Jackson Police. She made appeals on social media asking for any information as to her son’s whereabouts. “He just disappeared off the face of the Earth and nobody knew where he was. None of his friends, nobody,” Bettersten said.

It wasn’t until almost 6 months later that she learned what had happened.

Despite claims by officials that they had made several unsuccessful attempts to reach her, Bettersten says she never received any call. Jackson Police have not commented, but Jackson’s Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, attributed the situation to a lack of communication between the missing person’s division, the coroner’s office and accident investigators. “It was in fact an accident and there was no malicious intent,” Lumumba said last week.

Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Wade family, is calling for a federal investigation of the incident. Crump also plans to petition the court to exhume Dexter’s body for an independent autopsy. Dexter will then receive “a proper funeral for his mother and his daughters and his family,” Crump said.

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Alabama court OKs state to put inmate to death with experimental method

In a 6-2 decision, Alabama’s Supreme Court has granted the authorized an execution warrant for Kenneth Eugene Smith. Smith was one of two men convicted in the 1988 murder-for-hire killing of Elizabeth Sennett. In its court fillings, the state attorney general’s office indicated the state’s intent to put Smith to death using “nitrogen hypoxia,” a never-before-tried method. Mississippi and Oklahoma have also authorized this method for executions but have never used it. The justices issued no comment on the state’s proposed method of execution

Smith’s attorneys have previously denounced the state’s intention to use their client as a “test subject” in what amounts to human experimentation. State officials have theorized that forcing a person to breathe only nitrogen would result in a relatively painless death. There is no scientific or medical evidence to support this claim.

Maya Foa of the human rights group Reprieve has said that the protocol for the procedure produced by the Alabama department of corrections is “alarmingly vague – officials evidently don’t know what they are doing and are hoping for the best. The state is treating a human being like a guinea pig in a laboratory and calling it justice.”

The court’s ruling comes less than a year after Smith survived a failed attempt by the state to put him to death using lethal injection. “Alabama has tortured Kenneth Smith once already, strapping him down and stabbing him with needles for more than an hour in a failed attempt to kill him. It is astonishingly reckless and cruel to try again using an untested execution method that has every chance of causing terrible suffering,” Foa said.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Growing calls for a ceasefire in Gaza with more than 9,000 dead 

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll in Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign of Gaza has surpassed 9,000, with more than half of them being people under 18. President Biden recently remarked in a news conference that he “doesn’t trust” those numbers since the Gaza Health Ministry is ultimately controlled by Hamas. However, the Biden administration uses the ministry’s numbers internally in their own accounting. In previous conflicts, the ministry’s numbers proved to be largely correct (or even an undercount) when independent agencies have gone to the trouble of verifying them once a crisis has passed.

Despite condemnation from US and Israeli government officials of private individuals, politicians, rights groups and international bodies who have called for a ceasefire, there is widespread support for a ceasefire among Americans. In a poll taken between October 18 and 19, 66% of US voters “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that the US should call for a ceasefire in Gaza and should use its influence with Israel to prevent further civilian deaths. By party affiliations, this was 80% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans. It’s likely those numbers have only grown since.

In recent weeks, the US has seen large-scale demonstrations by pro-Palestinian groups, Jewish Americans, and human rights groups demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. On October 19, more than 300 Jewish Americans were arrested at the Capitol for protesting US support for Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. Over the weekend, another 300 Jewish protesters were arrested in a demonstration that saw thousands cram into New York’s Grand Central Station to demand a ceasefire. Earlier this week, anti-war group Code Pink protested in the Senate Chamber as Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testified in favor of the US sending more military aid to Israel.