CW Cardia Chies
VOLUME 94 - NUMBER 12
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, MARCH 28, 2015
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FBI asks for patience
in black man’s
hanging in Mississippi
By Johnny Clark and Jeff Amy
PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) - An FBI agent appealed for patience
arch 20 after a black man was found hanging from a tree in Mis-
sippi, saying 30 federal, state and local agents were working in-
isively to determine whether he was killed or committed suicide.
“Everybody wants answers and wants them quickly. We under-
rid that,” FBI Special Agent Don Alway told a crowd outside the
laibome County Courthouse. “We are going to hold off on coming
Laity conclusions until the facts take us to a definitive answer.”
The county coroner confirmed that the man found hanging from a
rite sheet Thursday was Otis Byrd, an ex-convict reported missing
his family more than two weeks ago. Byrd lived just 200 yards
an the spot where his body was found, in a wooded area off a dirt
id that ran behind his house.
Alway said investigators are interviewing Byrd’s family and
ends and searching his rental home and a storage unit for clues,
d will not reveal any evidence along the way.
“We are trying to paint a picture of Byrd’s life. We are trying to
d out what was going on with him personally and professionally,”
I said.
Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. told The Associated
:ss earlier Friday that Byrd did not appear to have stepped off of
/thing in the area where he was found hanging from a tree limb
out 12 feet high. His feet were dangling about two feet off the
>und, and his hands were not bound, Lucas said.
“Life matters,” Lucas told the crowd. “I commit to you, as the
iriff of Claiborne County, that I will not allow the shadows of the
st to cast a shadow on the future.”
The results of an autopsy by the Mississippi Crime Lab could take
ys, said Lucas.
Byrd worked on offshore oil rigs and enjoyed gambling in casinos
n his off time after getting out of prison, where he served 26 years
or fatally shooting a woman while robbing $101 from her conve-
lience store in 1980.
He wasn’t the type to commit suicide, friends and family said.
“He tried to turn his life around. He was going to church every
nday,” said his stepsister, Tracy Wilson. “Anybody could have
ne this. I just don’t see him doing it to himself.”
Lora McDaniel, a high school classmate who went to church with
rd and his family, said “he always had a smile on his face. I just
1’t see him committing suicide.”
“He was a quiet man. He didn’t bother nobody,” added Anita
rith, another high school classmate. “He had been out nine years
dall of the sudden this happens to him? Impossible.”
Smith said she is planning to participate in a march Monday in
rt Gibson to protest Byrd’s death.
Mississippi NAACP President Derrick Johnson suggested that it’s
) early for that. (Continued On Page 2)
HILLSIDE HIGH SCHOOL PONY EXPRESS members Alphonzo Rigel and
Greg Monroe shared some of their memories of 1965 and the three teams, Hillside,
Merrick-Moore and Little River who were champions in basketball. See photos
an story on page 7
)bama allies recruit top
Democrats to promote
trade pacts
Burr, Tillis stay
opposed to
nomination after
NAACP meeting
RALEIGH (AP) - North
Carolina’s two U.S. sena
tors say they remain op
posed to confirming
Greensboro native Loretta
Lynch as attorney general
after a meeting with state
NAACP leaders and other
advocates from their home
state.
Sens. Richard Burr and
Thom Tillis said in a re
lease they met March 17
with the North Carolina
residents visiting Washing
ton and seeking to change
their minds. They called
the meeting “a thoughtful,
thorough conversation”
and say they’re grateful the
group came to the nation’s
capital.
The two senators said
late last month they
wouldn’t support Lynch,
the U.S. attorney for east
ern New York. They both
cited in part pending elec-
tions-law litigation by the
Justice Department against
the state that they believe
will continue under Lynch
if she’s confirmed.
Police: Man shot to death
while driving down
Durham street
(AP) - Authorities are inves
tigating the death of a man shot
while driving down the street in
Durham over the weekend.
