Dexter Wade's Mother Calls For Federal Investigation

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Dexter Wade has been the subject of several BOSSIP posts over the last two weeks due to the egregious and inflammatory nature of the case surrounding his death. Wade died after being struck by a police vehicle that was driven by an off-duty officer. Police say that they couldn’t get in touch with anyone who knew or was related to Wade, so they buried his remains and went on with their lives while his loved ones desperately searched for him. Seven months later, Wade’s mother Bettersten Wade was told what had happened and she has been stricken with grief ever since.

According to CBS News, Ms. Wade is now using her voice to call for a federal investigation into this shady situation to see if there was malintent or malpractice on the part of the Jackson Police Department in Mississippi. Ubiquitous civil rights attorney Ben Crump has joined the Wade family in their fight for justice for their beloved saying, “For a long time, Ms. Bettersten, you were by yourself fighting this fight. But you’re not by yourself anymore. We’re all fighting with you to get justice for Dexter Wade,” according to WLBT.

Mississippi isn’t historically a place where Black folks can trust that our calls for fairness and equality will be heard. Situations like this make it nearly impossible to give law enforcement or the state government the benefit of the doubt. Crump spoke to this distrust during his public press conference this past Monday via WLBT:

“The first order of business… we have to file a petition to exhume the body because we want the truth,” Crump said. “We don’t even know if his body was embalmed… We don’t even know if they put him in a wooden box, or did they just put him in a bag and drop him in the ground.”

This isn’t the first time that the Wade family has suffered a loss at the hands of the police. In 2019, Wade’s brother George Robinson was killed by officers who were on a manhunt for a murder suspect who was not Robinson. During the contact, three policemen slammed Robinson on his head onto the concrete and allegedly attacked him with kicks and punches. He died in the hospital two days later and only one of the officers, Anthony Fox, was held accountable for manslaughter and sentenced to five years in prison according to a separate WLBT report.

We will continue to monitor this case and provide more information as it becomes available.