Raleigh leaders address scrutiny over downtown death
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Raleigh leaders held a press conference Monday to address skepticism that police too quickly labeled a weekend death downtown a suicide.
Driving the news: Saturday afternoon, a 32-year-old man's body was found in a parking lot behind businesses across from Nash Square, according to police.
What they're saying: The evidence "was pretty apparent" on Saturday that it was a suicide, Raleigh Police Chief Rico Boyce said at the press conference.
- Videos collected by investigators in the days since do "show what happened," Raleigh Mayor Janet Cowell added.
- "Our investigation confirms that this is a suicide," Boyce said.
Background: The incident came under intense scrutiny because the man, who was Black, was found hanging from a tree, recalling the South's dark history of racist lynchings.
- “When a Black person is found hanging from a tree in the American South, authorities cannot reasonably expect the Black community to hear the word ‘suicide’ and stop asking questions,” the civil rights organization A. Philip Randolph Institute told The News & Observer in a statement Monday.
- More than 120 lynchings between 1877 and 1950 have been documented in North Carolina, per the Equal Justice Initiative.
Between the lines: Mainstream news outlets typically avoid reporting on suicide, but the N.C. Beat tabloid picked up the news immediately and influencers joined on social media Saturday night and Sunday morning.
- WRAL and The N&O's first stories published Sunday afternoon.
Case in point: "The News & Observer does not normally report on suicides nor the method of suicide, given research showing that news stories about suicide may lead to imitation," the newspaper wrote a day after the death.
- WRAL wrote it was the station's general policy only to report individual suicides "when the circumstances involve high public interest."
The latest: Boyce, at the Monday presser, defended the decision not to release more information over the weekend.
- "We're not under a timeline. We want to get it right," he said. "We have a mother grieving because she lost her child."
- Police did not release the man’s name.
What's next: Police say the case has been turned over to the medical examiner, who has final say over the cause of death.
- A spokesperson for the state department that oversees medical examiners referred questions to law enforcement on Monday.
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