Connect with us

Mississippi Today

The Emmett Till lynching has seen more than its share of liars. Is Tim Tyson one of them?

Published

1 year ago

on

Award-winning historian Tim Tyson swears he heard admissions regarding Emmett Till’s lynching and another racial murder.

Admissions that weren’t recorded. Admissions that no one else heard. Admissions that he began hearing when he was 10.

“The question is not whether Tim Tyson fooled us once,” said Devery Anderson, author of “Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement.” “The question is whether he fooled us twice — and got away with it.”

Tyson has said he heard these admissions. He didn’t respond to requests for comments on the Till matter, but he has previously spoken to me, the FBI and others. All these are noted.

Tyson’s 2017 book, “The Blood of Emmett Till,” lit the bomb that exploded around the world with this claim: The white woman at the center of the Emmett Till case, Carolyn Bryant Donham, had admitted she lied when she testified that he had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities.

For some in the Till family, such as his cousin, the Rev. Wheeler Parker, the revelation represented the hope of clearing his cousin’s name. “I was elated,” he said.

He had longed to hear Donham say she lied about Till and planned to forgive her when she did, said the longtime pastor. “I was raised to believe deeply in forgiveness. If you don’t forgive, God won’t forgive you.”

Tim Tyson Credit: Courtesy, Simon & Schuster

For some in the Till family, the revelation raised hopes of a possible prosecution. His cousin, Deborah Watts, said there should be “a revisiting of the evidence in light of this revelation,” and Bennie Thompson, the Democratic congressman for the Mississippi Delta, called for an investigation, saying this represented “an opportunity to bring some justice to an innocent 14-year-old boy.”

For Till’s cousin, Ollie Gordon, the revelation sounded like a ruse. She saw no logic, she said, in Donham sharing such information with someone she hardly knew.

“I thought, ‘Oh, here we go. This man wants to sell his book,’” she said. “He knew if he put that lie out, that was going to help him sell the book.”

The fact that Tyson spoke to Donham but no one in the Till family reflects his mindset, she said. “If you want first-hand information, you go to the family. If you want to write what you want to write, you just bypass the family.”

What Tyson did to the Till family is nothing new, she said. “People have made money off the blood of Emmett Till and the backs of the Till family. They’re all chasing the dollar. They don’t care how they get it.”

Parker still remembers the night of Aug. 28, 1955, when two men with guns stormed the Mississippi Delta home where he and his cousin, Emmett Till, were staying. He and Till had come from Chicago to visit relatives.

It was past 2 a.m., “as dark as a thousand midnights,” Parker said, when he heard angry voices from the gloom.

A flashlight shone down the hall, and he shut his eyes, ready to hear the shots that would steal his life. He trembled as he prayed, his 16 years flitting across his mind, he said. “I knew I wasn’t right with God.”

He heard the men say they “wanted the fat boy” that had “done the talking” at Bryant’s Grocery.

Before long, their steps receded and then their voices. They were gone, and so was his cousin, Emmett, whom kidnappers hauled to a remote barn and began beating.

After the first light came, Parker fled Mississippi.

For 30 years, he wasn’t asked about what he had seen, but in the decades since, he has spoken out.

While visiting one school, a white student told Parker that Till had “misbehaved” inside the store and got what he deserved.

“What could he have done to deserve that?” Parker said he responded. “I know he didn’t do anything.”

He and another cousin said they never saw Till do or say anything to Donham inside the store. All Till did was whistle at her after she walked outside, they said.

Several nights later, Till’s murderers executed their own judgment, Parker said. “They killed him for what? A whistle?”

Emmett Till was beaten, tortured and killed in this barn on Aug. 28, 1955. Credit: Jerry Mitchell/Mississippi Today

Till’s torture lasted much of the night, and witnesses heard him screaming past dawn. By the time the sun began to peek over the horizon, his cries became fainter.

Silence followed.

Till’s killers tried to bury their evil deeds by tying a 75-pound gin fan around his neck and tossing his body into water that fed into the Tallahatchie River.

The next day, when a deputy questioned two of the killers, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, they admitted they had kidnapped Till, but insisted they had released him unharmed. Days later, his body bobbed back to the river’s surface.

Sheriff Clarence Strider tried to bury Till’s brutalized body in a local cemetery to conceal the evil deed, but when his mother found out, she demanded his return to Chicago, where she opened his casket. “I wanted the world,” she said, “to see what I had seen.”

The lies continued after his funeral.

After arrests in the case, Bryant’s wife, Donham, told the defense lawyer that Till came into Bryant’s Grocery, grabbed her hand, asked for a date and said “goodbye” as he left.

