MONTGOMERY, ALA – A Black man was found hanging in an abandoned home in Alabama, and a request from a local sheriff asked for FBI assistance “amid fears among community members who accuse local law enforcement of longstanding, unchecked misconduct,” reported AP News.
Dennoriss Richardson, 39, was found by Sheriff’s deputies in September “in a rural part of Colbert County,” miles away from his home in Sheffield, located close to the Tennessee River.
The AP wrote, “The Colbert County Sheriff’s Office ruled Richardson’s death a suicide.” Yet, AP noted, Leigh Richardson, Richardson’s wife, stated she doesn’t believe this statement is true as there was no note left from her husband and there was no connection to the home where he was found.
Leigh Richardson instead believes her husband’s death was related to a lawsuit he had filed back in February against the local police department, said AP, adding, “Dennoriss Richardson, who coached kids in baseball and football, had alleged he was assaulted, denied medical attention, sprayed with tear gas and shocked with a Taser while in jail.”
Leigh Richardson stated she was not directly accusing any individual, yet is confident that her husband’s death was not a suicide.
Profound distrust toward local law enforcement in Colbert County has caused doubt on Richardson’s cause of death in the community, wrote AP, adding, residents of the county claim there to be a cycle of the use of excessive force from local law enforcement, and this area involves a long history of state-sanction lynchings of Black people.
The AP said Sheriff Eric Balentine, who received confirmation to investigate from the FBI, commented his department “exhausted all resources” in its investigation, adding, “We feel confident in what our findings were, but we feel like by doing this we can give the family more peace of mind.”
“A spokesperson for the FBI’s field office in Birmingham confirmed the FBI is aware of Dennoriss Richardson’s death and is reviewing the allegations of criminal misconduct,” writes AP.
NAACP’s local chapter president and only Black member out of the six-person county commission in Colbert County, Tori Bailey, said to AP the community’s reaction to the death of Richardson was “partially informed by the region’s harrowing history with lynchings.”
The AP cited Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit that reports, “In Alabama, there were 359 reported lynchings between 1877 and 1943” and Colbert County alone accounted for 11.
Bailey stated there is a possibility there may be nothing behind the accusation, but it was reasonable for the community to have that reaction to a hanging involving a Black man and the community wanting further investigation, writes AP. She admitted “while some officers are trying to do the right thing, in her 12 years as NAACP president she has documented and investigated many cases of excessive force in the county.”
Bailey said, “There has long been a kind of disconnect between communities of color and law enforcement. Unfortunately, many of us do not feel that law enforcement is actually there to serve and protect.”
A lifelong resident of Colbert County, who grew up around Dennoriss Richardson’s family, Marvin Long, a 57-year-old Black man, shared with AP “the skepticism about the suicide ruling and said Richardson’s death has intensified his fear of retaliation. To this day I hate seeing a police car…I’m still more afraid now than ever.”
After Long experienced an unrelated arrest outside his property in 2021, Long sued the Sheffield Police Department last year, writes AP, adding that “body camera footage appears to show officers following Long to his house, dragging him down his porch steps and siccing the police K9 on him as he screams for help. Long was unarmed, according to the complaint.”
Civil rights attorney Roderick Van Daniel is representing Long and Richardson alongside three other Latino and Black men who have filed lawsuits against the department.
According to AP, civil rights attorney Van Daniel commented, “Citizens are living in fear of retaliation.”
AP reports an instance where an off-duty Sheffield police officer was “caught on surveillance footage punching and pulling a gun on a Black man at a liquor store. The officer was later convicted of assault and menacing and reckless endangerment. He was fired from the department.”
AP reported another lawsuit by a 57-year-old chiropractor who said while he was in handcuffs he was shocked 18 times with a taser after requesting for the officer to help him locate his wife’s iPhone. The complaint had photos included that displayed several large burn marks from the alleged assault.
“The Sheffield Police Department did not respond to numerous phone calls and emails seeking comment. Lawyers for the officers named in pending lawsuits did not respond to emails,” said AP.
Balentine also said he hoped that the FBI investigation would help bring relief to the concerns presented, and said, “Transparency is always a good way to mend some fences with the community,” AP writes.
Leigh Richardson shared she had known her husband since the age of 17, and as a warm father of five, and told AP Richardson’s fear of the police was not something new.
She stated, “He was scared at that young age,” and after the lawsuit was filed she recalls Richardson being stopped by police more frequently, but he was “trying to stay out of the way.”
Van Daniel, Richardson’s attorney, commented Richardson “believed in transparency and accountability. He stood up against police misconduct,” AP wrote.
