Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley joined other public figures calling for an independent investigation into the death of Mikayla Miller. Though authorities had initially deemed the death of the LGBTQ 16-year-old found hanging in the woods last month in Hopkinton a suicide, questions have risen around the possibility of “a lynching, a racially motivated beating, and a police cover-up,” according to the Boston Globe.
“Mikayla Miller deserved to grow old. She had so many basketball games, road trips and HBCU homecomings ahead of her. She deserved childhood — uninterrupted. There needs to be a full, transparent, independent investigation into her death,” Pressley tweeted last week.
Pressley joins other leaders calling for more answers, including US Sen. Ed Markey, State Senate President Karen Spilka, State Rep. Liz Miranda, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and Ibram X. Kendi, head of the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University, according to the Globe. Last week, Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson and Violence in Boston’s founding CEO Monica Cannon-Grant also organized a vigil, attended by hundreds, in Hopkinton.
Reports the Globe:
Police told the 16-year-old’s family she died by suicide, but her family says they have unanswered questions about what happened and that they feel ignored by police and Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan. …
In the absence of much information from officials, rumors continue to spread on social media around how a Black girl ended up dead in the woods in a nearly all-white town, including talk of a lynching, a racially motivated beating, and a police cover-up. Miller died hours after getting into a fight with two other teenagers in a common area of her apartment complex, fueling speculation around how she died.
Ryan said her office is continuing to investigate, but that Miller’s death did not appear to be a hate crime. The office is waiting on a ruling on the cause and manner of death from the medical examiner’s office.
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