ICYMI: At the National Urban League’s annual summit, attorney Benjamin Crump updated the public on Nolan Wells’ case, and introduced two other grieving families whose 18 year old Black sons turned up dead in 2026, with authorities offering no real explanation other than “self-caused.” The young men, all of whom died within three months of each other this summer are:
Nolan Wells, who disappeared after boating with friends off Ocean Springs, Mississippi, whose case has become a national obsession.
Daniel Erving, a high school honor roll student and swim team member from the Dallas Texas area, whose body was found two days after he went swimming with two white friends who claimed he jumped into the water and drowned. The two friends fled the scene in Erving’s car, threw away his clothing and cell phone and wiped messages between them from their phones, claiming the panicked and feared getting into trouble. The two friends — aged 17 and 19 — were charged with third degree felony tampering with evidence, but Erving’s mother is demanding a murder investigation.
And Tyler Smith, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Lexington, Kentucky was found dead after attending a Fourth of July 4th party at a white neighbor’s home. He was found with a gunshot wound to the head, which authorities ruled was self-inflicted, based on assertions from the the “friends” that Smith died during a game of Russian roulette. But the casings found near his body did not match the gun that the friends claimed killed Tyler, and a 20-year-old has been charged with tampering with evidence, just as in the Erving case. And as in the other cases, Smith’s parents are demanding a murder investigation.
All three cases, among too many others, point to a common theme: the tendency of the U.S. justice system, from local police all the way up to the DOJ, to minimize the deaths of Black people, and to go all out to shield the one truly protected class in America: white conservative men, from accountability.
Meanwhile one of the friends of Nolan Wells who online sleuths have included in theories about what may have happened to the teenager is threatening to sue an OnlyFans model who his lawyer claims defamed him, and preparing to issue more threats to sue.
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