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KA Suspends Ole Miss Students After Photo Surfaces of Bullet-Riddled Emmett Till Marker
By Jerry Mitchell
Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting
Three University of Mississippi students have been suspended from their fraternity house and face possible investigation by the Department of Justice after posing with guns in front of a bullet-riddled sign honoring slain civil rights icon Emmett Till.
Ole Miss student Ben LeClere holding a shotgun while standing in front of the bullet-pocked sign. His Kappa Alpha fraternity brother stands on the other side with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. A third fraternity member, John Lowe, squats below them. Photo via Instagram.
One of the students posted a photo to his private Instagram account in March showing the trio in front of a roadside plaque commemorating the site where Till’s body was recovered from the Tallahatchie River. The 14-year-old black youth was tortured and murdered in August 1955. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted two white men accused of the slaying.
The photo, which was obtained by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica, shows an Ole Miss student named Ben LeClere holding a shotgun while standing in front of the bullet-pocked sign. His Kappa Alpha fraternity brother, John Lowe, stands on the other side with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. A third fraternity member squats below them. The photo appears to have been taken at night, the scene illuminated by lights from a vehicle.
LeClere posted the picture on Lowe’s birthday on March 1 with the message “one of Memphis’s finest and the worst influence I’ve ever met.”
Neither LeClere nor Lowe responded to repeated attempts to contact them.
It is not clear whether the fraternity students shot the sign or are simply posing before it. The sign is part of a memorial effort by a Mississippi civil rights group and has been repeatedly vandalized, most recently in August 2018. Till’s death helped propelled the modern civil rights movement in America.
Five days after LeClere posted the photo, a person who saw it filed a bias report to the university’s Office of Student Conduct. The complaint pointed out there may have been a fourth person present, who took the picture.
“The photo is on Instagram with hundreds of ‘likes,’ and no one said a thing,” said the complaint, a copy of which was reviewed by the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica. “I cannot tell Ole Miss what to do, I just thought it should be brought to your attention.”
The photo was removed from LeClere’s Instagram account after the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and ProPublica began contacting fraternity members and friends. It had received 274 likes.
Kappa Alpha suspended the trio on Wednesday, after the news organizations provided a copy of the photo to fraternity officials at Ole Miss. The fraternity, which honors Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as its “spiritual founder” on its website, has a history of racial controversy, including an incident in which students wore blackface at a Kappa Alpha sponsored Halloween party at the University of Virginia in 2002.
“The photo is inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. It does not represent our chapter,” Taylor Anderson, president of Ole Miss’ Kappa Alpha Order, wrote in an email. “We have and will continue to be in communication with our national organization and the University.”
After viewing the photo, U.S. Attorney Chad Lamar of the Northern District of Mississippi in Oxford said the information has been referred to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division for further investigation.
“We will be working with them closely,” he said Thursday.
University officials called the photo “offensive and hurtful.”
University spokesman Rod Guajardo acknowledged that an Ole Miss official had received a copy of the Instagram picture in March. The university referred the matter to the university police department, which in turn gave it to the FBI.
Guajardo said the FBI told police it would not further investigate the incident because the photo did not pose a specific threat.
Guajardo said that while the university considered the picture “offensive,” the image did not present a violation of the university’s code of conduct. He noted the incident depicted in the photo occurred off-campus and was not part of a university-affiliated event.
“We stand ready to assist the fraternity with educational opportunities for those members and the chapter,” Guajardo said.
He said the university will continue to build programs to engage students in “deliberate, honest and candid conversations while making clear that we unequivocally reject attitudes that do not respect the dignity of each individual in our community.”
Since the first sign was erected in 2008, it has been the object of repeated animosity.
Vandals threw the first sign in the river. The second sign was blasted with 317 bullets or shotgun pellets before the Emmett Till Memorial Commission officials removed it. The third sign, featured in the Instagram photo, was damaged by 10 bullet holes before officials took it down last week. A fourth sign, designed to better withstand attacks, is expected to be installed soon.
News of the suspensions and referral to the Justice Department came as Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, was already planning a moment of silence Thursday to honor her cousin with a gathering of supporters and friends dressed in black and white in “a silent yet powerful protest against racism, hatred and violence.” Thursday is Till’s birthday. Had he lived, he would have been 78 years old.
This is not the first time Ole Miss fraternity students have been caught up in an incident involving an icon from the civil rights movement.
In 2014, three students from the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity house placed a noose around the neck of a statue on campus of James Meredith, the first known black student to attend Ole Miss. They also placed a Georgia flag of the past that contains the Confederate battle emblem.
According to federal prosecutors, the freshmen students hatched the plan during a drinking fest at the house, where one student disparaged African Americans, saying this act would create a sensation: “It’s James Meredith. People will go crazy.”
One pleaded guilty and received six months in prison for using a threat of force to intimidate African American students and employees because of their race or color. Another student also pleaded guilty. He received probation and community service after he cooperated with the FBI. A third man wasn’t charged.
All three students withdrew from Ole Miss, and the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity’s national headquarters shuttered its chapter on the Ole Miss campus after its own investigation, blaming the closing on behavior that included “hazing, underage drinking, alcohol abuse and failure to comply with the university and fraternity’s codes of conduct.”
This article was produced in partnership with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which is a member of the ProPublica Local Reporting Network.
Jerry Mitchell is an investigative reporter for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization that seeks to hold public officials accountable and empower citizens in their communities.
