When Words Of Comfort Don’t Seem To Be Enough

Just some thoughts on this dreary, cold day.

It is hard when loved ones die from disease or old age. It is horrible when loved ones die from an accident. It is devastating when loved ones are killed by others.   Those left behind always seem to have a feeling of guilt, but that’s mainly from being helpless. I’ve said on this blog many times that death does not discriminate. It doesn’t care about age, gender, or the color of skin.   Money might buy medical care to extend life, but it cannot bribe death when the time comes.  That sense of helplessness runs deep.

When loved ones are killed, people look to the justice system. The only comfort that comes from that is the sense of juries and judges acknowledging right from wrong. However, what juries hear and see is painted by their own hearts and minds.  People are not computers programmed to process data without bias.

There are times when there are no words sufficient in bringing comfort to the hurting, to those who have lost loved ones, the ill, the tired. There are times when I feel that there must be more – something I can do, and not merely say. If I had the power of resurrection, I would walk through the hospitals, the morgue, the graveyards, calling out names and saying, “Come forth.”

Today, because I feel that there are no words sufficient to directly comfort the living, I will address their loved ones who have gone on.

Three Years Later, Two More Convicted In Hate Crime Case

It happened on June 26, 2011. 18-year old Deryl Dedmon of Brandon, Mississippi decided to drive into a predominately Black area of Jackson, Mississippi for the distinct purpose of messing up Blacks. With him were John Rice, Dylan Butler, Jonathan Gaskamp, William Montgomery, Shelbie Brooke Richards and Sarah Adelia Graves.

Dedmon owned a 1998 Ford F-250 truck and those who couldn’t fit in his truck climbed into a Jeep Cherokee. They drove 16 miles to the western side of Jackson.

In the parking lot of the Metro Inn near his own truck was 49-year old James Craig Anderson. Dedmon and his group pulled into the parking lot, robbed James and repeatedly beat him. Dazed, James walked to the curb of the street, where Dedmon ran him over, killing him.

Dedmon first told the police that he pulled into the Metro Inn parking lot because he thought James was trying to steal a vehicle. What Dedmon didn’t know is that motel security cameras caught most of his and his friends’ action on video.

James Anderson

On July 6, 2011, Dedmon was arrested by the Hinds County Sheriff and charged with capital murder. Because witnesses heard racial slurs being used during and after James was beaten, the Hinds County District Attorney, Robert Shuler Smith, took the matter of capital murder and hate crime before a grand jury. On September 20, 2011, the grand jury indicted Dedmon on charges of capital murder and hate crime.

At his preliminary hearing on September 30, 2011, Dedmon entered a plea of not guilty. However, on March 21, 2012, he changed his plea to guilty for murder and a hate crime.