America --the Land of the Freak, the Home of the Slave-- beware! Your clock is running... backwards:
A black man is found hanged in Florida: suicide or first lynching in two decades?
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
29 July 2003
Ever since the body of Feraris Golden was found hanging from a tree in his grandmother's garden, the small Florida community in which he lived and died has been split.
Was it a simple suicide or was it something far more sinister - a lynching?
Yesterday that debate - on which the community has been divided largely along racial lines - moved to a coroner's inquest investigating the circumstances surrounding Mr Golden's death. It is also being held to satisfy those who fear that their community has been struck by a crime most believed belonged to a different era and that Mr Golden - a black man - was murdered because he was dating the daughter of a white policeman.
"The purpose is to resolve the ugly rumours surrounding the death of [Mr] Golden and address what evidence there is that points to the cause of death and whether there was a lynching," wrote Linda Johnson, president of the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in a letter to the local authorities of Belle Glade, Florida, requesting the inquest. "We're not saying it's a homicide. We're not saying it's a suicide. We just think there are some questions that need to be answered."
A coroner's inquest has not been held in the county for almost 20 years - most suspicious deaths are investigated by a grand jury - but such has been the outcry that the State Attorney, Barry Krischer, also supported the move. At the conclusion of the two-day hearing, the coroner, circuit judge Harold Cohen, is expected to give a non-binding judgment. This could force the police, who believe Mr Golden committed suicide, to reopen the inquiry.
Since Mr Golden's body was found hanging in a noose fashioned from a sheet from a schefflera tree on 28 May there have been two versions of events surrounding his death. His mother, Bernice Golden, says when she discovered the body, her son's hands were bound behind his back. She called her husband, Henry Drummer, to try and take the body down. "He was cold as ice and stiff," Mr Drummer told The Palm Beach Post. "There's no way he could have done this to himself. I'll just come out and say it - I think he was lynched."
Post-mortem tests revealed that Mr Golden had alcohol equivalent to three times the legal driving limit in his bloodstream. There were also traces of cocaine. There was no chair or ladder and Mrs Golden says it would have been impossible for her son to have climbed the tree. "He was drunk up there, and it was raining," she said. "How's he gonna do that?"
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news.independent.co.uk |