Email him at Jerry.Mitchell.MCIR@gmail.com and follow him on Facebook at @JerryMitchellReporter and on Twitter at @jmitchellnews.
Shirley L. Smith and Debbie Skipper of the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and Thalia Beaty, Benjamin Hardy and Claire Perlman of ProPublica contributed to this report.
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Chera
July 25, 2019 at 4:12 pm
I’m disgusted by the university’s response. The young men should be expelled immediately. The university should also begin cracking down on this obviously racist fraternity, ASAP! We are going backward. Not forward. I don’t know how much longer, I can support this university.
Rob High
July 25, 2019 at 4:36 pm
If less than 13% of the U.S. population could go at least ONE year without leading the nation in violent crime, I could sympathize more
Not a racist like Rob
July 25, 2019 at 5:12 pm
and what do those imaginary statistics have to do with a boy who was murdered by racists like you Rob?
CHP
July 25, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Those same guys be the first in the stands cheering the football and basketball team. That’s why none of my kids would even consider going to this school even though my spouse is a Hall of Fame graduate. What could possibly motivate them to do something so evil?
Debbie Crenshaw
July 25, 2019 at 11:18 pm
These 3 young men do not represent Ole Miss, other students and alumni. Their abhorrent, juvenile actions are akin to those committed by hate groups, Antifa being one such group . These people need serious mental health counseling. Hatred and ridicule of people who are different from you are wrong and a violation of one’s civil rights, whoever you are. Shameful actions like these continue to divide us which makes me sad.
Jake Turley
July 25, 2019 at 11:46 pm
Students murdering other students; racist, gun toting “frat bros” posing in front of a sign memorializing a 14 year old boy who was kidnapped and totured to death… Ole Miss is certainly attracting quality students these days. I know our firm will think twice before hiring anyone with a diploma from Ole Miss.
Jake Turley
July 26, 2019 at 12:11 am
What would motivate them- good question. First place to look is the parents. Needless to say, Lowe is hardly one of “Memphis’s finest”. In fact, he would probably do well to avoid returning to Memphis anytime soon. His prospects in that city have likely been greatly diminished.
Joe
July 26, 2019 at 6:48 am
Emmet Till was a sexual predator who got what he deserved. Still 13% of the population commit >50% of violent crime and the police are afraid to do anything. Despite the propaganda, white people are more likely to be shot in a police interaction, and most people shot by police are white.
James
July 26, 2019 at 8:04 am
Please let me know the name of your firm so I may be able to avoid using your services. These kids DO NOT represent everyone who attends Ole Miss or lives in Mississippi.
James
July 26, 2019 at 8:05 am
Please let me know the name of your firm so I may be able to avoid using your services. These kids DO NOT represent everyone who attends Ole Miss or lives in Mississippi.
Nope
July 26, 2019 at 8:10 am
Just had to get in the lab about Antifi, huh? Subtle.
Nope
July 26, 2019 at 8:11 am
Just had to get in the jab about Antifi, huh? Subtle.
Eye Nose What Eye Nose
July 26, 2019 at 10:50 am
Hottytoddy publishing this only fans the flames of hatred. Which is probably why HT published it.
Jake Turley
July 26, 2019 at 11:09 am
How was he a sexual predator? The woman who made the accusations later admitted to “fabricating” the incident.
Jake Turley
July 26, 2019 at 11:13 am
They may not represent all who attend Ole Miss, but there is a near continuous stream of similar- or worse- incidents radiating from Ole Miss. I simply want to avoid hiring anyone who might bring with them such baggage. The University and the remainder of the student body should certainly consider the negative stigma this places on the entire community.
Loretta
July 26, 2019 at 2:36 pm
A quick search shows the huge amount of publicity this incident is receiving nationally and internationally.
No sense in letting outsiders get any ideas that things might be changing here.
Tango247
July 26, 2019 at 6:43 pm
This goes both ways. Entire Greek Council meeting shut down due to a banana peel in a tree, last years basketball team members kneeling during the national anthem, repeated fake “racist attacks,” and now idiot frat boys posing in front of a sign. Two thirds of the student body had no idea who Till was before this event anymore than they know anything about anyone depicted in a statue they demand be removed. This whole thing is pointless manufactured outrage fed by attention. People who demand these things must be “addressed” and not allowed to fester are selling something. Turn out the lights, don’t feed or water it, ignore it, and this will die. As long as either side keeps claimed preferential treatment due to victim status the legacy survives.
Your Mom
July 26, 2019 at 9:25 pm
Fell better? Simple fact is scum is scum and Ole Miss is apparently allowing it to fester and grow in large quantities.
Tango247
July 27, 2019 at 3:05 pm
Clearly not much of a speller. No, actually, I do not “fell” better. And no, Ole Miss is not allowing anything to fester in large quantities except the garbage political rhetoric that keeps the controversy alive. Nobody is defending the action of these three guys. You appear to be exactly the type of demagogue fanning this silliness. When one side “demands” anything from the other (like reparations, special treatment, repeated apologies) it generates contempt. That is the simple fact here.
Eye Nose What Eye Nose
July 27, 2019 at 5:54 pm
Trump mess up everything. They didn’t shoot the sign while Obama President.
Cally
July 29, 2019 at 4:30 am
Actually, Joe, more white people are shot because there are more of them. If you look at the LIKELIHOOD of being shot, person by person, you are over three times more likely to be shot be
Police if you are black. That is what the figures show. So you are plain wrong. Or lying.
Mister X
July 29, 2019 at 4:23 pm
Can anybody here PROVE that the boys did anything more than take a picture?