One of the city's lawsuits with Bettersten Wade, mother of Dexter Wade, could be settled

Depending on how the Jackson City Council votes at their Tuesday meeting, the City of Jackson could finally settle at least one of their lawsuits with Bettersten Wade.

Wade is a Jackson resident who has accused the city surrounding two of her family members — a brother and a son — who have allegedly died at the hands of the Jackson Police Department.

The most recent was her son, Dexter Wade, who was struck and killed by an off-duty Jackson police officer on March 5, 2023 while he was crossing the highway on I-55 South near McDowell Road. Wade filed a missing person's report with JPD days later, but never heard anything. She wasn't able to retrieve the body of her deceased son until early October — 172 days after reporting him missing — when finally learning the information that Dexter had been buried in an unmarked grave at a Hinds County penal farm after his body went unclaimed.

The case has garnered national attention, with civil rights attorney Ben Crump being hired to represent Wade's family. It has also shed light on the Hinds County Penal Farm, where 215 people have been buried in unmarked graves without their families being notified since 2016, according to a report by NBCNews.com.

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But the settlement being voted on at the council's meeting has to do with Wade's brother, George Robinson. The Clarion Ledger confirmed the settlement was in regards to Robinson after looking up the case number published on the council's agenda in the Mississippi Electronic Courts system.

The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on Oct. 24, 2019 in the Hinds County Circuit Court. Local Jackson law firm Sweet & Associates is representing Wade in the Robinson lawsuit, as well as assisting Crump in the Dexter Wade lawsuit.

On Jan. 13, 2019, Robinson, 62, who is Black, was "brutally, viciously and mercilessly beat" by three, Black officers in the Jackson Police Department, according to a copy of the lawsuit the Clarion Ledger obtained in a public records request. Robinson was hospitalized later that night and died two days later.

The three officers named in the lawsuit are Anthony Fox, Desmond Barney and Lincoln Lampley, who were all charged with second-degree murder in 2020. Also named in the lawsuit is the city and American Medical Response, INC., an ambulance company.

Both Barney and Lampley had the murder charges dropped in 2021, according to previous Clarion Ledger reporting. Fox was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to five years in prison for the death of Robinson, but his conviction was overturned in early January.

Fox, who was accused of pulling the 62-year-old Robinson out of his car and slamming him into the ground, was acquitted after the Mississippi Court of Appeals found prosecutors failed to prove he “acted in a grossly negligent manner” or that the death of Robinson “was reasonably foreseeable under the circumstances."

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Speaking about the settlement during his Monday press briefing, Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said he believed the settlement being proposed was "in the best interest of the City of Jackson," but refused to name if the settlement involved Dexter or Robinson.

"Because this is something that is discussed in executive session I will resist speaking in greater details on that," Lumumba said.

City Attorney Drew Martin was not immediately available for comment. Sweet & Associates were also not immediately available for comment.

The council will be voting on the settlement during their Tuesday meeting at 10 a.m. at Jackson's City Hall.

In other action at the mayor's press conference

• The mayor presented a resolution "asking for a cease fire in Gaza," something he initially presented at a March city council meeting. He was joined by Getty Israel, the founder and CEO of Sisters In Birth, a women's health clinic located in Jackson , who previously called on the city council to pass a cease fire resolution.
• Lumumba again announced that approximately 850 parking meters in downtown Jackson will be taken down and replaced with parking kiosks.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: One of the city's lawsuits with Bettersten Wade, mother of Dexter Wade, could be settled