White Teenagers Murder Innocent Man For Being Black [VIDEO]
White Teenagers Murder Innocent Man For Being Black
A black man in Mississippi was beaten by a group of white teenagers and crushed by a pickup truck – and it was caught on tape, police said.
“This was a crime of hate,” Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith told CNN. “The evidence will show that.”
Authorities say James Craig Anderson was targeted by several teenagers and savagely beaten the night of June 26 in a Jackson motel parking lot.
Witnesses said the group used racial epithets during the assault, and shouted “White Power!”
After clobbering him, several of the teenagers got into a Ford F250 pickup, and while James Craig Anderson tried to stumble for help, the driver ran him down, police said.
The video, captured by a surveillance camera, shows the attack in haunting detail. It ends with the truck backing up, then slamming into the 49-year-old Black man.
“It appears there is no doubt that this was a racially motivated killing,” Winston Thompson, the lawyer representing Anderson’s family, told CNN. “The family is still in shock still in disbelief.”
Deryl Dedmon was the teenager behind the wheel of the Ford truck that killed Anderson, police said. He has been charged with murder.
John Aaron Rice, who joined in the beating of James Craig Anderson, is charged with aggravated assault. Authorities believe he was in another car and had driven away before Anderson was killed.
The two 18-year-olds drove 15 miles to Jackson, MS in search of a black man to attack, prosecutors said. At least 5 other teenagers are believed to have been with the two at the time, but none has been charged.
During grand jury testimony, Detective Eric Smith said Dedmon had been robbed in the weeks before Anderson’s death and that he was looking for “some sort of revenge.”
On June 26, Dedmon and Rice were at a party when Dedmon came up with the idea to come to Jackson to mess with some people,” the detective said.
“Dedmon murdered this man because he was black,” Hinds told CNN.
The teens are expected to go on trial in the fall.