But weeks later, the lawyer announced to reporters that Till had “mauled” Donham, and she echoed that lie from the witness stand. With the jury out of the courtroom, she claimed that Till had grabbed her around the waist, told her “you needn’t be afraid of me,” and said he had sex with white women before.

The sheriff got in on the lies, too. After Till was found, the sheriff told reporters the body had only been in the river a few days, released the body to a Black mortician and filled out a death certificate for Till.

But by the time the trial began, he had become a witness for the defense. He testified that the body had been in the water for at least 10 days and that he couldn’t tell the color of the skin — only that it was human. His words backed the incredulous defense claim that Till was still alive and that the NAACP had planted a cadaver in the river. (Five decades later, an autopsy and a DNA test proved that Till’s body was the one in his grave.)

In this Sept. 22. 1955 photo, Carolyn Bryant rests her head on her husband Roy Bryant’s shoulder after she testified in Emmett Till murder court case in Sumner, Miss. Stymied in their calls for a renewed investigation into the murder of Emmett Till, relatives and activists are advocating another possible path toward accountability in Mississippi: They want authorities to launch a kidnapping prosecution against the woman who set off the lynching by accusing the Chicago teen of improper advances in 1955. (AP Photo, File)

The all-white jury acquitted the two men, despite believing they had killed Till, according to interviews the jurors gave Stephen Whitaker, who researched the case for his master’s thesis.

If those lies weren’t enough, journalist William Bradford Huie concealed the identities of other killers with his Look magazine article.

Huie told his editor that four men had taken part in the “torture-and-murder party,” but when the editor insisted on getting legal releases from all four, the murder party shrunk to two. (One trial witness, Willie Reed, identified four white men riding in the cab of the truck while three Black men held Till in the back.)

As for Huie, he had dreams of a Hollywood film and paid Till’s killers $3,150 for their rights.

The idea of Huie making “a deal with the murderers” angered Till’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, and her attorney sent a cease and desist letter to United Artists, said Till documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp.

Huie’s 1956 article became gospel in the Till case until a new FBI investigation almost a half century later. Dale Killinger, who conducted that probe, said “the damage from those lies was deeper and broader than just Till’s murder.”

Three months before Till was killed, the Rev. George Lee was assassinated because he helped Black Mississippians register to vote in Belzoni. The sheriff claimed the shotgun pellets found in Lee’s face were loose fillings from his teeth.

Lamar Smith was gunned down in broad daylight on the courthouse lawn in Brookhaven. Despite the killer being covered in blood, the sheriff maintained there were no witnesses.

Killinger said these types of killings — and the lies that made them possible — “perpetuated generational trauma.”

Mamie Till looks at the brutalized body of her son, Emmett Till. She is comforted by Gene Mobley, whom she would later marry. Credit: Photo by David Jackson

By age 7, Tim Tyson was already spinning yarns.

He and his best friend “would lie there in the dark in the twin beds, and I would tell him stories, making them up as I went,” Tyson wrote in his memoir, “Blood Done Signed My Name.”

With each concocted tale, his friend cheered him on. “His fierce and unfeigned enthusiasm for these rambling odysseys,” Tyson wrote, “was like a drug to me.”

His friend even coined a name for them: “Tim’s Tall Tales.”

By the time Tyson telephoned me in 2008, he was already mesmerizing audiences with his stories of growing up in Oxford, North Carolina, and his memoir was being made into a movie.

Over lunch at Hal & Mal’s in Jackson, Tyson, who serves as a senior research scholar for the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, told me he landed an interview with Donham, the first interview I had ever heard of her giving to a historian. I congratulated him.

We talked about the Till case and much of the lore surrounding it.

Months later, we met in Jackson, he said he had finished talking with her. He told me her story mirrored her testimony, where she claimed Till had mauled her.

“You know she lied, don’t you?” I asked.

The statement surprised him, and afterward, I mailed him a copy of the statement she had made to the defense lawyer, where she mentioned nothing about Till grabbing her or talking about having sex with her.

He used that statement in his book and tried to talk with Donham again. She turned him down.

Much to my surprise, “The Blood of Emmett Till” hit the shelves in 2017 with the claim that Donham had admitted to Tyson that she had lied when she testified that Till had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities.

News of the revelation spread like wildfire, first through top publications and television stations, before hitting Black radio, television, websites and word of mouth. “The Blood of Emmett Till” shot onto The New York Times Bestseller List and won the Robert F. Kennedy Award.

Calls arose for her prosecution, and the Justice Department began to look at the Till case again.

