What The FU*K?! LYNCHINGS Are Back? Black Teen Found Hung in Washington

From Facebook. Perhaps Trump thinks this is fake news.

What The FU*K?! LYNCHINGS Are Back? Black Teen Found Hung in Washington

But it appears to be real.

Muslim civil rights group calls for FBI to get involved after authorities initially ruled Wash. teen's hanging a suicide

Yikes. Lake Stevens is out my way; in fact my daughter and son-in-law just put in an offer on a house in Lake Stevens. Mrs NoCo attended the septic inspection yesterday.

This is the first I've heard of this -- it did not make the news. Or at least, it wasn't headlined, as it probably should have been.

In general Washington is pretty mellow on race (and religion) relations. This is definitely out of character, if it turns out to be true. We are a sanctuary state, our AG sued the Feds to overturn the immigration ban, Seattle's current mayor is gay.

The fact that the kid was hanging fifty feet in the air makes me lean towards suicide.
Can you imagine a bunch of red necks carrying the boy fifty feet up a tree to hang him? I also think that they would hang him in a manner that would lead to him being easily found. They want to show off their handiwork.

He wasn't "hanging fifty feet in the air."  The rope from which he was found hanging was attached fifty feet up in the tree.  I can't find any information on how far the body was actually off the ground -- or if the rope ended in a noose or was just tangled around him.

Ben Keita had been reported missing November 26, 2016.  His body wasn't discovered until January 9, 2017.  Can't imagine it was a pretty sight.

Although it is tempting to jump to conclusions and scream out "lynching" due to the circumstances, there are, as Howard points out, no hallmarks of a lynching about this case.  The kid was well liked, the area is not particularly racist, and the setting was apparently very secluded. Nevertheless, the "lynching" angle is gaining some publicity -- I actually heard a news story about Ben on this morning's NPR.

NoCoPilot wrote:

He wasn't "hanging fifty feet in the air."  The rope from which he was found hanging was attached fifty feet up in the tree.

This is just semantics. Is there some rule as to how the point of hanging is defined? Is it where the rope is attached to the tree, where the rope is attached to the body, or the lowest point  of the body off the ground? Maybe the height of the navel above the ground?

NoCoPilot wrote:

...the "lynching" angle is gaining some publicity...

Of course, it is; there is no publicity value in a suicide, which is the third leading cause of death for teenagers.

_Howard wrote:

This is just semantics. Is there some rule as to how the point of hanging is defined?

Did you ever use a rope swing in the woods as a kid?  I sure did.  The higher up they're tied the longer the swing.

That's why I wondered if there was a noose around Ben's neck, or whether he might have just strangled accidentally in a swinging accident.

I think if it was a swinging accident, the coroner would have been able to tell.

I found another article with this statement:

"The rope that was used to hang Keita’s body was tied to a branch about 50 feet high ... and his feet were dangling up to 8 feet above the ground."

Long fucking rope. That seems too short to have been tied there for kids to play with it, unless there were about six or eight feet used for the noose. But it sure is more than one needs to hang himself. Curious.

_Howard wrote:

"The rope that was used to hang Keita’s body was tied to a branch about 50 feet high ... and his feet were dangling up to 8 feet above the ground."

Was he dangling head-down perhaps? Questions questions questions.

I really think that is something that would have been mentioned. The articles said he was "hung" or "hanged." The common meaning of these terms means hanged by the neck.

If the guy committed suicide and fell approximately thirty-five feet, you would think that - if his head didn't come off, which I would expect - his neck and spine would be so shattered that it would be obvious. To me, this would indicate suicide. I can't picture a lynch mob - or its representatives - climbing fifty feet up a tree carrying a struggling man.

But with his neck only thirteen or fourteen feet from the ground, lynching seems plausible, as I can't imagine how he would have killed himself other than by jumping from the branch to which the rope was tied - nothing was said about a ten-foot ladder found at the scene. But if he was murdered, what was the mechanism used to hang him that put him that far off the ground?