Tell-It Report: Colin Kaepernick to Fund Independent Autopsy For Trey Reed by Michael Harriot
The Delta State University student was found hanging from a tree on campus on Sept. 15. Read on Substack
In Gullah Geechee communities, a “tell-it” was a designated lookout, community warning system and the most trusted source for news and information. The Tell-It Report is ContrabandCamp’s weekly roundup of the Black stories that deserve more attention — from politics to entertainment.
Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp will fund the independent autopsy for Demartravion “Trey” Reed, who was found hanging from a tree in Mississippi. The state medical examiner has ruled his death a suicide.
The Black unemployment rate has increased by 1.5% in the last three months.
The Justice Department has quietly scrubbed from its website a study that shows that right-wing extremists have killed more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group.
Read the full stories below:
Activist and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is funding an independent autopsy for Demartravion “Trey” Reed, the 21-year-old Delta State student who was found hanging from a tree on the Cleveland, Miss., campus on Sept. 15.
The Cleveland Police Department released a statement on Sept. 18 stating that the initial autopsy, conducted by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner’s Office, ruled Reed’s death a suicide. Days prior, Delta State’s Director of Public Safety Mike Peeler said that there was no evidence of foul play. Reed’s family challenged their findings and is demanding answers.
On Friday, Ben Crump announced that Kaepernick’s “Know Your Rights Camp Autopsy Initiative” would be covering the cost of a secondary autopsy.
“Trey’s death evoked the collective memory of a community that has suffered a historic wound over many, many years and many, many deaths,” Crump said in a press release. “Peace will come only by getting to the truth. We thank Colin Kaepernick for supporting this grieving family and the cause of justice and truth.”
The statement read that the family will initiate the process once Reed’s body is released by the state medical examiner.
Reed’s body was found hanging on the Mississippi university’s campus, where nearly half of the student body is Black. The case evoked memories of the violent history of the Jim Crow South.
Mississippi Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell said he “condemn[s] the rumors circulating regarding his death.”
“We are getting mixed information. We are hearing everything on the media. We just want answers and truth because he was a young man I really loved,” Reed’s uncle, Jerry Reed, told Fox 13.
Family attorney Vanessa J. Jones told the local outlet prior to his death that Reed had spent time happy and with his family.
“He was here with his family. He was joyful and loving as ever. That is what he is being remembered for,” Jones said. “When he went back to Delta State University, he was his joyful self. So, the question is, ‘What happened?’”
Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson is demanding a federal investigation.
“We must leave no stone unturned in the search for answers,” the Mississippi representative said. “While the details of this case are still emerging, we cannot ignore Mississippi’s painful history of lynching and racial violence against African Americans.”
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, the Black unemployment rate has hit record highs since October 2021, according to the Associated Press.
In the last three months, the unemployment rate for Black Americans has gone up by 1.5% to 7.5%—twice that of the rate for white Americans—according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Bloomberg calls this “a rare development outside of recessions.” Researchers have attributed the spike to a slower labor market affecting Black employees first, as well as the president’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
Reports of the more than 319,000 Black women who’ve become unemployed at the top of the year became an early indicator of the overall economic decline of Black communities. Their unemployment rate spiked from 5.1% in March to 6.7% in August.
“The most vulnerable people tend to get laid off first, and unfortunately, that tends to be Black Americans, and that’s something that is very disturbing in and of itself,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at accounting firm KPMG US, told CNN.
Experts note that these numbers can indicate looming economic troubles for the entire country. Employers added an average of 29,000 jobs each month over the past three months. That’s a drastic decline from the 209,000 average over the same time period in 2024, Bloomberg reports.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the outlet that Trump predicts that recent tax cuts and immigrant deportations will add jobs for Black Americans.
“President Trump is implementing the same America First economic agenda that delivered historic job and wage growth — including record-low Black unemployment rates — in his first term,” she said. “The passage of the Working Families Tax Cuts will unleash economic growth through tax reform, deregulation, and incentives for job creation in the private sector that will benefit all Americans.”
Alexsis Rodgers, political director at the Black to the Future Action Fund, told the AP that this is a “new era.”
“There are people who obviously believed his promises, that Trump was going to do something about the cost of eggs, the cost of housing,” she said. “They’ve seen the focus instead is on ICE raids and downsizing the government.”
The Department of Justice recently removed a study from its website showing that far-right extremists have killed more Americans than any other domestic terrorist group, according to The Hill.
The study, titled What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism, stated that “the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism.” Jason Paladino first reported that the study had been scrubbed from the National Institute for Justice’s online library on Sept. 12.
The removal occurred just days after Charlie Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. In the wake of his death, Trump said, “The radical left causes tremendous violence,” he said, claiming “they seem to do it in a bigger way” than groups on the right.
