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Tributes are pouring in for Sadie Roberts-Joseph, a prominent African-American historian and civil rights activist whose body was discovered in the trunk of her car in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Friday. Authorities said Monday the cause of death was homicide by asphyxiation, though few other details are known.

A string of deaths of prominent Ferguson activists and their relatives, as well as others who were murdered in a similar fashion, has left lingering questions about the circumstances. Given the recent detainment (with no justification given) of Iranian state TV journalist Marzieh Hashemi, who was working on a documentary about the murders, it’s worth re-examining the existing cases. We couldn’t find a comprehensive list placing the cases side-by-side, so we put this together. Some of the victims were notable figures in the protest movement, while others are related tangentially or by the strange nature of their deaths.

elfismiles » Mon Mar 18, 2019 12:54 pm wrote:I could have sworn I had posted about this here a couple of years ago but this appears to be new and all I could find that might have been what I'm remembering is below... I remember hearing that local Ferguson (or another town where a black man/youth was gunned down by police) activists had mysteriously died in burning cars...

AHA! Found it in this thread (see below).

Missouri / Published 8 hours ago / Last Update 7 hours ago
Deaths of Ferguson activists lead some to believe something sinister is at play
By Ryan Gaydos | Fox News

The sometimes-violent deaths of a half-dozen men linked to the 2014 protests that rocked Ferguson, Mo., including two found in burning cars and three who allegedly committed suicide, have sparked fears that something sinister is afoot, The Associated Press reported in an extensive investigation.

Police say the deaths, which also included a man who collapsed on a bus due to an overdose, have nothing to do with the protests that rocked the small city near St. Louis following the police-involved shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. But others involved in the protests say the strange events are piling up.

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FLASHBACK: POLICE ASK FOR HELP IN SOLVING SHOOTING DEATH OF TOP FERGUSON, MISSOURI ACTIVIST

The Rev. Darryl Gray told the Associated Press he found a suspicious box inside his car and when authorities came to inspect they found a 6-foot python inside.

“Everybody is on pins and needles,” Gray said.

No arrests have been made in the two homicides as St. Louis County police spokesman Shawn McGuire told the Associated Press witnesses have just refused to answer questions, leaving the investigation with no leads.

“We don't believe either one was connected to each other,” McGuire said, adding “It's tough to come up with a motive without a suspect.”

In the years since the protest of the police-involved shooting, activists said they’ve been targeted in dangerous ways.

“Something is happening,” Cori Bush, a leader of the Ferguson protests, told The Associated Press. “I've been vocal about the things that I've experienced and still experience — the harassment, the intimidation, the death threats, the death attempts.”

Bush told The Associated Press her car has been run off the road, her home vandalized and someone fired a bullet into her home in 2014 – narrowly missing her 13-year-old daughter. She suspected she’s been targeted by white supremacists or police sympathizers.
FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2017 file photo, Cori Bush speaks on a bullhorn to protesters outside the St. Louis Police Department headquarters in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 17, 2017 file photo, Cori Bush speaks on a bullhorn to protesters outside the St. Louis Police Department headquarters in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

PROMINENT FERGUSON, MISSOURI ACTIVIST FOUND SHOT TO DEATH IN BURNING CAR

Ferguson protests erupted in August 2014 after police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Brown during a confrontation. Brown was unarmed at the time of the shooting and Wilson claimed self-defense, saying Brown charged him. A grand jury declined to bring charges against Wilson, prompting a night of violence.

One of the first activists to die was Deandre Joshua, according to the Associated Press. Joshua, 20, was shot in the head before his car was torched.

Darren Seals, who was shown on video during the night of the protests comforting Brown’s mother, was shot multiple times with his body torched in a vehicle as well in September 2016.

Four others had also died, three of them ruled suicides.

MarShawn McCarrell, an Ohio man who was an activist in Ferguson, shot himself outside the Ohio Statehouse in February 2016, police said.

Edward Crawford Jr., 27, shot himself in May 2017 after telling his friends he was upset over personal issues, police said. Crawford was seen in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photo firing a canister back at Ferguson police during the protests.

"I've been vocal about the things that I've experienced and still experience — the harassment, the intimidation, the death threats, the death attempts."
— Cori Bush, Ferguson activist

Danye Jones, 24, was found hanging from a tree in a yard north of his home in October. His mother claimed that he had been lynched but the death was ruled a suicide, according to the Associated Press.

Bassem Masri, 31, was found unresponsive on a bus and toxicology results showed he had died as a result of a fentanyl overdose. The Palestinian American had livestreamed Ferguson demonstrations.

