Police Say Activist's Death Was A Suicide, Mother Says Murder

ST. LOUIS COUNTY, MO — Did a 24-year-old Ferguson protester kill himself or was he murdered? It depends on who you ask.

Investigators with the St. Louis County Police Department say Danye Jones likely hanged himself from a tree with a bed sheet on Oct. 17. They found no signs of struggle or trauma to his body, a police spokesperson told the Associated Press, though a final ruling is still pending. But Jones' family members insist he was murdered in retaliation for his activism.

"They lynched my baby," Melissa McKinnies wrote on Facebook shortly after she found her son dead in the backyard. Though that post, which contained graphic images of Jones' body, was since deleted by Facebook, McKinnies said she still believes what she wrote.

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According to family and friends, Jones played a part in the sometimes violent protests that shook the county after Darren Wilson, a white police officer, fatally shot an African-American teenager, Michael Brown, in August 2014. Sometimes called the Ferguson Uprising, those protests led directly to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement and a damning Justice Department investigation against the city.

Jones is the latest in a string of activists who've died since the protests four years ago. Twenty-year-old DeAndre Joshua was shot to death in a parked car in November, 2014, police say. His murder is still unsolved. In 2016, the St. Louis American reported, 29-year-old Darren Seals, another Ferguson activist, was also shot in his car. The car was then set on fire. Police haven't made any arrests in his case either. In 2017, 27-year-old Edward Crawford, who was captured in an iconic photo by Post-Dispatch photographer Robert Cohen wearing an American flag shirt and hurling a burning tear gas canister back at police, shot himself, according to investigators. Family members disagreed with the suicide ruling in that case too.

State Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal said on Twitter earlier this year that she believes a murderer is targeting Ferguson activists.

That claim is resonating with many in the activist community. McKinnies' post claiming that her son was lynched quickly went viral, and continues to be shared widely on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit.

McKinnies insists that her son was not suicidal and told the Post-Dispatch that he wouldn't have known how to tie the knots used in the noose that killed him. Activists will hold a rally this afternoon in downtown Clayton to call for a more thorough investigation of Jones' death.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.

Image via Shutterstock