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Another Black man’s body has been found hanging in the deep South under mysterious circumstances similar to a slew of other cases we’ve seen over the past handful of years. Like in the other cases, this Black man’s death was swiftly ruled a suicide, but his family doesn’t believe it. This time, local law enforcement doesn’t appear to be too sure the victim killed himself either, which is why the FBI was called in to investigate.
According to the Associated Press, in September, 39-year-old Dennoriss Richardson was found hanging in an abandoned building in a rural part of Colbert County, Alabama, miles away from his home in Sheffield. The Colbert County Sheriff’s Office ruled Richardson’s death a suicide, but Sheriff Eric Balentine confirmed the FBI accepted his request to investigate the hanging, saying his department “exhausted all resources” in its investigation.
“We feel confident in what our findings were, but we feel like by doing this we can give the family more peace of mind,” Balentine said. Richardson’s wife, Leigh Richardson, isn’t so confident — far from it, in fact.
Leigh believes her husband’s death was connected to a lawsuit he filed against the local police department in February. The suit alleged that while Richardson was in jail, he was assaulted, denied medical attention, sprayed with tear gas and tased. Leigh also noted that her husband did not leave a suicide note and that he had no connection to the house where he was found.
Local activists and other Black community members are also skeptical of the suicide ruling based on the region’s history of lynching, and the more recent history of police brutality and racist misconduct in Colbert County. AP noted that in Alabama, “there were 359 reported lynchings between 1877 and 1943, according to the Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit,” and that 11 of those lynchings happened in Colbert County. But far more concerning is the behavior of Colbert County cops, which has been much more recent.
From AP:
Marvin Long, a 57-year-old Black man and lifelong Colbert County resident, knew Dennoriss Richardson’s family well growing up. He shares the skepticism about the suicide ruling and said Richardson’s death has intensified his fear of retaliation.
“To this day, I hate seeing a police car,” Long said. “I’m still more afraid now than ever.”
Long sued the Sheffield Police Department last year. After he inquired about an unrelated arrest taking place just outside his property in 2021, body camera footage appears to show officers following Long to his house, dragging him down his porch steps and siccing the police K9 on him as he screams for help. Long was unarmed, according to the complaint.
Richardson and Long are among five Black and Latino men represented by civil rights attorney Roderick Van Daniel who have filed lawsuits against the department in recent years.
“Citizens are living in fear of retaliation,” Van Daniel said.
In one case, an off-duty Sheffield police officer was caught on surveillance footage punching and pulling a gun on a Black man at a liquor store. The officer was later convicted of assault and menacing and reckless endangerment. He was fired from the department.
In a separate lawsuit, a 57-year-old chiropractor claims he was shocked with a Taser 18 times while in handcuffs after he asked an officer to help him find his wife’s iPhone. Photos included in the suit show several large burn marks allegedly from the assault.
Yeah — when a Black man is found hanging in a county where officers of the law behave like Reconstruction-era Klan members, a suicide ruling is not likely to be taken at face value, nor should it.
“There has long been a kind of disconnect between communities of color and law enforcement. Unfortunately, many of us do not feel that law enforcement is actually there to serve and protect,” said Tori Bailey, president of the local NAACP chapter and the only Black member of the county commission in Colbert County, which has six members total. Bailey told AP that whether there was any foul play in Dennoriss Richardson’s death or not, the “visceral” reaction to his death by the local community and the call for a more thorough investigation makes perfect sense. She also noted that in her 12 years as president of the NAACP, she has documented and investigated many cases of law enforcement using excessive force in Colbert County.
As for Richardson’s past run-ins with the law, he has had many, but most of them over the better part of the last two decades didn’t result in any convictions.
More from AP:
Dennoriss Richardson pleaded guilty to drug possession in 2006 and was sentenced to five years in prison. In more than 15 years since then, court records show Richardson was arrested at least six additional times by the Sheffield Police Department, for charges ranging from disorderly conduct to robbery to assault.
None of those charges, except for a traffic violation for expired tags, resulted in a conviction, according to available court records.
In the same week that Richardson filed his lawsuit against the department, he was charged with trafficking meth. He had been arrested in a house where drugs allegedly were found. Richardson was out on bond when he died.
Dennoriss Richardson’s attorney, Van Daniel, spoke at his client’s funeral in early October, saying that Richardson “believed in transparency and accountability” and that he “stood up against police misconduct.”
“His family and the Sheffield community deserve answers,” Daniel said. “We deserve answers.”
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