“[The police] are just brushing it off like nothing really happened … like he didn’t have people he loved,” said Janasia Gillings, months after her boyfriend, 30-year-old trucking business owner Mario Kaiser Jr., was found dead with a noose around his neck.
Without conducting an autopsy, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police classified Kaiser’s death in April 2025 as a suicide. For months, Kaiser's family noted disrespect from officers and worrisome inconsistencies in the investigation. Ironically, in June, flags across North Carolina were flown at half-staff to commemorate Anti-Lynching Month.
North Carolina’s modern history of anti-Black violence includes 21-year-old trucker Javion McGee, who was found dead with a rope around his neck last year. KKK recruitment flyers were distributed in the 2010s and 2020s.
The police system facilitates an environment where Black victims of violence and their loved ones cannot comfortably seek closure and justice. Historically, police officers have directly and indirectly participated in lynchings. They continue to murder thousands of civilians yearly and brutalize countless more. This historic inability to trust cops means grieving not only the victims but also the truths that may remain buried with them.
If we cannot trust police to serve justice, what role do they really serve in our communities? What roles can we fill that they don’t?