Kenneth and Jacqueline Johnson stand next to a banner on their SUV showing their son, Kendrick Johnson. He was found dead inside a rolled up gym mat at his high school in January 2013. Photograph: Russ Bynum/AP
Sheriff’s Department Refuses To Release Video
Kendrick Johnson was found dead in a gym mat almost two years ago, which was called a freak accident by local sheriffs but homicide by his parents
Judges in Valdosta, Georgia have recused themselves from cases involving the death of a 17-year-old black high school student, Kendrick Johnson, who two years ago was found dead in a rolled up gym mat at his high school.
“We have valiantly attempted to mediate the presently outstanding issues in the Kendrick Johnson matter, but it appears at this point that we have reached an impasse,” wrote Georgia superior court judge Harry Jay Altman II, in a letter dated Wednesday.
“Given the fact that officials with whom the judges in the circuit deal with everyday are involved, it is not fair to the parties for any judge in this circuit to rule on contested matters of importance to the parties and the community,” wrote Altman, adding that other circuit judges had also agreed to recuse themselves.
The announcement came almost two years to the day since Johnson’s death, which was called a freak accident by local sheriffs, but a homicide by his parents. Lowndes County sheriffs say Johnson fell inside the rolled gym mat while attempting to retrieve a shoe, became trapped and died of asphyxia while upside down.
His parents, however, maintain that Johnson was killed. The family exhumed the boy’s body in the summer of 2013 in order to conduct a secondary autopsy, which found he was probably killed by a blunt force trauma near his carotid artery.According to the pathologist’s report, the injury did not appear to be accidental.
“Nobody, especially his mother, father accepts this ridiculous, crazy, beyond-common-sense conclusion that the sheriff department says,” said family attorney Benjamin Crump. “That he climbed into a wrestling mat, got stuck and died.”
The Johnson family and Crump held a press conference on the courthouse steps on Thursday, to call for the criminal prosecution of those responsible for Kendrick’s death. The family is also suing the Lowndes County sheriff’s department.
Valdosta is a small town of about 56,000 people near the Georgia-Florida border. Lowndes high school sits on the western edge of the rural southern town.
Investigations into Johnson’s death have simmered since January 2013, when his body was found. Weeks after Kenneth and Jacqueline Johnson had their son’s body exhumed, the federal prosecutor for the middle district of Georgia opened an investigation into his death. The results of that investigation have not been disclosed.
Recent interviews have also been conducted by the Lowndes County sheriff’s office. After Crump highlighted an inconsistently in the sheriffs’ claim that the school wrestling team left Lowndes high school in the early afternoon of the day of Johnson’s death, sheriffs spoke to more potential witnesses but declined to tell CNN if the case was reopened.
A statement by the sheriff’s office provided to CNN said: “The Lowndes county sheriff’s office initiated the interviews of the Lowndes high school wrestling team coach, the bus driver and wrestling team members in response to claims made known to the sheriff’s office that the wrestling team was still on the school’s campus when Kendrick Johnson was last known to have been alive.”
The sheriff’s office said the interviews did not change the facts of the case.
“We find that very suspicious,” said Marcus Coleman, founder of Save Our Selves, an Atlanta-based activist group organizing around Johnson’s death. “If they’re reopening the case then fine, I think that announcement should be made.”
Still, the sheriff’s office has refused to release surveillance video which Crump’s office says could resolve the dispute. Judges also recused themselves from a lawsuit brought by CNN to force release of the video.
“The video is an objective, impartial, non-political witness that will tell the whole story – what happened to Kendrick Johnson,” Crump said.
“On the eve of the two-year anniversary, it’s just utterly ridiculous why we haven’t seen that video.”