Family demands answers after 21-year-old Black man is killed by deputy during traffic stop

Authorities said a deputy in Raleigh, Tennessee, stopped Jarveon Hudspeth early Saturday. Initial police reports say the lawman was dragged as Hudspeth tried to flee.

A Black Tennessee family is demanding answers after a deputy killed their kin during a recent traffic stop just four months after Tyre Nichols’ murder — and in the same county.

Law enforcement said a deputy in Raleigh, Tennessee, stopped Jarveon Hudspeth, 21, early on Saturday. Initial reports from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office indicate that Hudspeth attempted to flee during the stop, according to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner said the deputy became stuck in the car’s door and was dragged for about 100 yards.

At some point, the deputy shot Hudspeth, killing him. The deputy sustained injuries in the confrontation and was taken to Regional One Health in critical yet stable condition.

At a news conference Thursday morning, Charlotte Haggett, Hudspeth’s mother, claimed through tears that the family had not been contacted by the Sheriff’s Office to be informed about her son’s death.

“I just want answers about my son,” Haggett said, crying. “It’s been five days, today, and I haven’t heard one thing from the sheriff’s department. I’ve heard not one thing from anyone. Only things that I’ve heard about my son is about the criminal activity. My son was never into anything criminal. Is it a crime for my son to be in a flashy car?”

Haggett told those assembled outside the Shelby County Courthouse that Hudspeth was an engineering student at Lipscomb University in Nashville who loved cars and would fix his own when necessary.

She said her son was hard-working and had a small group of close friends.

“He didn’t hang in gangs. He wasn’t in large crowds,” Haggett maintained. “He didn’t hang out in clubs. It was him and his best friend every single weekend. Some people thought that he was a square bear because he didn’t do anything.”

Community advocate Kareem Ali announced Thursday that the family had hired renowned civil rights lawyer Ben Crump.

Ali, a local activist with ties to Crump’s legal practice through his involvement in the Tyre Nichols demonstrations, claimed that Hudspeth’s shooting was comparable “to what the whole world witnessed” in Nichols’ death.

On Jan. 7, Nichols was stopped by Memphis police for an alleged traffic violation and was aggressively pulled out of his car by officers. One of them shot at Nichols with a stun gun, but Nichols ran away toward his nearby home, according to video footage released by the city of Memphis and other police records. He died of blunt force injuries to the head after he was beaten, an autopsy report showed.

Ali noted that there hadn’t been transparency or body camera footage in Hudspeth’s case. However, officials’ narrative is that he was stopped in his neighborhood for a traffic infraction that escalated to him driving away with a Shelby County deputy holding onto the car.

The activist urged Sheriff Bonner, who is running for Memphis mayor, to “come forward with moral excellence,” the Commercial Appeal reported, and asserted residents can no longer have “corrupt leadership that hides and covers up situations and murders of beautiful young, Black children in our community.”

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