Officer's Lawyer: Sanders Death Not Racial - Jackson Free Press
Bill Ready Jr. , the attorney for the white police officer who killed a black man after a traffic stop in July, has nearly four decades of experience handling civil-rights cases. For these reasons, many in eastern Mississippi were surprised that the junior Ready took on the defense of Kevin Herrington, the Stonewall police officer who stopped 39-year-old Jonathan Sanders on a dark road on July 8, with Sanders then dying... "I've been involved in cases where I can definitely tell you, 'Oh, hell yeah, something was racially motivated,' or (that) it was motivated because a person was homosexual. Online news organizations have widely reported claims from Sanders' family attorneys Chokwe A. Lumumba and C. J. Lawrence that Herrington used a racial slur when he encountered Sanders at the CEFCO gas station in Stonewall (an accusation the... "Everybody seems to be wanting to make it a race issue between a white police officer and a black man," Ready said, "but what makes it a race issue. Because it's a black man and white man. Lumumba and Lawrence gave their account of events—which they say is based on statements from witnesses at the CEFCO gas station as well as a home near where the altercation between Sanders and Herrington—to the Jackson Free Press on July 13. In... Source: www.jacksonfreepress.com