However, there has been little evidence to suggest that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old lead suspect in Kirk’s killing, identifies as a leftist or that his actions were motivated by political ideology. There’s more of an indication that Robinson and Kirk had been among similar circles of internet culture, according to The New Yorker.
The study, which can still be accessed via the Wayback Machine, used data from the National Institute of Justice. It found that far-right extremists “committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives.” The authors also state, “In this same period, far-left extremists committed 42 ideologically motivated attacks that took 78 lives.”
Similarly, ContrabandCamp’s Michael Harriot showed that political violence is much more likely to come from the right than the left.
The NIJ study points directly to online chat forums as a source that reinforces their beliefs on gun rights, conspiracy theories, hate-based views and more. “Users grew more ideological and radical as other users reinforced their ideas and connected their ideas to those from other forums,” the study reads.
So is tRump compromised, and asset, or just an useful idiot? Hugs
Hacks star Hannah Einbinder ended her Emmys speech with choice words for Donald Trump’s secret police force and some solidarity with the people of Palestine.
More than a dozen elected officials were arrested in or around 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, where ICE detains people in what courts have ruled are unsanitary conditions.
Police arrested more than a dozen New York state and city elected officials Thursday at 26 Federal Plaza, the Manhattan immigration court and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, many as they pressed to gain access to the building’s 10th-floor lockup, where recent court rulings—including a temporary restraining order—directed ICE not to cram immigrants into overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
The lawmakers and other officials, arrested around 3:45 pm local time, say they were “attempting to conduct oversight” following claims that people appearing for court hearings were being confined for hours or days without proper food, medical care, or contact with attorneys.
A spokesperson for New York City comptroller Brad Lander’s office told WIRED by phone that Lander and 10 other elected officials were denied access and then arrested while “engaged in an action on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, where ICE inhumanely detains thousands of immigrant New Yorkers.” Lander was previously arrested at the same facility in June while accompanying a migrant man whom ICE targeted with arrest.
A joint press release issued by New York officials in the aftermath lists the electeds among those arrested:
At least some officials, according to Lander’s office, had been released at the time of writing. The final four on the list were arrested outside the facility, reportedly by the New York City Police Department. Dozens of New Yorkers who had gathered, holding signs and chanting “ICE out of NY,” were also arrested, officials said. A follow-up demonstration was planned for 6 pm ET at Foley Square, a longtime rallying point for immigrant rights protests in the heart of Manhattan’s Civic Center neighborhood.
Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor ICE immediately responded to a request for comment. Reached by phone, a New York Police Department spokesperson declined to comment because “the incident is ongoing.”
Under federal law, members of Congress have explicit authority to inspect immigration detention facilities, including conducting unannounced visits. State and city lawmakers don’t have that authority and must rely on DHS or ICE to approve such requests. The Trump administration has instituted new policies, such as mandating advance notice and designating certain field offices and short-term sites off-limits, that have blocked or delayed congressional oversight visits in recent months.
Federal judges and civil rights groups have zeroed in on the conditions inside 26 Federal Plaza. This summer, a federal court issued a preliminary injunction against the government after allegations surfaced that the facility’s detainees were being crammed into severely overcrowded rooms and made to sleep on bare floors and were denied food, hygiene, and confidential access to their lawyers.
The problems echo a broader pattern across the US, where watchdogs and courts have flagged overcrowding, poor sanitation, and blocked access to counsel in ICE facilities from Arizona to Louisiana.
Advocates say some of the most jarring overcrowding is happening on 26 Federal Plaza’s 10th floor, where detainees have estimated that between 70 and 90 people have been crammed into rooms measuring roughly 215 square feet. That would leave each person with roughly the space of a doormat—less room than a folded bath towel—in an area no bigger than a studio apartment kitchen.
The arrests came as part of a coordinated action by progressive Democrats, timed to amplify demands for Albany to reconvene and pass the New York for All Act. The bill would bar state and local agencies, including police and sheriffs, from sharing information or resources with ICE, aiming to stop what lawmakers describe as abductions of immigrants at court hearings and check-ins. Along with New York City Council’s proposed Trust Act—which would let people sue if city agencies unlawfully cooperate with ICE—the legislation is essential, Democrats say, to defend due process and prevent local governments from becoming de facto extensions of ICE.
“The criminalization, demonization, and state-sponsored violence against immigrants in this country has reached a fever pitch under this administration. All of us, and especially elected leaders, must do more to protect New Yorkers, regardless of when they arrived,” Assembly member Emily Gallagher, a Democrat who represents parts of Brooklyn, said in a statement.
Many elected officials have been arrested while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Among others, in June, Senator Alex Padilla of California was handcuffed after challenging Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem at a Los Angeles press conference, and in May, Newark mayor Ras Baraka was arrested outside a federal detention center during an attempted oversight visit.
