Suspended from frat for posing with guns at Till memorial

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Armed University of Mississippi students posed in front of a memorial to lynched civil rights icon Emmett Till, an "offensive and hurtful" act that led to their fraternity suspending the undergrads, officials said Thursday.

Three students, two of them brandishing weapons, posed in front of the purple sign that marks the place where Till's body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River in August, 1955.

One of the students posted the photo to his private Instagram account in March, according to an article by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica.

Ben LeClere was the Ole Miss student holding a shotgun while John Lowe squatted below the sign and a third unidentified frat member held up an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica reported.

The chapter has suspended the men in the photo," the students' national fraternity Kappa Alpha order said in a statement.

"The making of the photo was unrelated to any event or activity of our chapter. The chapter's leadership learned of the photo late last night. The photo is inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable. It does not represent our chapter. We have and will continue to be in communication with our national organization and the University."

While Ole Miss backs Kappa Alpha's action, the university cannot take any additional action against the students, campus spokesman Rod Guajardo said.

"While the image is offensive, it did not present a violation of university code of conduct. It occurred off campus and was not part of a university-affiliated event," according to a statement by Guajardo

"We support the actions made by the Kappa Alpha Order leadership in suspending the students involved, and we are aware that this decision is backed by its National Administrative Offices. We stand ready to assist the fraternity with educational opportunities for those members and the chapter.

Till, a 14-year-old African American from Chicago, was visiting family in Mississippi when a gang of white men abducted, tortured and murdered him.

Till's mom had her son's casket open at his funeral to show the murder's brutality. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted two white men accused of the slaying.

Just days after some armed University of Mississippi students were suspended from their frat after posing in front of a memorial to civil rights icon Emmett Till, a new bulletproof sign is reportedly being commissioned.

The current memorial sign is riddled with bullet holes.

“Unlike the first three signs, this sign calls attention to the vandalism itself,” the Emmett Till Memorial Commission said, according to The Huffington Post. “We believe it is important to keep a sign at this historic site, but we don’t want to hide the legacy of racism by constantly replacing broken signs.”

The sign is one of several that memorialize Till but has reportedly suffered the most vandalism.

Our signs and ones like them have been stolen, thrown in the river, replaced, shot, replaced again, shot again, defaced with acid and have had 'KKK' spray-painted on them,” the group wrote this week, according to The Post. “The vandalism has been targeted and it has been persistent.”

The new sign will reportedly be steel reinforced and weigh 500 pounds. A gate and security cameras will likely be added, The Post reported.

As for the Mississippi students linked to the latest episode, they may face a U.S. Department of Justice investigation.

U.S. Attorney Chad Lamar of the Northern District of Mississippi in Oxford said the case has been referred to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, the Clarion Ledger of Jackson reported. The university's police department had previously reported the photo to the FBI, the report said.

Mississippi students who posed with guns in front of Emmett Till memorial suspended from frat


Bulletproof Emmett Till sign commissioned after recent vandalism: reports


Bolding mine.
I assume they are going to investigate whether these people shot up or vandalized the memorial. I am not a lawyer but sans vandalism I fail to see the crime. Being despicable is not a crime.

Being despicable isn't a crime, but it's a perfectly valid reason for a frat to choose to no longer associate with them.

I support the disciplinary actions as well. Those idiots needed a reality check.

Also, perhaps the case could be made that striking a tough-guy pose with guns at the Emmett Till memorial is a threat to blacks? After all, it's not like they posed in front of a speed limit or a deer-crossing sign. That was planned, calculated evil done by provocateurs.

They made that bed; long may they lie in it.

Shouldn't the university or college suspend these little monsters?

Shouldn't the university or college suspend these little monsters?

An institution of higher learning shouldn't be associated with Trump inspired racism

Just your regular Stirring of the Pot; it's too late and I'm on the internet. No offense intended but I don't believe all I'm seeing. By the way NBC deleted the article from the link. I wonder who was pressuring them on that, or if they usually remove old articles?

Explain how this is "Trump inspired racism" (hyphens are your friend) and I'll agree. In the meantime, I'm not falling for it.

The alternative universe where frat boys are fine upstanding citizens, victims to the specter of Racism pushed on them by a god-emperor Trump and goaded to horrible deeds such as posing in front of signs with guns which they would totally have never done if they had a safe space free from Trump is an appealing little fiction, but fraternities have not exactly racked up a stellar record of good deeds. Remember Brock Turner? Wonder how "bro culture" got its name?