Questions soon surfaced. A source told me that Donham’s family was saying she didn’t recant, and I telephoned her then-daughter-in-law, Marsha Bryant, who said she was present the whole time and never heard the quotation Tyson attributed to Donham. Bryant said she had a copy of the transcript and the quote wasn’t in it.

When I reached out to Tyson in 2018, he confirmed he didn’t have the bombshell quote on tape, saying he was still setting up his recorder.

The book “Till” opens with Donham drinking coffee and serving Tyson a slice of pound cake. “She had never opened her door to a journalist or historian, let alone invited one for cake and coffee,” he wrote.

Bryant said Tyson actually brought the cake himself, and after the interview, he took it back with him.

Tyson told me his recorder wasn’t working when Donham said, “They’re all dead now anyway,” so he snatched up his notebook, began scribbling notes and heard her recantation.

But when the FBI began to investigate the matter, he gave investigators multiple accounts: that his recorder wasn’t working, that his recording was lost, that he didn’t realize he didn’t have her recantation on tape until much later.

Tyson wrote that Donham handed him a trial transcript and the memoir. Bryant disputed that, saying Donham never handed Tyson anything.

Tyson wrote that after Donham handed him the transcript, she said, “That part is not true.”

Tyson emailed me a photograph of his undated notes, which he shared with the FBI: “That pt wasn’t true. … 50 yrs ago. I just don’t remember. … Nothing that boy ever did could justify what happened to him.”

The way the quote appears in the “Till” book (italics show the words missing from the notes): “They’re all dead now anyway. … I want to tell you. Honestly, I just don’t remember. It was 50 years ago. You tell these stories for so long that they seem true, but that part is not true. … Nothing that boy ever did could justify what happened to him.”

Tyson told me Donham’s recantation took place in July 2008.

The problem with that date? He hadn’t met her yet, according to emails he wrote in August 2008 to her family.

Asked by email how he could have interviewed Donham in July 2008 when he had yet to meet her then, Tyson did not reply.

Tyson said Bryant didn’t take exception to “any of the facts” in the book, but was upset about people posting pictures of their house on the Internet.

Bryant told me she did object and shared an email with the FBI that she had sent Tyson, wanting to know why he was saying Donham had admitted she lied.

Bryant wrote Donham’s memoir, “I Am More Than a Wolf Whistle: The Story of Carolyn Bryant Donham,” and shared a copy with Tyson, who said in an August 2008 email that the work would prove “invaluable to history.”

Bryant said Tyson agreed to act as an editor for the book — a claim he told me was “bullsh–.”

But emails and edited versions of Donham’s memoir show Tyson edited the book, suggested revisions and rewrote the preface. The Department of Justice’s report also noted Tyson’s editing.

In a note Tyson put at the top of Donham’s memoir on March 6, 2009, he wrote, “Dear Marsha and Carolyn: I am sorry to take so long getting this back to you. I enjoyed reading it. But editing is hard work …

“Read over my edits and comments. I think they may suggest to you some of the broad outlines for another revision. When you finish another version — there will be several more, which is the nature of the publication process — you may feel free to send it to me. … You’ve done a great job thus far.”

He emailed Bryant and asked her to list him as “editor of the final project, since I am a professional scholar who has a boss (the dean) who wants to know how I spent my time and energy. ‘Editor’ can go on my annual report and suggest to the dean that I don’t just sit around and drink coffee and read the newspaper, regardless of what my wife and children might report to the contrary.”

Bryant believes it was “unethical” for him to serve as her editor and then take passages from her book to use in his own publication, she said. “He denied being my editor. It’s pretty damn obvious he was my editor.”

She said she is even angrier that Tyson recently made public a copy of her book, she said. “It appears to me that he is trying to inject himself into the Emmett Till story again by making sure he’s front and center.”

Tyson denied to the FBI that he ever agreed to assist Bryant in getting the memoir published, but in his first email to the family in August 2008, he wrote, “ think you should try to publish this book, and I will be glad to offer what help I can, including introducing you to my agent.”

At no point in Donham’s memoir, the two interviews she gave Tyson or the interviews she gave the FBI does she say she recanted. In fact, in her memoir, she doubled down on the claim that Till attacked her. She even made the head-scratching claim that when Till’s kidnappers asked her if he was the one who attacked her in the store, she refused to say — only for Till to identify himself to his kidnappers.

One of the biggest questions the FBI had for Tyson was why, after Donham recanted, he never asked her to repeat her statement or quiz her about this contradiction. He told the FBI that he didn’t want to interrupt the “flow” of the conversation, but he interrupted her at other times to clarify points, the Justice Department noted in its report closing the Till case.

Tyson had other opportunities in his editing of the memoir. He wrote many suggestions and questions about the book, but he never asked Donham a single question about what he claimed was her recantation.

