Mississippi police await the results of the autopsy for black students found suspended at university: NPR

Cleveland, Miss. – The Mississippi police awaited the results of the autopsy on Wednesday for a black student found suspended from a tree of the Delta State University, in a case which sparked strong emotions in a state with history of racist violence.

The 21 -year -old student was found near the campus pickleball courts on Monday. While the police said that he had not seen any evidence of unfair game, his family demanded answers and hired an eminent lawyer for civil rights Ben Crump.

Campus police chief Michael Peeler published few new information on the investigation at a press conference, calling death an “isolated incident” and insisting that there was no active threat to students and teachers.

“Out of respect for these mourning, we are asking for continuous patience and compassion as this investigation takes place,” Peeler told journalists on the Delta state campus.

The chief legisor of the state was doing an autopsy on Wednesday, and Peeler said that preliminary results should be published in a day or two.

Peeler said that evidence includes video sequences, but he doesn’t say what he shows and where he comes from, citing the current investigation.

Crump said in a statement on Wednesday that the police should allow the student’s family to see any video that the police had gathered. He said he also planned to investigate civil rights groups that include an independent autopsy.

“We are doing each step to discover the truth about what happened,” said Crump.

Family members also pressure for more information from university officials at a press conference on Tuesday. Vanessa Jones, another family lawyer, said the student had just started classes at Delta State this fall and was “full of life, eager to be there”.

“There should have been cameras at university that could easily enlighten us about what happened,” Jones told journalists, adding: “Since the moment he left his dormitory or has entered this campus, there should be surveillance of all its actions.”

Online rumors according to which the student was found with broken members was challenged by the Coroner of the County of Bolivar, Randolph Seals Jr.

The seals did not immediately return the telephone messages of the Associated Press.

“We recognize that it is not only a question of facts,” Danta’s state president Dan Ennis said on Wednesday. “These are emotions and feelings and how this loss and how it was discovered affects people’s lives.”

The president of the Delta State University, Dan Ennis, speaks during a press conference on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 in Cleveland, Miss.

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Sophie Bates / AP

Many publications on social networks on the case have mentioned a darker period in the history of the United States when killings of blacks by white vigilantes inflicted racial terror on the Mississippi and other parts of the deep South. They include the infamous Emmett Till Lynching, whose body was found at 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the Delta State campus.

Marquon McKinney said that he and other black students from the Delta state had been shaken by death.

“Everyone is upset at the moment,” said McKinney, adding that he thought that university officials are trying to minimize death. “It’s a lot of emotions in progress.”

McKinney said his mother called him in the middle of a class on Monday to make sure he was going to, before he learned that someone had been found dead.

Located in the heart of the Mississippi delta, near the state of the state of the Arkansas, the state of the Delta had an registration in the fall of 2024 of more than 2,600 students, 42% of which are black.

The American representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi democrat, called on the FBI to investigate.