A rally and news meeting have been organized today by Danye Jones’, 24, family, who was discovered dead, swinging from a tree on his family’s property, earlier this month. St. Louis County says they are investigating Jones’ death as a suicide. In any case, his mom, Melissa McKinnies, a prominent protestor who organized protests amid the Ferguson Uprising in 2014, says her child was lynched in retaliation for her activist work.
McKinnies discovered her child on the morning of Oct. 17, his body dangling from a bedsheet which was tied around his neck. As per CBS, McKinnies and police confirmed that a seat was found close to Jones’ body, McKinnies says she knows her child didn’t murder himself.
In a Facebook post that has since been deleted, McKinnies posted an image of her child’s lynching. “This is what I woke up to. They lynched my baby,” she wrote. “I’m sick and losing my mind but I had to let the world see what they did to my baby.”
Facebook deleted the post, however screen shots make sure you never forget anything. A St. Louis County Police representative told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Jones’ body was on the ground when police landed on the scene.
“There were no signs of struggle or trauma to the body. And, he said, the family reported a suicide when they called 911,” writes the Post-Dispatch. Police are as yet sitting tight for the outcomes from toxicology tests to decide the reason for death.
Addressing the Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, McKinnies says her child was killed as countering for her activism.
From the Post-Dispatch:
She insisted he was upbeat, not suicidal, and did not know how to tie the types of knots used in the ligature. The sheet used did not match the family’s sheets. And he had packed an overnight bag, which had been left on the patio, a suggestion that he trusted and had planned to leave the house with the person who killed him, she said.
McKinnies told the Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV that she and her family have gotten passing dangers identified with her work sorting out dissents following the executing of Michael Brown in 2014. Those dangers, which were conveyed through internet based life, seemed to have heightened over the most recent two months.
“They watched my house and when my husband and my son would approach the car, they would drive off,” McKinnies told KMOV-TV.
McKinnies isn’t the first person to say she was targeted because of her work in the Ferguson Uprising, the development that followed in the wake of Michael Brown’s shooting passing in the hands of a cop, Darren Wilson. Rev. Darryl Gray, a prominent St. Louis activist, revealed to CBS that activists in the area and still targeted and harassed, generally by means of social media and messages. Be that as it may, others say the badgering has gone much further—police, all things considered, are as yet exploring the suspicious passings of DeAndre Joshua, an activist murdered in 2014, and Darren Seals, slaughtered in 2016. Both were found inside burnt vehicles.
Some trust that Jones’ hanging might be a continuation of a pattern of murders of prominent activists in the area.
McKinnies said she would expand on the death threats she has been receiving at the press conference Thursday. A rally to help Danye Jones and his family has also been scheduled outside the St. Louis County Justice Center in Clayton, Mo., CBS reports.
