Family of slain LGBT Mississippi mayoral candidate hires attorney in Trayvon Martin case
theGRIO REPORT - Nearly three months after the battered body of Clarksdale, Miss. mayoral candidate Marco Watson McMillian was found dumped in a field, his parents have hired Parks and Crump...
According to his bio, McMillian was hailed by EBONY magazine as one of the nation’s 30 leaders who are 30 years old and under in 2004. A graduate of Jackson State University, McMillian was CEO of MWM & Associates, a professional consulting firm for nonprofit organizations. He’d also served as international executive director of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity; executive assistant and chief of staff to the president of Alabama A&M University, and assistant to the vice president for institutional advancement at Jackson State University.
McMillian was living in Memphis before returning to Clarksdale with a strong desire to change his hometown. He announced his candidacy for mayor in January 2013.
“This race to City Hall is about Our Children. Our Citizens. Our Concern. Our CLARKSDALE,” McMillan posted on his Facebook page. “…We are the change we seek…I am going to truly need you[r] help to transform Clarksdale so all people will have a quality of life…Please keep me lifted in prayer.” In another post he said: “More than 40% of the people who live in Clarksdale, Mississippi live in poverty every day. We can eradicate poverty and substandard living for all if we stand to do what is right and just.”
Clarksdale is the county seat of Coahoma County and according to the 2011 Census, has a population of about 18,000.
Lettman-Hicks said she and McMillian’s family believe his political aspirations may have been a factor in his death.
“We’re looking into that…we don’t necessarily believe Reed may have acted alone, if was even the killer,” she said. “There is a lack of willingness in the general community to provide information…So it makes us have the assumption that there may be a political motive behind his death and not this fabricated relationship gone bad that seems to be the general norm of…speculation. Why aren’t they looking into whether the person who said he killed him actually killed him and he’s not being the scapegoat for someone else?”
The Clarksdale election was held on May 7.
“There are mixed feelings in the community. It’s been an ordeal for the community and for the family that‘s for sure,” Meredith said. “We have come so far in race relations in Clarksdale that we don’t need anything to set us back. Everything is good. God made all of us and that’s the way I see the whole community, with that same attitude. And that’s the only way we’re going to make it. We don’t need any trouble at all.”
Will Rooker, the public information officer for the Coahoma County Sheriff’s Department, said that investigators confirmed that Reed and McMillian knew each other and that the morning after he and McMillian were last seen together by witnesses, Reed had an accident in McMillian’s car. Reed was alone in the vehicle and injured.
The following morning, McMillan was found dead.
While colleagues said McMillan was “openly gay,” his mother told CNN that her son “did not announce in public that he was gay” when it came to his run for political office. McMillan’s autopsy report showed the presence of semen on his body.
Friends of Reed, however, said he was straight.
“Gay panic” at issue
“If in fact, under the assumption of the friends and family of the suspect, that he panicked because unwanted advances were put on him…why aren’t they looking into this potentially as being a hate crime?” Lettman-Hicks said. “Gay panic is a hate crime. Women get unwanted advances from men all the time, but we don’t turn around and kill them. How did it escalate to a point that it turned into torture? It just doesn’t add up.”
“I think some are trying to relate this to a hate crime and I don’t see it as that,” Meredith said. “And that’s just my opinion. I see it as an argument. But that still don’t make [what happened] right.”
McMillan’s family has asked for a federal investigation because of frustration with the local investigation and also because, unlike federal law, Mississippi’s hate crime statute does not cover sexual orientation.
“Because of the level of hate that was involved in the level of torture that was found on Marco, we are not going to let this be relegated to some sort of self-defense case,” Lettman-Hicks said.
In a letter to Coahoma County’s Sheriff Charles Jones dated May 1, Patricia Unger cited several concerns in regard to how her son’s case was being handled. She noted a lack of professionalism and information, citing that Jones had only been to see her twice since her son was murdered, the improper removal of her son’s belongings and the manner in which she was made to identify her son’s body.
Next: “Where’s the decency?”