Police tell local media out
lets that 22-year-old Jonathan
McClain was driving down the
street at around 2:45 a.m. Sun
day when several shots were
fired in his direction from an
other vehicle.
By Charles Babington
; WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama’s al-
ies are recruiting high-profile Democrats to help combat
iberal resistance to his bid for new trade agreements in
sia and elsewhere.
The effort will sharpen differences between the Demo-
Icratic Party’s liberal and pro-business wings, especially
the northeastern New England region. And it could ac
celerate the effort to woo black lawmakers, a key target
|in the House.
The politics of trade in the U.S. are unusual. Republi-
ins generally support free trade, as do most presidents,
hatever their party.
But liberals, labor unions and some environmental
roups have grown increasingly hostile to trade deals in
scent years. Meanwhile, numerous congressional Re-
lublicans dislike the idea of giving Obama victories on
try front.
That’s why the White House is scrambling to gain as
any Democratic votes as possible.
’ Heading a pro-trade advisory board being announced
larch 24 are former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick,
ormer Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and former
US. Trade Representative and Dallas mayor Ron Kirk.
Kirk’s and Gregoire’s roles are not surprising. But Pat-
Ick’s might add some sizzle to the trade debate heating
■P in Congress. Among the Obama trade agenda’s stron-
pst critics is another Massachusetts Democrat, Sen. Eliz-
beth Warren.
Patrick and Kirk are two of the nation’s most promi-
cnt African-American politicians. Obama has openly
'ooed the Congressional Black Caucus in hopes of se
aring some of the House Democratic votes he will need
t pass his trade plans.
The effort squeezes black lawmakers between a presi
dent they generally support and liberal constituents who
bay strongly oppose new tract pacts.
I (Continued On Page 2)
Democrat: Republicans
putting Lynch at
‘back of the bus ’
By Erica Werner
WASHINGTON (AP) - The second-ranking Senate Democrat on
March 18 accused Republicans of putting the president’s attorney
general nominee “in the back of the bus” by delaying her confirma
tion.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois made the comment on the Senate floor
as he criticized the GOP over its handling of Loretta Lynch’s nomi
nation. She would become the nation’s first black female attorney
general, replacing Eric Holder, the first African-American in the job.
Lynch was nominated last fall and Democrats are growing in
creasingly agitated over the holdup in confirming her, although they
were in control of the Senate for some of that time.
“Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated
to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when
it comes to the Senate calendar,” Durbin said. "That is unfair. It’s
unjust. It is beneath the decorum and dignity of the United States
Senate.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell planned a vote on
Lynch’s nomination this week but delayed it when the Senate was
unable to finish work on a bill to combat human trafficking. That
legislation is stalled because of a partisan spat over abortion funding,
with Democrats objecting to a provision blocking money in a new
victims’ fund from paying for abortions in most cases.
“The Lynch nomination is next on the schedule. The only thing
holding up that vote is the Democrats’ filibuster of a bill that would
help prevent kids from being sold into sex slavery,” McConnell
spokesman Don Stewart said in response to Durbin. “The sooner they
allow the Senate to pass that bipartisan bill, the sooner the Senate can
move to the Lynch nomination.”
Democrats claim Republicans snuck the abortion provision into
the trafficking bill without telling them. Republicans note that the
language has been there since the bill was introduced early this year,
and no one raised objections as it unanimously passed the Judiciary
Committee. Democrats insist they weren’t aware of it.
It’s not clear how the issue will be resolved. Both sides say they
want to get the bill passed, but Democrats are milking the politics of
the dispute. Around the same time Durbin made his racially charged
accusation on the Senate floor, female senators held a press confer
ence with women’s groups to accuse Republicans of a “war on wom
en.”
A procedural vote to move ahead on the trafficking measure failed
March 17 when Democrats blocked it.
ATTY. LORETTA LYNCH (NY TimesPhoto)