By Perry Green
AFRO Sports Writer
(December 24, 2008) - Pieces are still being put together in the puzzle surrounding the case of Billey Joe Johnson Jr., the Mississippi high school football star whose death is being investigated by the local NAACP as a hate crime, a violation of Johnson’s civil rights.
According to the Jackson Advocate, Johnson’s family has asked the NAACP to step in and investigate their son’s death which occurred on Dec. 8 under mysterious circumstances after Johnson was stopped by police for an alleged traffic violation.
Family members have said that George County (Miss.) Coroner Jimmy Green claimed that the talented teen athlete had shot himself following the traffic stop, but they believe otherwise.
“That didn’t happen,” Billey Joe’s mother, Annette Johnson, said the day after her son’s death. “I know it in the pit of my guts that my baby did not kill himself.”
Annette Johnson isn’t the only one ruling out suicide.
“We've conducted numerous interviews with persons who are familiar with Billey Joe," said Curley Clark, president of the Gulf Coast chapter of the NAACP. "And we haven't been able to find anything that suggested he was in that state of mind or would in any way consider suicide."
The Advocate reported that the NAACP has learned that Johnson, an African American, was dating a White female who had a relationship with someone at the George County (Miss.) Sheriff’s office.
“For this reason, we have alerted the FBI to possible civil rights violations,” said Clark. “If the autopsy report reveals that Billey’s death was not an accident, we want Johnson’s death treated as a hate crime.”
According to the Associated Press, District Attorney Tony Lawrence released reports Dec. 19 that allegedly show Johnson, 17, was a suspect in a break-in that occurred moments before he died.
Reports say an underage female told Lucedale, Miss., police that Johnson had tried to break into her house earlier during the morning of his death.
By the time the police arrived at her house, Johnson was already gone, but a sheriff’s deputy had stopped him for an alleged traffic violation.
But nothing appears normal following the traffic stop.
George County Sheriff Garry Welford said that one of his deputies stopped Johnson at about 6 a.m. on Dec. 8, for allegedly running a stop sign near Mississippi 26.
While running a check on Johnson’s driver’s license, the deputy says he heard a gunshot go off, then saw Johnson on the ground near the driver’s side door of the victim's Chevy Z71 with a 12-gauge shotgun laying on top of him.
Everything about Johnson’s life at the time of his death suggests he was looking forward to living as opposed to killing himself.
He had just finished a successful senior football season, rushing for 1,559 yards and 24 touchdowns, and was expected to accept a scholarship offer from the University of Auburn.
“He was buying everything Auburn and was excited to play football there…he wanted to be Auburn's star running back,” said Annette Johnson, who also mentioned that Billey Joe was supposed to attend an awards ceremony later that day for his accomplishments on the field.
However, the NAACP hasn’t ruled out the possibility of Johnson accidentally shooting himself.
The identified weapon of the killing is a 12-guage shot gun that Johnson used for hunting purposes.
But even an accidental shooting appears bizarre as the gunshot wound entry point was found behind the ear on the left side of his head, despite Johnson being right-handed.
“I’ve never seen with my experience of hunting with rifles or shotguns, that a right-handed person would be able to take a long barrow shotgun and be able to reach it around to his left side and cause the kind of injury to their head that has been identified [by the authorities],” said Jerome Carter, attorney for the Johnson family, during an interview with CNN.
The Johnson family and their attorney recently met with the district attorney, as well as with Willie Gaines of the George County NAACP and Joel Wallace, an investigator with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.
Investigation findings may have been shared between each party, but no other information has been released.
“We cannot conclude anything until forensic testing is complete and at this time, we have not received a final autopsy report or any other report from the many forensic tests that were performed,” Lawrence told the media.
Lawrence expects the investigation to be complete sometime in January.