The death of Jelani Day, a 25-year-old medical student who went missing on August 24, was ruled by local officials as a drowning. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is urging federal agencies to step in.
Bloomington, Ill., Police
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Bloomington, Ill., Police
The death of Jelani Day, a 25-year-old medical student who went missing on August 24, was ruled by local officials as a drowning. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is urging federal agencies to step in.
Bloomington, Ill., Police
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is asking the FBI to take full control of the investigation into the death of Jelani Day “JJ”.
“As we ended 100 days without any answers, we asked the FBI to investigate this matter as a hate crime,” Crump said. at a press conference on Friday. “Families are losing faith in the local government – they want answers.” Several state and local agencies as well as the FBI have launched investigations into the incident.
Day, a graduate medical student at Illinois State University, went missing on August 24. A month later, officials confirmed that the plane 25 year old man found dead in the Illinois River. His death was attributed to drowning, but it is not known how Day got into the river.
“None of which added, who was joined in Chicago by co-advisor B’Ivory LaMarr; Mother’s Day, Carmen Bolden Day; and civil rights leader Father Jesse Jackson.
Two days after Day went missing, his car was found in Peru, Ill., a city located an hour north of where Day lived in Bloomington.
Day’s family, who are suspected of murder, have denied suggestions that the cause of death was suicide.
Bolden Day said: “Jelani is not depressed, he is not a burden.
Crump joins Day’s mother in urging authorities to show the same urgency over Day’s case that has been demonstrated in white-centered people, such as the case of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman was reported missing in September. After her remains were found in a national park in Wyoming, the FBI later concluded she had been murdered.
“Day’s case has received significantly less attention, revealing profound disparities in how missing person cases are treated and covered for people of color,” Crump said. in a statement.
An emotional Bolden Day explains the work she took to investigate her son’s death on her own when there were no resources dedicated to Petito. “I don’t have all the drones, I don’t have all the police officers, I don’t have all of that – I still don’t have that,” she said.
Crump represented the families of several Negroes in high profile civil rights cases, including Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, both of whom were killed by police.
