Dexter Wade received a dignified funeral and burial Monday in Mississippi's capital city, months after he was hit and killed by a police SUV and officials first buried his body in a pauper's grave without notifying his family that he was dead. Under a gray sky, his mother, Bettersten Wade, tossed a handful of dirt onto the vault that held his shiny red casket after it was slowly lowered into the ground in a south Jackson cemetery where, so far, only a few other bodies are buried, the AP reports. Surrounded by family and friends, she said to her son: "I'll see your face again." Dexter Wade, a 37-year-old Black man, died March 5 after an off-duty Jackson Police Department officer struck him with a department SUV while Wade was walking across Interstate 55. Police have not released identifying information, including the officer's race.
Wade's mother said she last saw her son that day, and she filed a missing person's report a few days later. It was late August before she learned he had been killed and buried in a paupers' cemetery near the Hinds County Penal Farm in the Jackson suburb of Raymond. Wade's body was exhumed Nov. 13, and an independent autopsy was conducted. A wallet found in the pocket of the jeans in which Wade originally was buried contained his state identification card with his home address, credit card, and a health insurance card, said civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is representing Wade's family. Crump said Monday that he has been speaking to Justice Department officials as he urges them to investigate why Jackson police and other local officials failed to notify Wade's family of his death.
Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, each placed an arm around Bettersten Wade as she stood before her son's flower-covered casket under a large cross in the sanctuary. Sharpton, who is based in New York, said he traveled to Jackson to deliver the eulogy because he wanted to give words of comfort to Wade's family and "words of discomfort to the state of Mississippi," including to the city of Jackson and its police department. "What happened to Dexter was a disgrace, a national outrage, and should be treated as such," Sharpton said. Sharpton said Monday that he had been told that the officer who struck and killed Wade was Black. "I don't care if he's Black or white—what he did was wrong," Sharpton said.
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