Something is rotten in the state of Missouri.
Edward Crawford, 27, is now the third young Black man connected to the 2014 police shooting uprisings in Ferguson, Mo. to be found dead in a car.
Ferguson protester and activist Crawford succumbed to a gunshot wound Thursday night or Friday morning. Although still undetermined, police are claiming Crawford’s fatal injuries were self-inflicted.
Edward Crawford became an icon of the Movement for Black Lives when a St. Louis Post-Dispatch photograph of him throwing a tear gas canister back at police officers circulated during the protests following Police Officer Darren Wilson’s killing of Michael Brown Jr.
In an interview with CNN‘s Brian Stelter shortly after the incident, Crawford said:
“Before the photo was taken, the canister… was shot and it landed a couple of feet away from me and some children standing on the sidewalk…[I was] not throwing the canister at the police; I was merely getting the canister away from me and the kids.”
About his son’s death, Edward Crawford Sr., commented to the Post-Dispatch:
“I don’t believe it was a suicide. They’re being hush-hush.
Last September, Darren Seals, 29, another Ferguson protester and activist, was shot before being placed in a car that was then lit on fire.
November 2014, during the protests following the grand jury’s refusal to indict Officer Wilson in Michael Brown’s shooting, DeAndre Joshua, 20, was also found shot in the head inside a burning car. Bloodied glass was discovered on the ground beside his white Pontiac, next to the Canfield Green Apartments, where Mike Brown was slain.
Mo. state senator Maria Chappelle-Nadal (D-University City) said:
“We’ve had three or four shootings, two of which have been quite similar to one another. Whether it’s a suicide, whether it was a mistake, whether it was a murder, it is a huge loss.”
Indeed. Three Black men connected with the Ferguson protests all found dead in cars, two of which were set on fire. Coincidence?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-nlqIm67Q4
Featured image from YouTube video.