The FBI asked Tyson why he failed to share this important evidence with authorities for nearly a decade, and he replied that he thought the case was closed.

When investigators interviewed Tyson, “rather than obtaining other corroborating evidence to support Tyson’s claim that … [Donham] offered a recantation,” the report said, “investigators instead identified numerous inconsistencies in Tyson’s account that raised questions about the credibility of his account of the interviews.”

Carolyn Bryant Donham, who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, has died in hospice care in Louisiana. She was 88. Credit: Gene Herrick/AP

In closing the Till case on Dec. 6, 2021, the Justice Department said, “Tyson’s account lacks credibility,” citing his “shifting explanations to FBI investigators …, the questionable nature of his relationship with [Donham], and his financial motives.”

Sixteen months later, Donham died — and with it any hope of a prosecution in the Till case.

After discovering these things about “The Blood of Emmett Till,” I reached out to a historian, who told me, “You know there were problems with Tyson’s previous book.”

That was news to me. Researcher Brandon Arvesen and I dove deeper into “Blood Done Sign My Name.”

The book centers on the May 11, 1970 killing of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old Black man killed by members of the Teel family. After his slaying, Robert and Larry Teel turned themselves in to authorities, who moved them from a local jail to a prison in Raleigh 40 miles away, according to newspaper accounts.

The book opens with Tyson claiming his 10-year-old friend, Gerald Teel, told him in person on the evening of May 12, 1970, that his father, Robert, and his brother, Roger, shot “a n—–” last night in Oxford, North Carolina.

One problem with this claim? The Teel family may have already left town for safety reasons to Mount Olive, more than 100 miles away, according to newspaper reports.

The Feb. 21, 1971, Durham Herald-Sun newspaper says Teel’s sons “did not return to school in Oxford after May 11. Instead they were enrolled in classes in Mount Olive where they finished out the term.”

Tyson did not reply to calls and emails regarding this question.

This is far from the only issue with the book. “Name” has some faulty footnotes, wrong details, wrong dates for events and wrong quotations.

For instance, Tyson quoted Black businessman James Gregory as saying, “Even some black folks want to believe we’ve made a lot of progress in race relations, but deep down they know things are bad.”

Tyson attributed the quote to the May 29, 1970, issue of the Raleigh News and Observer. The actual quote from Gregory, published a day earlier, said, “Outsiders are responsible for all of this.”

During their murder trial, Robert and Larry Teel claimed self-defense.

Robert Teel’s stepson, Roger Oakley, became the defense’s surprise witness, claiming he was the one who fired the fatal shot, but accidentally, of course. A jury acquitted the Teels, and a Raleigh News and Observer editorial called the verdict a “sham and mockery.”

Thirteen years later, Tyson interviewed the father, Robert Teel, for a master’s thesis.

The Teel family shared what they say is a handwritten contract that Tyson signed and gave them at the time: “In exchange for above cooperation, Mr. Tyson will, upon graduation from law school, represent Mr. [Robert] Teel as his legal counsel in a legal action of Mr. Teel’s choice, without retainer’s fee, on a 50%/50% contractual basis, … immediately upon graduation to perform above legal action in a prompt manner.” (Tyson has a doctorate in history, but his Duke University biography makes no mention of law school.)

After Tyson wrote “Blood Done Sign My Name,” he donated a copy of his master’s thesis to the Thornton Library in Oxford and said in the author’s note that someone had torn out several pages about Marrow’s killing, “presumably to prevent other people from reading them.”

The thesis has since disappeared from the library, but Mississippi Today has obtained a copy of the entire thesis, including the missing pages, which differs from “Name.”

In his thesis, Tyson wrote that Marrow “walked down to Freeman’s store and returned with a six pack of Country Club Malt Liquor,” but in “Name,” Tyson wrote that Marrow went to Teel’s convenience store to get a big Pepsi and something to eat.

Robert Teel ran a car wash, according to newspaper articles at the time. He also operated a barber shop, a coin-operated laundromat and a cycle shop, according to the Feb. 16, 1971, Oxford Public Ledger. The newspaper mentions nothing about a convenience store, and Teel’s son, Larry, said they never had one.

As with his Till book, Tyson didn’t interview the victim’s family.

Wheeler Parker, stands in this 2018 photo, beside a marker commemorating where the body of his cousin Emmett Till was removed from the river in 1955 Credit: Jerry Mitchell/Mississippi Today

When Till’s cousin, Parker, found out that Donham, the white woman at the center of the case, denied she had ever recanted and there was no recording, his heart sank, he said. “It was a blow.”

