Ben Crump calls for federal investigation into Mississippi police handling of Dexter Wade’s death

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate the handling of Dexter Wade’s death in Mississippi. 

Wade, a 37-year-old Black man, died after being run over by a police officer in March. He was buried without his mother’s knowledge and she was not informed of his death until six months later, despite the coroner having identified Wade and his next of kin at the time of his autopsy. 

Crump, who is representing Wade’s family, in a press conference on Monday described the case as a “cop killing cover up.”

“We’re never going to let Dexter Wade be swept under the rug,” said Crump. “We’re gonna keep fighting until we get justice for Dexter Wade.”

“We are asking for the Department of Justice to investigate this matter because the family does not have trust in the Mississippi officials. Would you, after this happened to your brother and child?”

Wade’s mother, Bettersten Wade, reported her son missing to the Jackson Police Department the week after he died, according to NBCNews. She told the officers she last saw her son, a father of two daughters, on March 5 when he came to visit her. For the next six months, she called missing persons investigators for information but was repeatedly told there was no news. 

On Aug. 24, a Jackson accident investigator finally told her that her son had died the night he left her house. She then learned from the coroner that though there had been no ID on her son’s body at the time of his death, they were able to identify him through a prescription he had on him. 

The coroner said he had shared Wade’s information, including Bettersten Wade’s contact information, with investigators. The coroner said he, too, repeatedly asked for updates from police, but when there were none, the county buried him on July 14 in a pauper’s field of the Hinds County penal farm. His body is still there, in a grave marked as No. 672.

“The system is supposed to work for me if I call you and say I need help,” Bettersten Wade, 65, said on Monday. “I am a citizen here in Jackson. So I asked for help.”

Crump said he will help arrange for Wade’s body to be exhumed. He will also arrange for an independent autopsy to be performed before Wade is given “a proper funeral where his family and loved ones and his two little children and all the community can come out and give him a respectable homegoing service — one that apparently Jackson Police Department didn’t intend for him to have,” said Crump.

Both Crump and Bettersten Wade accused the Jackson Police Department of having a grudge against the Wade family for an unrelated case involving Bettersten Wade’s brother. 

In 2019, Bettersten Wade’s brother died after he was slammed to the ground by a Jackson police officer. The officer was convicted of manslaughter by a jury and he is now appealing the conviction. 

Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba last week attributed Dexter Wade’s burial to a “communications failure” in his State of the City address. 

Though an “unfortunate and tragic accident,” Lumumba said, there were no indications of “malicious intent” against Wade or his family. 

“It is tragic to lose your child. It is tragic to suffer the consequences of having to bury your child before you pass. But to add insult to that trauma, it is even more difficult to not have the ability to have a proper burial for your child,” Lumumba said. “And for that we regret a circumstance that Mr. Wade’s family has had to deal with.”