For four hours on the morning of Dec. 12, protesters held up signs calling for justice for Jimmie “Jay” Lee, an Ole Miss student who went missing this past summer. The protesters alternated between chants of “Justice for Jay Lee!”; “What do we want? Justice! Who do we want it for? Jay Lee!”; “Where is Jay?”; and “Do more Creekmoore!”
When members of the Lafayette Sheriff’s department exited the courthouse or Oxford Police Department vehicles drove around the circle, the protesters directed calls of “Do your job!” and “Go find Jay!” towards them.
Initially on the courthouse lawn , protesters were told by Sheriff Joey East of the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department that they could not rally on the lawn surrounding the courthouse without a permit. When the rally organizers responded that they had stood on the courthouse lawns with signs previously and were not required to present a permit, East said, “I didn’t want to ask anybody to leave because it was so emotional.” Following the exchange, the protesters decided to rally on the sidewalk.
The number of protesters fluctuated throughout the morning and early afternoon ranging from 10 people to 20. The protestors included Ole Miss students, Oxford-Lafayette community members and relatives of Lee. Throughout the morning, drivers passing through the Square periodically honked their horns or waved out their car windows in indications of support.
When asked why this protest was organized, a representative of Justice for Jay Lee told The Daily Mississippian they gathered, in large part, as a response to Sheldon Timothy Herrington Jr.’s release.
Herrington was charged with the murder of Lee in July, and denied bond during his bond hearing in August. On Dec. 1, an agreement was reached between the state and Herrington’s legal team which resulted in Herrington being released on bond. His bond was set at $250,000.
Because the public has received no updates from the police concerning the search for Lee’s remains, and Timothy Herrington, who has been charged with Lee’s murder, was released, members of the Justice for Jay Lee advocacy group and Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community feel that law enforcement are not putting forth the full effort they could to find Lee’s body.
“The town that I thought was safe and had a general silent acceptance of the queer community it turns out does not carry through to our justice system, to our law enforcement,” Rae Delbianco said, when asked why she personally had decided to protest. “Mississippi is where the fight is happening…we need all the queer allyship we can possibly have for those of us who still live in the rural spaces where benign queer is not safe.”
The representative of Justice for Jay Lee who spoke with The Daily Mississippian also emphasized the difficulties that have arisen from the lack of communication from law enforcement. “It’s been five months since Jay Lee went missing and it’s been insufferably hard to organize on his behalf when there is so much that we still don’t know,” they said. While law enforcement might communicate more detailed information to the family of Jay Lee, the lack of information provided to the public has only furthered the feelings of uncertainty and unsafety in Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community. When asked what local law enforcement could do that would demonstrate the safety of Oxford’s LGBTQ+ citizens is valued, the representative said that the most important thing would be finding Lee. “How can we feel safe in a place where if something tragically happens to us, we cannot depend on our officials to reunite us with our loved ones or bring us justice?”
Finally, the representative asked members of the Oxford Lafayette community to understand, “Silence is violence, and not speaking out is exactly how these things continue to happen. Right now is the time that the entire Oxford Lafayette Community should have an intellectual conversation about the LGBTQ+ community and how we simultaneously face violence at disproportionate rates and receive a lack of justice in this state.” The representatives told The Daily Mississippians that Oxford residents can best support Lee’s family by “donating to their gofundme and continuing to advocate on behalf of their family” and “to show up for us and Jay Lee. We need all hands on deck as we continue to fight for Jay’s justice.”
The Daily Mississippian also reached out to the Oxford Police Department for comment, and public information officer Breck Jones said, “The investigation is still ongoing and will be presented at Grand Jury.”