Many activists still feel a sense of hopelessness after the protests. But it’s unclear if the suicides had been related to the effects of the Ferguson aftermath.

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“This has to have a big impact on their mental health,” Washington University sociologist Odis Johnson told the Associated Press. “For many, law enforcement is not a recourse. Many times law enforcement is not on their side.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/puzzling-num ... -have-died

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Re: "Suicides" and "accidents" - The official RI thread

elfismiles » 26 Jan 2015 19:30 wrote:Saw this earlier...

<snip>

EDIT TO ADD YET MORE:

Second FOX News Suicide in Two Months: Employee Shoots Himself in Front of NYC Head Office
January 26, 2015 By 21wire
...
Perea was the second FOX News employee who is said to have committed suicide in the last 60 days. On December 14, 2014, Fox News Channel international correspondent Dominic Di-Natale, 43, was tragically found dead in Colorado. His work was featured on the Fox News Channel, the Fox Business Network, and FoxNews.com. Di-Natale was covering Ferguson over Thanksgiving weekend, when he tweeted a picture of the famous Gateway Arch in St. Louis with a caption that simply said “last one.”

Interestingly, Di-Natale (photo, above) had also reported from the ‘Osama bin Laden compound’ in Abbotabad, Pakistan after the alleged raid which the US government claimed “took out” the al-Qaeda leader.
....
http://21stcenturywire.com/2015/01/26/s ... ad-office/

ETA

Pele'sDaughter » 07 Sep 2016 17:23 wrote:http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-darren-seals-ferguson-activist-dead-20160907-story.html

When Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer two years ago, Darren Seals was one of the most vocal activists leading protests across the city. He rallied a boycott of Democratic candidates in local elections after he said they failed to protect black lives. And on the day a grand jury declined to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, Seals held Brown's mother in his arms as she sobbed.

On Tuesday, Seals was found dead, authorities said, in a burning car outside the city. He was 29.

Officers with the St. Louis County Police Department responded to a vehicle fire in the northern part of the county at about 1:50 a.m., reported The St. Louis American. When they arrived, authorities found Seals body inside the charred car. He had been shot, police told the newspaper.

Authorities are investigating the incident as a homicide, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, but did not release any suspect information or a possible motive.

Online, friends and fellow activists mourned.

"We can live in a world where people don't die by violence. Nobody deserves to die," DeRay Mckesson, a prominent Black Lives Matter activist, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. "We did not always agree, but he should be alive today."

Johnetta "Netta" Elzie, another leader of the Ferguson protests who grew up in North County St. Louis, wrote a series of tweets expressing her grief and shock:

"Today is really hard. This is really really hard."

"I hope his soul is at rest. I truly don't know what else to say."

"Peace to Ferguson protesters."

"This is so hard. We've never done this part before together."

In his own Twitter bio, Seals described himself as a "Businessman, Revolutionary, Activist, Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa, Fighter, Leader."

He was best known for his local activism. A Washington Post story from 2014 featuring Seals described him as an "assembly-line worker and hip-hop musician."

In that story, Seals described his attempt to organize Democrats to unseat liberal officials by voting for white Republicans in the local elections that fall.

"Just because they've got the D next to their name, that don't mean nothing," Seals told The Post. "The world is watching us right now. It's time to send a message of our power."

At the time, Seals lived just blocks from where Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, was shot and killed by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in 2014. Four months later, after the prosecutor announced Wilson would not face charges in Brown's death, Seals described to MTV what it was like to comfort the man's grieving mother.

"And for Mike Brown's mother to be right there in my arms crying - she literally cried in my arms - it was like I felt her soul crying," he said. "It's a different type of crying. I've seen people crying, but she was really hurt. And it hurt me. It hurt all of us."

Most recently, Seals had actively voiced his support of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who had made headlines in recent weeks for sitting and kneeling during the national anthem at NFL football games to raise awareness of racial inequality in the United States.

... and ...

seemslikeadream » 08 Sep 2016 14:23 wrote:Prominent Ferguson Protester Darren Seals Shot Dead

http://readersupportednews.org/news-sec ... -shot-dead

Prominent Ferguson activist Darren Seals, 29, was found shot dead inside a burning car Tuesday in St. Louis Country. He was found at 1:50 a.m. local time and suffered a gunshot wound before his vehicle was set on fire, according to police, who say they’re investigating the shooting as an homicide.

Seals was close to the scene when 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson on Aug. 9, 2014, by Darren Wilson—a white police officer—and became active in the protests that followed.

... and more on page 25 of this thread

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