FBI Investigating Death of Alabama Man Found Hanging After Suing Police

The FBI has agreed to investigate the death of Dennoriss Richardson, 39, a Black man who was found hanging in a remote area miles from his home in Colbert County, Alabama, AP reported.

On September 28, Colbert County sheriff's deputies responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle at an abandoned house close to the Mississippi border found Mr. Richardson hanging from a beam in a carport, according to al.com. Sheriff Eric Balentine toldreporters that his investigation concluded the cause of death was suicide.

But Mr. Richardson's family is adamant that he did not die by suicide, pointingto a long history of police harassment that escalated after Mr. Richardson filed a federal lawsuit earlier this year alleging that local police had beaten and abused him.

"This was made to look like a suicide," Mr. Richardson's wife, Leigh Ann Richardson, toldal.com. "It's not a suicide."

A Legacy of Racial Injustice

Dennoriss Richardson, a father of five children who coachedkids' baseball and football for 14 years, lived in Sheffield, Alabama, a city of about 9,300 residents that is 71% white and 23% Black, according to the Census.

Residents toldAP that Mr. Richardson's death brings up the area's long history of racial terror and a legacy of police violence and misconduct that continues today.

EJI has documented 364 racial terror lynchings in Alabama between 1877 and 1950. Of those, 11 were in Colbert County, where today the population of about 57,000 is 80% white and nearly 16% Black.

Lynching and racial terror profoundly compromised the criminal justice system, EJI found. Mobs of white people usually were permitted to engage in racial terror and brutal violence with impunity.

Many Black people were pulled out of jails or given over to mobs by law enforcement officials who were legally required to protect them.

The region's history of racial terror lynchings has impacted the community's reaction to Mr. Richardson's death, local NAACP president and county commissioner Tori Bailey toldAP.

"There has long been a kind of disconnect between communities of color and law enforcement," she said. "Unfortunately, many of us do not feel that law enforcement is actually there to serve and protect."

"They Harassed Him His Whole Life"

Leigh Richardson toldAP that Dennoriss had been scared of the police since she met him when he was just 17. Sheffield police had harassed him "his whole life," she toldal.com.

AP reportedthat, in the more than 15 years since Mr. Richardson pleaded guilty to drug possession in 2006, court records show Sheffield Police arrested him at least six times, for charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault. But except for a traffic violation for expired tags, none of those charges resulted in a conviction.

Mrs. Richardson toldal.com that Sheffield police arrested her husband on false accusations of animal cruelty. While he was detained in the Sheffield City Jail for five days in 2022, several police officers beat him, strapped him in a restraint chair for hours, and denied him medical attention after he was sprayed with tear gas and shocked with a Taser, according to a federal lawsuit Mr. Richardson filedearlier this year.

After he filed the lawsuit against five Sheffield police officers and the police chief, Mr. Richardson's wife saidthe police harassment escalated. Sheffield Mayor Steve Stanley toldAP that Mr. Richardson had come to his office seeking his help.

Police arrested Mr. Richardson in a house where drugs allegedly were found and charged with trafficking meth, the AP reported. Leigh Richardson toldal.com that police told her husband the charges would be dismissed if he dropped the lawsuit, but he refused. He was out on bond when he died.

"Living in Fear"

Mr. Richardson was among five Black and Latino men represented by civil rights attorney Roderick Van Daniel who have filed lawsuits against the Sheffield police department in recent years, AP reported.

In one case, an off-duty Sheffield police officer punched and pulled a gun on a Black man. The assault was caught on video and the officer was convicted and fired, according to AP.

A separate lawsuit filed by a 57-year-old chiropractor alleged he was handcuffed and repeatedly shocked with a Taser after he asked an officer for help finding his wife's iPhone, AP reported.

Marvin Long suedthe department last year after officers involved in an unrelated arrest outside his home dragged him down his porch steps and set a police dog on him as he screamed for help. He toldAP that Mr. Richardson's death put him in even greater fear of police retaliation. "To this day I hate seeing a police car," Mr. Long said. "I'm still more afraid now than ever."

"Citizens are living in fear of retaliation," Mr. Van Daniel, who now represents Mr. Richardson's family, toldAP.

"I am grateful to know that a federal investigation will be done," he toldal.com. "We all are seeking the truth, understanding, and justice."

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