Family allegedly not told of man's death for months.

The Jackson Police Department has come under fire recently after Black Enterprise reported that they had buried two Black men in a pauper’s grave on the same day. Now, the Associated Press has reported a third incident, with the family of Jonathan David Hankins now seeking answers. Civil Rights Attorney Benjamin Crump released a statement detailing that Hankins’ family had been searching for information about what happened to him for over a year.

“Jonathan David Hankins’ family has been desperately seeking answers about their loved one’s disappearance for more than a year,” Crump said. “Now, to find out from news reports that his body was found in the same county where Dexter Wade’s body was buried after being struck by a police cruiser raises disturbing questions.”

However, the Jackson Police Department did not contact the Hankins family, and instead, they learned the news from an NBC News reporter on December 4th. In addition, the difference between Hankins and the other two men is that while Wade and Moore were Black, Hankins is white. Attorney Crump also noted that the family of Hankins was not notified of his death, even though investigators were able to identify his body.

The Associated Press also reported that the family of Dexter Wade did not find out about his death until five months after the incident, and the family of Marrio Moore did not find out for eight months. Gretchen Hankins, Jonathan David Hankins’ mother, believes that the department simply did not care because they thought her son was a drug addict. “They can’t even do the job of notifying a dead person’s next of kin. They probably just thought, ‘Another drug addict, gone.’”

In response to the reports, Jackson Police Chief Joseph Wade announced a new next-of-kin notification policy during a press conference on November 13th. However, this is little consolation to the Hankins family, who have had to suffer through the anguish of not knowing what happened to their son for over a year. “That’s ridiculous. Going that dang long and not calling people that’s just inhumane. It’s wrong. It’s just wrong.”

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