Attorney Benjamin Crump demands the DOJ investigate the Jackson PD in the death of Dexter Wade.
By Kalyn Womack
You know it’s real when Ben Crump gets involved. The mother of Dexter Wade, a Black man killed by an off-duty cop and mysteriously buried, pulled Crump for legal representation. Now, the civil rights attorney is seeking the Department of Justice to hop in the investigation.
Bettersten Wade went public telling the media she’d been looking for her son for months before finding that the police not only knew he was dead, but were the reason he died. The 37-year-old was struck and killed by an off-duty Jackson Police officer’s patrol car on March 5. By July, he was buried by the county without his family’s knowledge, per WLBT. Mrs. Wade didn’t discover what happened to her son until August.
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing the Wade family, said Monday that he planned to file a petition to have Wade’s body exhumed from the “pauper’s field” where he’d been buried.
Crump said in a news release that Wade’s current grave is marked “by a pole and number” in the field. Crump said after Wade’s body is exhumed, they would facilitate an independent autopsy and then “provide him with a proper funeral and burial.”
“We are never going to let Dexter Wade be swept under the rug,” Crump said.
This is the latest run-in Mrs. Wade has had with the JPD. The report says she filed a lawsuit in 2019 when her 62-year-old brother died after being slammed onto the ground by an officer. The cop is currently appealing his manslaughter conviction with support from the Mississippi Attorney General. Two other officers involved had their criminal charges dropped.
Crump claims the death of Mrs. Wade’s son was in retaliation for her legal action on behalf of her brother. With Crump on her side, the JPD might find themselves in yet another lawsuit.
“The family does not have trust in the Mississippi officials. And would you after this happened to your brother, your child?” Crump said in the press conference. “How could you have faith that they’re going to do right, now?”
