Media-savvy Mississippi white supremacist found dead; Authorities investigating as homicide
By APThursday, April 22, 2010
Miss. white supremacist’s death probed as homicide
PEARL, Miss. — A white supremacist lawyer with a knack for publicity has been found dead in what Mississippi authorities are investigating as a homicide.
Rankin County Sheriff Ronnie Pennington says Richard Barrett’s body was found early Thursday after residents reported seeing smoke coming from his house near a suburb of Jackson, Miss. Pennington didn’t give further details.
Barrett attracted reporters to his 2008 rally in protest of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in the Louisiana town of Jena, where six black teenagers were charged with beating a white classmate. Years earlier, he sued over a ban on Confederate flags at University of Mississippi football games.
The 67-year-old Barrett had traveled the U.S. to promote anti-black and anti-immigrant views. He founded a supremacist group called the Nationalist Movement.