Tyson “did some big lying,” said Parker, whose book with Chris Benson, “A Few Days Full of Trouble: Revelations on the Journey to Justice for My Cousin and Best Friend, Emmett Till,” was published in January. “He said he had a recorder, but everything is missing.”

Tyson has defended the recantation, telling The New York Times that he took detailed notes: “Carolyn started spilling the beans before I got the recorder going. I documented her words carefully. My reporting is rock solid.”

Till’s cousin, Gordon, said for the author to make things right to the Till family, he would need to apologize for the harm he has caused them. “He would have to admit he fabricated this,” she said.

Tyson did not reply to a request for comment on the Till family’s remarks.

After the release of his Till book in 2017, CBS This Morning interviewed Tyson about the bombshell quote from Donham, whom he suggested had recanted because she was remorseful.

“We’re not punished for our sins; we’re punished by our sins,” he told Gayle King. “Nobody ever gets away with anything.”

Researcher Brandon Arvesen contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Crystal Springs commercial painter says police damaged his eyesight

Published

16 hours ago

on

November 22, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-22 12:21:00

CRYSTAL SPRINGS – Roger Horton has worked decades as a commercial painter, a skill he’s kept up with even with the challenge of having what his wife has called “one good eye.” 

It hasn’t stopped him from being able to complete detailed paint jobs and create straight lines without the help of tape. But last year following a head injury, he and others said people have been pointing out a change in his work. Horton says the sight in his right eye is clouded, like he is looking underwater.

Affected vision, short term memory and periods of irritability – potential symptoms of concussion – followed after he was arrested last September. During an encounter with several police officers, Horton alleges more than one slammed his head into a cruiser and placed handcuffs on so tight that he started to bleed. 

“(The officer) was kind of rough with me and all, and he takes my head and I said, ‘What’d I do?’” he recalled recently. 

Horton ended up being convicted of two misdemeanor charges and has paid off the fines, but a year later he still has questions about the arrest and treatment by the police. 

To date, he has not seen a doctor to evaluate his eye and check for vision or cognitive issues. Horton and his wife Rhonda don’t have a car, and transportation to doctor’s appointments in the Jackson area remains a challenge. 

The Hortons have lived in Crystal Springs all their lives, and they have lived in the home the past five years that belonged to Rhonda’s mother. 

More than a quarter of all people in Crystal Springs live below the poverty line, and that includes the couple. Rhonda Horton said it’s hard to make a living because there aren’t a lot of jobs, but they support themselves as painters. 

That’s how they met Yvonne Florczak-Seeman, who lived in Illinois and purchased her first historical property in Crystal Springs in 2019. She splits her time between the two states. 

“We painted that porch bar and the rest is history,” Rhonda Horton said, adding that they went on to complete detailed work on mantles, kitchen cabinets and a cigar room at Florczak-Seeman’s North Jackson Street residence. 

Over the years, the couple built a relationship with Florczak-Seeman, who is seeking to open a women’s empowerment center called the Butterfly Garden, in the building next to city hall. 

Yvonne Florczak-Seeman poses for a portrait at her business, The Butterfly Garden, in Crystal Springs, Miss., Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today

Florczak-Seeman has supported the couple numerous times, including helping them pay a late water bill and offering them work. She called them talented painters and hired them again to paint the interior of the future center, located at East Railroad Avenue. 

In pieces, Rhonda Horton told Florczak-Seeman about her husband’s arrest and later the injuries she said he sustained from it. Florczak-Seeman had questions about the encounter and other potential injustices at play, so she offered to help. 

“I just want them to pay for what they’ve done not just to him, but everybody,” Rhonda Horton said. “That’s what I want, justice.” 

The Arrest

On Sept. 24, 2023, Horton was walking home from a friend’s house when officers approached him. One grabbed his arms to handcuff him, and he remembers them cutting his wrist and causing it to bleed.

Then, he said, a second officer slammed his head into the top of the police car, followed by another officer who slammed his head again. During the encounter, a bag of marijuana that Horton said he found fell out of his pocket onto the ground. 

An officer put Horton in the back of the cruiser and took him to the station where Horton asked to speak to the police chief and call his wife. He said the police took his phone and clothes.

Afterward, he was taken to the Copiah County Detention Center in Gallman. 

Police Chief Tony Hemphill disputed Horton’s allegation of mistreatment, saying he did not sustain any injuries that required hospitalization. He said Horton’s wrist was cut while he resisted arrest. 

“He was not brutalized and targeted,” Hemphill said. “If he had just complied, he wouldn’t have had to come up there (to jail) that night.”

Two police reports from the night of the September 2023 arrest detail how officers had responded to a possible assault and were given the description of a white man. While in the area, they encountered Horton — the only person who fit that description. 