The country has certainly gotten more divided since the 2016 election, but remember, a great deal of that happened during the Obama years. Obama had low approval ratings, not because of his charismatic speeches or being generally a cool president, but because many people did not trust him and wished he would assure them he wasn't going to threaten their rights.

Trump is inspiring a similar outrage from the American left-wingers, and, as seen on the Forum here, left-wingers tend to get a little rowdy when anyone dares think against them. (You know who you are.)

So it's a mess.

Anyone think that NOT talking about race all the time would help solve it? I do. Shutting up about race might actually open dialogue between people.

Ole Miss students suspended by frat for posing with guns next to Emmett Till sign

July 26, 2019 / 7:02 PM / CBS/AP

A photograph of three University of Mississippi students posing with guns beside a bullet-pocked and frequently vandalized historic marker to lynching victim Emmett Till has sparked a possible federal investigation and suspensions of the three by their fraternity. The Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting first published a story about the photo Thursday, saying the image had circulated on the men's social media accounts, CBS affiliate WJTV reports.
0726-ctm-whattowatch-1898768-640x360.jpg
Three University of Mississippi students pose next to an historic marker to lynching victim Emmett Till. CBS

Ole Miss spokesman Rod Guajardo said the image was reported in March to the university's Bias Incident Response Team, which takes reports of incidents where students, faculty or staff are targeted because of their race or other characteristics. Guajardo said university police asked the FBI to investigate, but says the FBI declined to open an inquiry because the photo "did not pose a specific threat." Brett Carr, a spokesman for the FBI's Jackson office, declined to comment Thursday.

However, U.S. Attorney Chad Lamar told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting that federal prosecutors are examining the case. Lamar did not respond to repeated emails and phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

Guajardo called the image "offensive and hurtful" but said the university hasn't disciplined the students because the off-campus picture wasn't part of a university event.
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Jesse Lyons, assistant executive director of the Kappa Alpha Order's national office in Lexington, Virginia, said the Ole Miss chapter suspended the three men pictured after leaders learned of the photo Tuesday. The fraternity has long been associated with Old South and Confederate imagery. Although much of that imagery has been suppressed in recent years, the group still claims Confederate Robert E. Lee as its spiritual founder. Lyons said that history has nothing to do with the photo.

"The making of the photo was unrelated to any event or activity of the chapter. It is inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable. It does not represent our Kappa Alpha Order," Lyons wrote in an email.

The fraternity and university say they're working together. Guajardo said Ole Miss is "ready to assist the fraternity with educational opportunities for those members and the chapter."

It's unclear whether the students actually fired at the sign or when the picture was taken. It shows two students standing with guns and a third unarmed student kneeling in tall grass at night, lit by what appear to be the headlights of a vehicle. It's unclear who took the photograph.

The image strikes at what remains one of the nation's most wrenching civil rights cases, decades after Till was slain in 1955. The African American 14-year-old was visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta when he was kidnapped from a relative's home after an encounter with a white woman at a country store. He was tortured and later shot, with his body found weighted down by a cotton gin fan in the Tallahatchie River. His mother insisted on an open-casket funeral in Chicago, letting people see her son's mutilated corpse and electrifying public opinion.

An all-white jury in Mississippi acquitted two white men in the crime.

Like Till himself, the markers placed by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission have been shattered by violence. The marker in the photograph, at the remote spot where Till's body was recovered, was the third to stand there after two earlier markers were destroyed by vandals.

Last year, the sign was vandalized just 35 days after being replaced, and images of the sign went viral in 2016 after it was riddled with more than 40 bullet holes.

Patrick Weems, the commission's executive director, said the sign was shot sometime in summer 2018 and again in early fall 2018.

Since the first sign was erected in 2008, it has been the object of repeated animosity.

Vandals threw the first sign in the river. The second sign was blasted with 317 bullets or shotgun pellets before the Emmett Till Memorial Commission officials removed it. The third sign, featured in the Instagram photo, was damaged by 10 bullet holes before officials took it down last week. A fourth sign, designed to better withstand attacks, is expected to be installed soon.

Anyone think that NOT talking about race all the time would help solve it? I do. Shutting up about race might actually open dialogue between people.