Families were actively not informed of their loved ones deaths, and inmates were made to dig the holes and bury the bodies of the dead. This is getting massively underreported and happened earlier this month, I bet you haven’t heard about it.

  • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    11 months ago

    A lot of the other comments seem to miss the point of what these cops are likely doing

    It’s a prison for 600 people.

    By losing 215 people since 2016, they have essentially been jettisoning (either intentionally or by “gang violence”) 5% of the prison each year.

    They get FIVE percent more $, but to do so, requires that they kill 5% of the prison (not to mention recruiting the remainder for a total of “105%” revenue)

    By not reporting it for months, they kept getting federal payments each/every month for food/water/etc.

    • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      While I have you, can I posture another question?

      I will preface it with this: I want all of you beautiful ppl to move here and join the (very often dumb as fuck) melting pot. But you need to know that I think you are the target of facilities such as these.

      When do the feds step in for the southern states’ refusal to handle/(process?) migrants across the border?

      Because the way I see it…

      The easiest way to flood these prisons w/ that special >105% who won’t/can’t be asked about (if they’re still alive) would be to flood migrants in the south with the illusion of a booming job market and a welcoming population (and then use them as pawns and bus them all around the country to cause conflicts)

  • Tremble@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Im fairly certain that I’ve been following this story for at least a few months. I think it was brought to light when a family who was missing their loved one was told he was dead and buried.

    This is somewhat related to the news coverage involving jailed family members’ bodies returned with missing organs.

  • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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    11 months ago

    Thrown out like trash. Families never truly knowing where there love ones are. Criminals or not they deserve a proper burial.

      • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        If you read the article, some of them weren’t in the jail. The first man mentioned was killed by a police car, after which the cops pretended for months not to know where he was. When his family finally tracked him down to an unmarked grave, the cops demanded $250 for the return of his body.

      • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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        11 months ago

        Either way, everyone deserves to be laid to rest. Afterwards you can do whatever. Henry Kissinger deserves to be laid to rest. No matter how shitty.

          • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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            11 months ago

            Laid to rest and specking highly of someone after they pass are two different things. Every family deserves to grieve their loss and bury their dead. Now after they are buried can you shit on their grave? Yes, yes you can, but the family deserves a final goodbye.

          • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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            11 months ago

            🤔 As much as I loathe those types, I have to agree. Not because the deceased deserve anything, but so the community has an accurate record of who lives and dies.

            Without the public burials and records, the government could disappear people without consequence.

            Unmarked graves should be illegal.

  • nkat2112@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    This is so sad and so wrong. Some meaningful quotes:

    One activist, known as Arthur “Silky Slim” Reed, who has been outspoken on the events, described a morbid scene at the burial ground when visiting, reporting that buzzards fly overhead, attracted to the disturbing stench that emanates from the improper burials and shallow graves.

    Unbelievably horrible. Further:

    The shocking revelation was unearthed only due to the persistence of Bettersten Wade, who spent seven months looking for her middle child, Dexter Wade, who suddenly went missing in March 2023. Bettersten would not find out the truth about her son until October 2023. Dexter had been killed shortly after leaving his mother’s home, hit by a Jackson police car while crossing a nearby interstate highway.

    Also this:

    Marquita Moore was notified of the death of her older brother, Marrio Terrell Moore, 40, from an online article revealing cases of two dozen homicide victims in which the Jackson police had failed to notify the public or the families. Moore’s brother was the second on the list.

    Moore read the news of her brother’s death on October 10. However, the article reported that Marrio had been killed on February 2, over eight months earlier. NBC News reports that upon learning of the tragedy, Moore shuddered and cried out: “Lord, this is my brother … Someone done killed my brother.”

    Also the case of a white male:

    Jonathan Hankins was discovered dead by the authorities just days after he went missing, on May 23, 2022, in a hotel room in Jackson. The death is widely believed to have been due to an overdose. Investigators were able to verify his identity with no problem or delay. However, like the other cases, the Jackson Police Department did not inform the family, and the county inmates were made to bury his body alongside the others. Jonathan’s grave was plot No. 645.

    The Hankins story echoes the first two. For over a year, Jonathan’s mother Gretchen contacted the sheriff’s office every few weeks asking for any news. She was told time and again that they had no information.

    The article goes on to quote viral postings on social networks that expressed shock from the ongoing minimal coverage in media on this horrendous story, before closing with the final paragraph:

    Common among all of the victims is that they are working class and poor.

    I hope there’s more coverage on this story and that a proper investigation opens.

    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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      11 months ago

      Common among all of the victims is that they are working class and poor.

      In America, if you are poor then fuck you. Poor people, immigrants, and ex-convicts are the three pillars of hate in the Western World.

  • jeffw@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    As this article discusses, it’s not “massively underreported,” it was in major news outlets last year. Pretty sure I even posted an article on Lemmy about it.

    What’s new is the scale is larger than initially reported.

    Edit: also important to note this isn’t a secret hidden burial ground. I’m not defending this shitty police work, but it’s a “left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.” I don’t think the coroner is to blame, the police should have been notifying the families in a timely fashion. No excuse to take months to tell them.

    Edit 2: finished the linked article and it’s very strange. They get their facts from established mainstream reporting, then accuse mainstream media of not covering the story well enough. My linked NBC article is pretty in-depth coverage. It spurred an entire series of articles on failed death reporting by police in the USA, with most articles in the series focusing on Jackson. In other words, the original linked article is just rage bait.

    • yokonzo@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Well, you’ve made your case and I have to admit you may be right, this one threw me, my bad

      • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Nah, you’re golden. I’m not the other guy you were talking to, but IMO, there is no error (even if there technically is) because the more people you get reading and talking about this, the better. Thank you for taking the time to post it.

        I’ve been thinking for quite some time now that there are far more criminals behind the bench than there are in front of it, and this newly revised number of police-ordered informal gravesites only serves to prove the point even further. (I’m using “the bench” as a symbol for the entire US justice system and not just corrupt judges, but you probably get my point.)