NAACP Wants Probe Into Race Attack
JACKSON - The white Mississippi teens who beat up and ran over a black man with a pickup truck may also be responsible for attacking homeless black men in the area.
The head of Mississippi’s NAACP, Derrick Johnson said the civil rights group is trying to determine if the teens assaulted poor blacks based on an anonymous report saying that the teens “targeted African-Americans in the city of Jackson who were homeless.”
A surveillance video shows 18 year old Deryl Dedmon and several of his friends beating black auto worker, James Anderson, and then driving over his body.
A police spokeswoman, Golendula Green, said that detectives have only received “hearsay” in the form of one call saying “white people” were beating up homeless African-Americans.
"We're all shocked by the allegations. It's uncomfortable, I'm sure, for all of us to know this can happen to a random citizen," Hinds County District Attorney Robert Schuler Smith told ABC of Anderson’s homicide. "There were racial slurs used throughout the turn of events, which led to the conclusion that it was most likely a hate crime."
Dedmon is currently in jail on a $800,000 bond. He is awaiting a grand jury investigation into Anderson’s death.
