Death by Cop 2022-2024
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Dexter Wade
Gender : Male
Age : 37
Race : Black
Date : 03/05/2023
Location : I-55
City : Jackson
County : Hinds
State : Mississippi
Agency : Jackson PD
Officer(s) :Unknown
Cause of Death : Vehicle
Event : Run over by police car and secretly buried by police
OPEN RECORDS SUMMARY :
Dexter Wade had set out on foot through the Mississippi woods with a friend on March 5, 2023 and never returned home. His family looked for him desperately, searched the woods and made reports with the police who claimed no knowledge of what happened to him. Seven months later, his mother found out that he had been hit and killed by a police car while crossing a highway less than an hour after last being seen. Police reportedly knew his identity throughout and also knew the name and contact information of his mother but instead of contacting family, police left his body in the morgue for months and finally quietly buried him in the jail’s penal farm without notifying family. His mother Betterston Wade said their family was tragically familiar with Jackson Police since they murdered her 62-year-old brother George Robinson (court case linked below). The officer was convicted of manslaughter for brutally slamming the elderly man to the floor and killing him. The officer was convicted in 2022 and is currently appealing the decision. The case erupted into race controversy between the black District Attorney and the white Attorney General who is known for protecting the status quo. When Dexter Wade first disappeared, his grandmother urged his mother not to call the police because grandma was very distrustful of Jackson Police. The mother hoped that he would be found and reported him missing with the police. By then, police had his body in the morgue and knew his identity but did not inform his family. The family asked everyone who knew Dexter. His children canvassed the neighborhood, asking who may have seen him. For months, the family called Jackson PD and was told that police knew nothing every time. Jackson PD did not explain why they handled this case this way. There is no dashcam or bodycam footage and the entire story of him having been run over by police on the I-55 rests upon the credibility of police in this case. Jackson PD had targeted the family before when Dexter’s uncle was killed. Now they withheld all information about the death of Dexter Wade from the family for 7 months while they buried him without an autopsy or family knowledge or consent, having known his identity all along. Police finally disclosed that allegedly, an off-duty police corporal had struck and killed Dexter Wade with a police SUV. The officer was not DUI-tested and was not charged or ticketed for the fatal accident. Police tested him for drugs and found some meth and prescription drugs in his system. He had a prescription bottle in his pocket that had been legally prescribed to him. The coroner claims that he obtained the name and number of Wade’s mother and left her a voicemail. The mother has no record of such a phone call. No further efforts were made to notify the family. The family posted all over Facebook, hoping to find him. Meanwhile, the coroner confirmed in his own notes that “no family or next of kin has been notified yet” and police continued stonewalling. The coroner confirmed that he had been aware for a number of weeks that the family had not been notified. Meanwhile, the family was posting messages to help find him throughout the neighborhood, the police department and social media. One day after the last call by his mother to police, Jackson PD quietly buried him. His mother now questions whether the strange concealed death of her son by police could have something to do with the death of her brother. “Maybe it was a vendetta. Maybe they buried my son to get back at me,” she wonders. She also says that the timeline police gave is not possible. The location where he was allegedly run over and killed was a longer walk from the house than he could have mastered on foot by the time police logged the accident into the system. The mother openly questions whether the police narrative is true at all or not.
SOURCE LINKS :
Uncle’s homicide by Jackson Police Department:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mississippi-ag-tries-overturn-jackson-police-manslaughter-conviction-rcna95364
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23883135-fitch-brief-in-fox