Hemphill said a mother called police after her daughter told her she was assaulted. He said officers approached Horton on the street and tried to talk with him to rule him out as a suspect. 

That’s when Horton began “fighting, pulling away, and kicking against (the officer’s) patrol vehicle, trying to run,” according to a police report from the night and Hemphill. Horton denies doing any of that. 

The next day police took Horton from the county jail to the Crystal Springs police station. There, police informed him a teenage girl reported being assaulted. After learning about the assault allegation, Horton remembered feeling shocked and saying it couldn’t be true because he was not on the street where the alleged incident took place. 

Hemphill confirmed the police investigated the assault allegation and found it not credible, meaning Horton wouldn’t face any related charges. He said he communicated this to Horton and his wife early on and since then, which the couple disputes. 

As Horton was being arrested and detained, his wife grew worried because she had just spoken with him on the phone and expected him to arrive home shortly. Rhonda Horton and her adult son started calling Roger’s phone, each not getting an answer. 

Then during one of the calls by her son, someone who did not identify himself answered Roger’s phone and said, ‘Your daddy’s dead’ and then hung up, Rhonda Horton said. 

She was starting to assume the worst had happened. Rhonda Horton wouldn’t have confirmation her husband was alive until he called from the county jail in the early morning. 

The next morning as she talked with the police chief, Rhonda Horton asked the chief about who answered the phone and told her son that Roger was dead. The chief told her the person who answered must have been from the county. 

Hemphill later told Mississippi Today that he did not know about the call and that type of behavior by his staff “is not going to be tolerated.” Similarly, Copiah County Sheriff Byron Swilley said he had not heard about it and could not say whether a member of his department made the comment to Rhonda and Roger Horton’s son. 

A Sept. 25, 2023, citation signed by Hemphill, shared with Mississippi Today, summoned Roger Horton to municipal court for the misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and resisting arrest and directed him not to have contact with the alleged victim in the assault case. No contact orders are typically for cases such as domestic violence and sexual assault and they are set by a judge.

LaKiedra Kangar, who works in municipal court services, said the no contact order was put in place because of the assault allegation. She confirmed Horton was not charged with the offense following the police department’s investigation of the allegation. 

Weeks passed. Roger Horton went to court for the misdemeanor charges, to which he pleaded guilty.  Felony assault charges were not part of the hearing. Municipal Court Judge Matthew Kitchens ordered Roger to pay over $900 in fines for the misdemeanors. 

Horton was able to pay for some of the fine through at least 10 hours worth of court-ordered community service, which he said involved painting buildings for the city. 

Months later after learning about Horton’s arrest and how he said the police treated him, Florczak-Seeman said she wanted to know more. Horton didn’t have access to his arrest documents, so she accompanied him and his wife to the police department to ask for them. 

The first visit, Horton asked but did not receive the arrest report. Florczak-Seeman asked if he had a fine for any of the charges, which police said Horton did even after completing some community service hours. Florczak-Seeman paid for the remaining balance and had him work for her for two days to pay that off. 

This year, they went to the police department a second time so Horton could ask for his arrest paperwork. An officer told him he didn’t need it and that the rape allegation had been investigated and found not to be credible, Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman asked why Horton couldn’t receive the report. She said Hemphill asked if she was Horton’s attorney, and Florczak-Seeman clarified she was his representative. 

The chief left for a few minutes and returned with two pieces of paper and handed them to Horton. Hemphill told Mississippi Today he did not recall whether he was the one who handed the report to Horton. 

Florczak-Seeman took the document from Horton and began to read it as they stood in the lobby. She said she was horrified to see the name of the alleged, underage victim and her address in the report.

Hemphill said the victim’s personal information should have been restricted and not doing so was an oversight. 

After reading the report, Florczak-Seeman went down the street to the mayor’s office at city hall to explain what happened, and how she believed the mayor had grounds to fire the police chief because he provided that document to Roger with the alleged victim’s information. 

Crystal Springs Mayor Sally Garland Credit: Crystal Springs website

Mayor Sally Garland confirmed she had a conversation with Florczak-Seeman about the police chief’s employment. 

She said she reviews all complaints about city officials, and Garland said she goes to the department head to get a better understanding of the situation. If she determines there are potential grounds for termination, a hearing would be scheduled with the Board of Aldermen, and the group would vote on that decision.   

Garland did not find grounds for termination, and Hemphill remains police chief. 

A Strange Visit

The Hortons and Florczak-Seeman hadn’t given much thought about the 2023 arrest, until weeks ago when a teenaged girl suddenly showed up in Florczak-Seeman’s yard. 