In a statement, Yasmine Farhang, executive director of the Immigrant Defense Project, applauded the lawmakers’ actions Thursday, accusing the US government of “egregious abuses of power,” and imploring New York governor Kathy Hochul to use her clemency powers to shield migrants dealing with overlapping punishments from the courts and immigration authorities.
“New York leaders cannot let this cruelty go unchecked,” she said. “The moment to act is NOW.”
Additional reporting by Andrew Couts.
Politics / September 19, 2025
Those who had nothing to do with the violence against Charlie Kirk are being menaced—just like always.
Charlie Kirk’s suspected murderer was a 22-year-old white guy from Utah, but in the week since he was shot, at least six Historically Black Colleges and Universities have been forced to cancel classes due to bomb threats made against their students and faculty. Columnist Karen Attiah got fired from The Washington Post. Representative Ilhan Omar was nearly censured. Countless Black people have been harassed and, worse, countless immigrants have been threatened with the possibility of deportation, all for insufficiently respecting the life and death of a white supremacist.
Charlie Kirk’s suspected murderer was, again, a 22-year-old white guy from Utah who, I’ll bet, does not own either of my books and has most likely never read a single word I have written over my nearly two decades of public life, but this is what my mentions on Elon Musk’s apartheid-curious platform have looked like for a week:
Not that we needed more evidence, but the past week has been Exhibit One that this country hates Black people, and will do everything it can to silence, harass, and even murder us. A white man killed another white man for reasons we still don’t know, with a gun I don’t think he should have had, but Black people are catching death threats. That doesn’t make sense, unless you understand how deeply racist this country is. Black people are being fired from jobs and harassed online for insufficiently venerating a white supremacist, and having the temerity to describe his beliefs in public. It’s as if we’re all being asked to say our name is “Toby” instead of Kunta Kinte while being informed that the beatings will continue until morale improves. The white-led government, and many white employers, white-owned sports leagues, white public intellectuals, and a non-zero number of Black assimilationists and assorted would-be overseers are largely playing along with this racist gaslighting, proving once again that Black people have few, if any, real allies.
Somebody who considers themselves a good-white-ally(™) is just about to type “not all white people” or “also Matt Dowd” or “look at what happened to Jimmy Kimmel” in response to this article, as if I give a shit. What’s happening to white folks is that they’re being made to feel like Black people are made to feel every freaking day. Whenever white people catch a cold, Black people catch the flu, but God forbid I do a bit of triage before handing out chicken soup and Sprite to white folks feeling a bit under the weather these days.
The same thing is happening to the trans community, and the LGBTQ community more broadly, because when Kirk wasn’t railing against Black people, he was trying to stamp the LGBTQ community out of existence.
At this point, I’m supposed to turn and analyze what makes white males violently erupt against vulnerable people who have nothing to do with their problems. I’m supposed to talk about white gun culture and how it inevitably leads to racial and cultural violence. I’m supposed to talk about how Trump and his white supremacist government have given the very worst people in this country permission to carry out violence against any person they don’t like, with the promise of pardons should they undertake violence that pleases him. I know I’m supposed to address these topics, because these are the questions that have been floating around my professional networks for a week.
But even addressing those questions recenters the conversation around white folks and whiteness. It’s asking, “Now why did the monkey throw its poop at that fellow?” before you secure soap and a shower for the person covered in feces. At the moment, I’m just a little too beset by threats against myself and even my mother to think deeply about why white people do this. Analyzing why young white men are so dangerous to me is an intellectual luxury I do not have right now. I’m just trying to survive America for another week.
Luckily, after a fashion, I have some experience with this. This is not the first round of death threats I’ve gotten, and, unless they successfully kill me this time, it won’t be the last. I’ve been a Black man in the public eye for a while now, and you don’t get to be an old public Black person without developing a few coping mechanisms to keep you going. For a lot of people currently under threat, this is their first rodeo. There are, for instance, a number of staffers at The Nation who are for the first time having to live with what I live with every day, since the vice president went after our publication. There are folks who were never on the kind of violent watch lists Kirk created who now find themselves on the wrong end of the online rope.
It is terrifying to be in the eye of violent white folks. You have to take them seriously when they say they want you to come to harm. I cannot promise that you, or I, will survive what they’ll do next, but here are some tips to make it through this current phase of white America.
They cannot kill, fire, or silence all of us. The violent people are predators and if you look at every natural predator on this earth, their first move is always to separate their target from the herd.
People must resist the urge to say some people deserve to be harassed and menaced by the government and the online right, as if to distinguish the people who deserve death threats from those who are “doing it the right way.”
Silence in the face of white supremacy is complicity with white supremacy. If we all resolve to not stay silent, we become a truth-telling hydra. Every time the white wing gets one of us, there should be others ready to take our places. (snip-MORE-excellent information)
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/black-people-threatened-after-assasination
Important information on the rifle in this short video. Hugs
Scottie's Playtime 