Comments on: What Happened To Mitrice Richardson?

What Happened To Mitrice Richardson?

larrybob — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 16:54:32 -0800

Five years ago this month, African-American lesbian Mitrice Richardson disappeared after being released from Los Angeles County Sheriff custody in Malibu in the middle of the night. A year later, her body was discovered; the initial investigation, was later found to be flawed. In 2011, her parents settled a lawsuit against the LA County Sheriff's Department. Her family maintains a website, Bring Mitrice Justice. A documentary, Lost Compassion, is in progress.

By: sweetkid

sweetkid — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:09:50 -0800

I saw a true crime story about Mitrice and the behavior of the police was appalling. They just let her walk out in the middle of the night. Her poor family, so much is left unknown.

By: latkes

latkes — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:30:17 -0800

larrybob, you are a treasure.

By: jetlagaddict

jetlagaddict — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:36:24 -0800

"We have no indication of a homicide at this point. I don't believe that the remains are capable of telling us a story." This is just horrifying. The remains always tell a story. Even though the remains were disturbed, improperly stored, mishandled, and partially abandoned, the remains were still trying to tell the story. But no, ignore evidence of pupae and the clothing distribution. Just forget about science and forensic anthropology! This poor woman and her poor family.

By: GoLikeHellMachine

GoLikeHellMachine — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:40:38 -0800

I could feel my blood pressure rise as I read this story. It's infuriating how cavalier the police are when it comes to the safety and treatment of young women of color.

By: xingcat

xingcat — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:48:19 -0800

What a horrifying and terrifying story. I feel so bad for that young woman's family and so angry at the police, who appear to be covering everything up.

By: RakDaddy

RakDaddy — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 19:58:36 -0800

County Bear: fucked everywhere.

By: OolooKitty

OolooKitty — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 20:19:35 -0800

I remember when this happened, and I'm appalled at the way the story played out. Yes, if she had been a blonde white woman this would have gone down in a whole different way. Impossibly sad.

By: holyrood

holyrood — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 20:52:27 -0800

By: BlueHorse

BlueHorse — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 22:20:16 -0800

. It's a merry-go-round of sadness and anger made worse by the knowledge that it could possibly happen again. May justice occur for her family.

By: theweasel

theweasel — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 06:35:14 -0800

Last fall Latice visited the spot where her daughter was located in Dark Canyon. Her sister-in-law, a friend, and Koff went, too, all of them equipped with climbing harnesses, ropes, and helmets as LASD'S search-and-rescue experts led the way upstream. As they created a small memorial of plastic flowers, the women found one of Mitrice's finger bones in the dirt. Oh. My. God. I lost it. Her poor family.

By: corb

corb — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 10:20:06 -0800

Just forget about science and forensic anthropology! What I was told once, by someone who worked in a police crime lab, is that most of the time, the most exhaustive techniques and research techniques are not used because they are prohibitively expensive. That it's really, really expensive to engage in all that, and police departments tend to make the decisions on when to use those resources on the cases they think they're most likely to be able to take to trial, and most likely will be facing, say, high powered attorneys. So in a high-profile murder case, they'd be more likely to use the whole lab array at their disposal, but in a low-profile murder case, where they don't have any clear suspects, they would be most likely to, paradoxically, do the least high-tech detective work, because it's viewed as expensive and unnecessary. I think I tend to assume stupidity before malice, but I wonder if that would explain the PD's attitude here more than a conspiracy about a murderous deputy. They just don't care that much, and don't want to spend that many resources and time. It's not great or even good, but I don't think it's necessarily evidence of ill intent.

By: jetlagaddict

jetlagaddict — Wed, 01 Oct 2014 12:19:56 -0800

I get that it's expensive (well, some lab tests-- not all of forensic anthro involves expensive analyses,) but if the timeline given here is correct, they ignored CA's penal code on notifying the coroner's office about human remains, and they moved the body without permission. They did such a poor job of securing the remains that her relatives found a finger bone later. This isn't some kind of fancy labwork, this is literally the basic care you afford to human remains. Even if it isn't "ill intent" it's shocking neglectful.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 16:36:44 -0800

Just to give some broader context: The LASD is currently reeling from a series of scandals including: Hiding an informant on LASD misconduct from the FBI (and threatening an FBI agent in her home over it), assaults of visitors at the jail by staff, that in 2009/2010 two thirds of their new hires either had criminal records or had been disqualified from working at another police department, running an in-prison gang called the '3,000 Boys' that organized fights of inmates in jail and beat an inmate that complained, multiple complaints of assault, rape and wrongful death of citizens who interacted with the LASD, an internal clique called the 'Jump Out Boys' based on the disgraced Rampart gang squad of the LAPD, setting up a "special reserve" of "celebrities" to be sheriffs and having them get caught laundering money... The LASD has a long, dirty, dirty history of outright corruption, incompetence and malfeasance — to the extent that they're currently making the LAPD look good — which gives the LASD any number of reasons to cover up Mitrice Richardson's murder. Anything from featherbedding for fake overtime to a rapist sheriff is equally plausible.