At the end of September at the North Jackson Street home, Florczak-Seeman heard screaming and found the teenage girl who came onto her property. She asked what was wrong, and the teenager said she was chased by a dog, which Florczak-Seeman and Rhonda Horton did not see. 

The teenager asked for a soda, and Rhonda Horton went inside to get one. Florczak-Seeman asked where the teenager lived, and she gave an answer that Florczak-Seeman said conflicted with what two girls who were standing nearby on the public sidewalk said she told them. 

Then Florczak-Seeman asked the teenager’s name and recognized it as the name of the alleged victim on Horton’s arrest record. Immediately, Florczak-Seeman said she turned to Horton and told him to stay back, and she told the teenager to get off her property, which she did. 

At the moment, they were not able to verify whether the teenager was the alleged victim from the report. Neither the Hortons nor Florczak-Seeman had seen her before, and they only knew her name from the arrest report.

“That didn’t make sense at all,” Rhonda Horton told Mississippi Today. 

Florczak-Seeman called 911 to report the situation and ask for police to come, which they did not. Hemphill told Mississippi Today a dispatcher informed him about the call with Florczak-Seeman, including details with the teenage girl and how she wanted to report the girl for trespassing. 

Florczak-Seeman is one of the people who have noticed a difference in Horton’s vision. It’s clear when comparing the detailed and clean paint job Roger completed at her Jackson Street property in 2019 and the center where he painted last year.

During an interview at the center in October, Florczak-Seeman pointed to the ceiling and noted spots that Horton did not paint. She remembers telling him about them and realized that he couldn’t see them. 

“The spots on my ceiling are still not painted, and they’re not painted as a reminder of the injustices that happened in this situation and why I got involved,” Florczak-Seeman said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Job opening: Jackson Reporter

Published

16 hours ago

on

November 22, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Mississippi Today – 2024-11-22 15:00:00

Mississippi Today, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom focused on investigative and accountability journalism, is building a dedicated team of reporters to provide in-depth coverage of Jackson, Mississippi.

As the state’s largest and capital city, Jackson matters greatly to us and all Mississippians. Launched in 2016 as the state’s flagship nonprofit newsroom focused on Mississippi government and policy, Mississippi Today is focusing our lens beyond the statehouse and to the city of Jackson, serving our readers with the watchdog reporting they’ve come to expect from Mississippi Today. Our newsroom, with a proven record of providing impactful government accountability, aims to serve the city more directly with this team.

Our Jackson team will focus on sharp investigative reporting, watchdog accountability journalism and meaningful cultural storytelling. We aim to both elevate the voices of those working for positive change in the community while offering a balanced perspective on the city’s obstacles and triumphs. Our goal is to deliver impactful, honest journalism that will inform, inspire and empower Jackson’s citizens.

The team will be led by Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Wolfe, an investigative reporter with a decade of experience covering Jackson.

Roles and Responsibilities:

  • We are purposefully casting a wide net, hoping to connect with journalists of many different backgrounds who may be uniquely qualified to help us launch this team. If you’re a reporter with any of the following experience or attributes, this team may be for you.
  • Investigative reporting focused on uncovering systemic issues within government and politics. The bigger the impact of your reporting on government leaders or systems, the better.
  • Political reporting covering not only high-profile candidates for offices, but experience delving into issues and ideas that affect a community. We hope to delve deeply into a deep distrust in the city’s institutions.
  • Cultural reporting that highlights the often-overlooked success stories of citizens who are making a positive impact on their communities.
  • Strong understanding of Jackson (or similar large urban centers) and the unique challenges facing the city and its residents.
  • Commitment to the mission of balanced, impactful journalism that centers and respects the voice of the community.
  • Collaborative mindset and ability to work within a team-oriented newsroom.

The starting salary for this position is $58,000. Compensation is commensurate with experience level.

Expectations:

  • Work with a small team of journalists who are focused on social inequities and racial equality in our area.
  • Willingness to collaborate closely with a small team of like-minded journalists.
  • Get people to talk, find willing sources and protect them while telling sensitive and timely stories.
  • Build trust: Many people who have been impacted by inequities in Mississippi have been victims of predatory practices and forces. This will require empathy, patience and savvy.
  • Work with our Audience Team and data and visual journalists to create compelling story presentations.

Qualified candidates should have:

  • Experience working as a reporter in a newsroom.
  • Ability to work quickly, with accuracy and good news judgment.
  • Comfortability in digital or multimedia journalism spaces.
  • Ability to independently develop and cultivate sources.
  • Ability to use social media for research and to engage readers.

