Non-profit organization, You Are The Power, is offering a $50,000 reward for information that could assist with investigations into the death of Rasheem Carter – the Black Mississippi man whose remains were found after he told his mother he was being pursued by White men.
The mother of the deceased 25-year-old had said her son reached out to the police for help and also informed her on the phone that he was being chased by White men in trucks, NBC News reported. Carter’s family was not able to establish any contact with him shortly after and reported him missing on October 2 last year.
On April 29, Carter’s family, as well as community members, held a protest asking for transparency in the investigation into his death, ABC News reported. The protest also came after more remains of Carter were recently found.
“This has really been a struggle for our family, but we’re going to do the best we can to fight,” Carter’s mother, Tiffany Carter, said. “We’re going to do what we gotta do to get the justice that we deserve to have.”
Announcing the $50,000 reward in an Instagram post, You Are The Power also stated that when Carter “needed help, police refused.” “But we can help bring justice to Rasheem’s killer(s), and closure to his loved ones,” the organization added.
Carter, who was a welder, had been working in Taylorsville after he was offered a temporary contract. But his mother said he and at least one co-worker got into a misunderstanding in October, causing him to flee the work site because he feared he was in danger.
“He said, ‘I got these men trying to kill me,’” Tiffany Carter previously said. She explained that she then told her son to seek help from the nearest police station, and did not hear from him again.
After Carter’s body was found on November 2, the Smith County Sheriff’s Department initially released a statement on Facebook saying it did not have any “reason to believe” the Black man’s death was a result of foul play. However, the department later walked back on those claims, family attorney Ben Crump, said.
During a March 13 news conference, Crump informed reporters that he believed the 25-year-old’s body was severed, adding that it was “not a natural death.” But some relatives said authorities informed them Carter’s body may have been severed by wild animals.
Crump, however, also said Carter’s spinal cord was not attached to his head when the body was found, adding that it was located at a different place. “There is nothing natural about this. It screams out for justice,” he said. “What we have is a Mississippi lynching.”
The attorney and the deceased Black man’s family are calling on the Justice Department to take over the case and initiate a civil rights probe. “This was not a natural death,” said Crump. “This represents a young man who was killed.”