Ole Miss wants 3 students charged in James Meredith noose case
Source: Los Angeles Times
University of Mississippi police are pushing for criminal charges to be filed against three 19-year-old male freshmen suspected of placing a noose and a flag with a Confederate battle emblem on the campus statue of civil rights icon James Meredith.
The students declined through their attorneys to be questioned by university police about the Sunday morning incident, which the school has described as vandalism on the bronze statue of Ole Miss' first African American student.
Campus Police Chief Calvin Sellers said in a statement Friday that he and the universitys lawyer believed that sufficient evidence exists to bring criminal charges against the suspects, and pledged to help state and federal authorities in the investigation.
The university said the three Ole Miss students are white. The FBI has said this week that hate crime charges could be filed if authorities determine that the act of placing the noose on the statue was meant to intimidate African Americans.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ole-miss-suspects-noose-james-meredith-20140221,0,6423345.story
Chakab
(1,727 posts)heritage.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)doesn't either ... It was just a rope used to hold the symbol of heritage.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Just a statue of "some black guy" from what to them is the stone age...
Chorophyll
(5,179 posts)Too bad people are still raising their kids to be racists. Disgusting.
haele
(12,676 posts)Their justification will most likely be "we was drunk, bored and just bein' ourselves, having fun; it's not like we did that to a real person. It's just a statue, after all. We really didn't hurt anyone - hell, we didn't hurt the statue at all."
Probably living in confused resentment right now, away from their communities and families that all look the same and think the same, even if they did have the grades to go to a university.
Of course, this is just a supposition. But there's a few young people I have met over time that would do that sort of thing, and confused resentment with no self-awareness was usually the driving force behind their most stupid or venial activities and words.
Haele
erronis
(15,328 posts)Poor white kids with rich (enough) parents who haven't learned social values.
Throw them in the cage with a few other poor kids from other walks of life and let them learn some "values".
Grins
(7,228 posts)Was the statue damaged? Story doesn't say that it was.
Get tossed out of Ole' Miss; sure. Criminal charges? That's a bit of a stretch.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)And should be punished as such.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)that someone even has to explain that.
erronis
(15,328 posts)I'd much rather see the gaols of the fine USA (Corrections Corp of A) filled with idiots such as these versus our current race-based emprisonment.
Where do you draw the line on intimidation?
Grade-school bullying? Sexual harrassment? Job-related pressures from a predatory boss/coworker? Spousal abuse? The list goes on.
How about Criminal Charges that will stay on the record for N years until the perps have demonstrated that they are capable of living in society without afflicting pain on others?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)He's an interesting guy. He used to be on TV in Mississippi a lot when I was growing up.
jsr
(7,712 posts)Ole Miss frat suspended, noose suspects kicked out
OXFORD, Miss. (AP) -- A fraternity chapter at the University of Mississippi was indefinitely suspended Friday by its national organization and three of its freshman members were kicked out because of their suspected involvement in hanging a noose on a statue of James Meredith, the first black student to enroll in the then all-white college.
In a statement, Sigma Phi Epsilon said it suspended the Alpha Chapter at the university and the chapter voted to expel all three men and turn over their identities to investigators.
Police on Sunday found a noose tied around the neck of the statue, along with an old Georgia flag with a Confederate battle emblem in its design, which has since been updated to exclude the emblem.
When Meredith tried to enter Ole Miss in fall 1962, Mississippi's governor tried to stop him. That led to violence on the Oxford campus.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Binge drinking, sexual assault, and racial intimidation... the holy trifecta of the US southern fraternity.
alp227
(32,052 posts)I'm not making these up...
Black thug knocks out elderly white victim. Not a Hate Crime.
Somone puts a rope on a statue. HATE CRIME!!!! OH MY GOD!!
(freaking out here)
CALL THE FBI. OFFER A $25,000 REWARD.
/geez
Could Ole Miss football players have been to blame?
Ole Miss linebackers Denzel Nkemdiche and Serderius Bryant were arrested this weekend in separate incidents.
(Note: Both those football players are...black. That's the trick undertone of that post. When I first saw that story I thought, geez the University of Mississippi can't catch a break huh?)
Number of black Americans lynched during the era of Jim Crow: less than 2,000.
Now remind me again which race has more right to be intimidated by a noose.
Basically all these comments are either retro Mississippi bigotry or following the Lee Atwater playbook change the subject to the Knockout Game, OBAMA IS CORRUPT, and back-handed trash talk about black people.
It's so frustrating. In America, people exist who rationalize this despicable, ignorant act of bigotry...and they post their bullshit online proudly...and they vote.