What you’ll get:

  • The opportunity to work alongside award-winning journalists and make significant contributions to Mississippi’s top nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news and information sources.
  • Highly competitive salary with medical insurance, and options for vision and dental insurance.
  • Use of appropriate technology and equipment. 
  • 29 days paid time off.
  • Up to 12 weeks of parental family leave, with return-to-work flexibility.
  • Simple IRA with 3 percent company matching. Group-term life insurance provided to employees ($15,000 policy).
  • Support for professional training and attending industry conferences.

How to Apply:

We’re committed to building an inclusive newsroom that represents the people and communities we serve. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position, including women, people of color, LGBTQ people and people who are differently abled. Please apply here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Mississippi Today

Central, south Mississippi voters will decide judicial runoffs on Tuesday

Published

19 hours ago

on

November 22, 2024

By

mississippitoday.org – Taylor Vance – 2024-11-22 11:16:00

Some Mississippi voters head to the polls Tuesday to decide who should represent them on the state’s highest courts. 

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday. Absentee voting has begun, and in-person absentee voting at county circuit clerk’s offices ends at noon on Saturday. 

In the Jackson Metro area and parts of central Mississippi, incumbent Supreme Court Justice Jim Kitchens will compete against Republican state Sen. Jenifer Branning of Neshoba County. In areas on the Gulf Coast, Jennifer Schloegel and Amy St. Pé will face each other for an open seat on the Court of Appeals. 

Candidates for judicial offices in Mississippi are technically nonpartisan, but political parties and trade associations often contribute money to candidates and cut ads for them, which has increasingly made  them almost as partisan as other campaigns. 

In the Central District Supreme Court race, GOP forces are working to oust Kitchens, one of the dwindling number of centrist jurists on the high Court. Conservative leaders also realize Kitchens is next in line to lead the court as chief justice should current Chief Justice Mike Randolph step down.

Kitchens is one of two centrist members of the high court and is widely viewed as the preferred candidate of Democrats, though the Democratic Party has not endorsed his candidacy. 

Kitchens, first elected to the court in 2008, is a former district attorney and private-practice lawyer. On the campaign trail, he has pointed to his experience as an attorney and judge, particularly his years prosecuting criminals and his rulings on criminal cases. 

In an interview on Mississippi Today’s ‘The Other Side’ podcast, Kitchens said his opponent, who primarily practices real estate law, would be at a “significant disadvantage” because the state Supreme Court often reviews criminal cases and major civil lawsuits that are sent to them on appeal. 

“I’m sure she has an academic knowledge about the circuit courts that she perhaps learned in law school or perhaps has been to some seminars, but she does not have the hands-on trial experience that I have,” Kitchens said. “And that’s so important to the work that I do.” 

Branning, a private-practice attorney, was first elected to the Legislature in 2015. She has led the Senate Elections and Transportation committees. During her time at the Capitol, she has been one of the more conservative members of the Senate leadership, voting against changing the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, voting against expanding Medicaid to the working poor and supporting mandatory and increased minimum sentences for crime.

While campaigning for the judicial seat, she has pledged to ensure that “conservative values” are always represented in the judiciary, but she has stopped short of endorsing policy positions — which Mississippi judicial candidates are prohibited from doing. 

Branning declined an invitation to appear on Mississippi Today’s podcast. 

“Mississippians need and deserve Supreme Court justices that are constitutionally conservative in nature,” Branning said in a recent interview with radio station SuperTalk Mississippi. “And by that, I mean justices that simply follow the law. They do not add or take away.”

The two candidates have collectively raised around $187,00 and spent $182,00 during the final stretch of the campaign, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Secretary of State’s office. 

Since she initially qualified in January, Branning has raised the most amount of money at $879,871, with $250,000 of that money coming from a loan she gave her campaign. She spent around $730,000 of that money. Several third party groups have supported her campaign. 

Kitchens has raised around $514,00 since he qualified for reelection. He’s spent roughly $436,000 of that money, and some of his top contributors have been trial attorneys. 

For the open Court of Appeals seat, Schloegel and St Pe, two influential names on the Gulf Coast, are working to turn out their voters in a close election. 

Schloegel is a Chancery Court judge in Harrison, Hancock and Stone counties. St. Pé  is an attorney in private practice, a municipal court judge in Gautier, and a city attorney for Moss Point. 

Schloegel has raised roughly $214,000 since she qualified, and has spent almost that same amount of money this election cycle. St. Pé has raised around $480,000 this year and spent approximately $438,067 during that timeframe. 

Whoever wins the race, it ensures that a woman will fill the open seat. After the election, half of the judges on the 10-member appellate court will be women, the most number of women who have served on the court at one time. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Continue Reading

Trending