{"id":16628,"date":"2020-11-23T12:04:34","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T20:04:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=16628"},"modified":"2020-11-23T12:04:37","modified_gmt":"2020-11-23T20:04:37","slug":"what-happened-to-quawan-charles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/11\/23\/what-happened-to-quawan-charles\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happened to Quawan Charles?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Bridget Read<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

November 18, 2020 (thecut.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo: JusticeforQuawan\/Twitter<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quawan \u201cBobby\u201d Charles, a quiet 15-year-old who loved the outdoors and his dog, \u201cMy Baby,\u201d went missing<\/a> in rural Louisiana on October 30. His body was discovered days later in a sugarcane field, 20 miles from his home; the sheriff\u2019s department told his family that the boy had drowned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles\u2019s family calls the claim \u201cbogus,\u201d and says that photos show Quawan\u2019s face was horribly disfigured when he was found. They believe his death could have been racially motivated, and that law enforcement failed to act in the hours after they reported their son missing. Two weeks after Quawan went missing, the Iberia Parish Sheriff\u2019s Office released a statement<\/a> saying that they are investigating \u201csuspicious circumstances,\u201d and Quawan\u2019s parents are still looking for answers. \u201cWe believe that if he had been of a different color that this will be taken a lot more seriously,\u201d the family\u2019s attorney, Ronald Haley, told ABC News<\/a>. \u201cWe [would] not be talking today about 13 days have gone by, with no leads, 13 days have gone by with no answer, 13 days have gone by without [the] official cause of death \u2026 This family deserves that Bobby will be laid to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quawan\u2019s father says police have visited a friend of Quawan\u2019s and his mother, both white, who were allegedly the last people to see him before he died. But the sheriff\u2019s has not commented on whether they are communicating with the pair; no suspects have been named in the case, and it has not been designated a homicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s everything we know about the death of Quawan \u201cBobby\u201d Charles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quawan went missing on October 30.<\/strong>
\ufeffQuawan\u2019s parents reported his disappearance from his father\u2019s home in Baldwin, Louisiana, where he had recently moved, on October 30. He had just started a new school. Quawan\u2019s father, Kenneth Jacko, says that part of the reason why he was concerned about Quawan\u2019s whereabouts was that he had left his beloved dog, who he had named \u201cMy Baby,\u201d behind. Quawan\u2019s family attorney says that the Baldwin Police Department took a report, but \u201cgave no indication over the next few days that they were searching for the teen or actively investigating his disappearance,\u201d per the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>. \u201cInstead, they suggested Quawan might have gone to a football game and asked if the boy had a troubled past, he said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His family says Quawan was with a friend, 17-year-old Gavin Irvin, and Irwin\u2019s mother, Janet, in neighboring Iberia Parish before he died. Jacko told the Post<\/em> that they learned through a third party that the Irvins picked Quawan up the day he went missing at around 3 p.m., while Jacko was at the store. The Post<\/em> reports that \u201cQuawan\u2019s father said neither he nor Quawan\u2019s mother knew the Irvins, who are white, and had not given them permission to take Quawan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 17, Baldwin police released surveillance footage<\/a> they say depicts Quawan getting picked up by a car on October 30. In the video, a figure, said to be Quawan, sits by the side of the road outside a home before getting up to run toward a car that pulls into the driveway. Two individuals appear to leave the car; eventually, three people get back in and drive off. According to Assistant Chief Sam Wise, police believe that, before reentering the car, Quawan and the two individuals, presumed to be the Irvins, entered the backyard of his father\u2019s home to play with Quawan\u2019s dog. Gavin Irvin had given Quawan the dog, according to<\/a> his father. \u201cThere was no signs of a kidnapping or abduction at that time,\u201d Wise said of the video\u2019s contents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quawan\u2019s body was discovered on November 3.<\/strong>
\ufeffJacko says that the family, accompanied by police, visited the Irvins on November 3, after Quawan had been missing for four days. Gavin Irvin confirmed that he and Quawan had been together on October 30 but said that Quawan had left later in the day. \u201c[Gavin] said Quawan got up and said he was leaving. [Gavin] asked about where Quawan was going, and after that, he disappeared,\u201d Jacko told the Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iberia Parish police found Quawan\u2019s body in a sugarcane field later that day, in the small community of Loreauville not far from the Irvin\u2019s home. The sheriff\u2019s office told the family that water was found in Quawan\u2019s lungs, and he had drowned, but the family says photos of Quawan\u2019s body show that his face was incredibly mangled. Celina Charles, a cousin serving as a family spokeswoman, said that Quawan\u2019s mother, Roxanne Nelson, ran from the viewing room when she saw his body. The Post<\/em> reports that, in a photo of Quawan, \u201cthe teen appears so disfigured that his teeth are visible outside of his mouth.\u201d Charles told<\/a> ABC that Quawan \u201clooks like he\u2019d been tortured.\u201d Nelson has since shared photos of his body online to call attention to Quawan\u2019s death and to pressure law enforcement to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one is officially being investigated yet, but the police are investigating his death \u201cas a homicide.\u201d<\/strong>
Law-enforcement officials have now said they are investigating Quawan\u2019s death \u201cas a homicide,\u201d though they have not declared it a homicide officially: \u201cAny case involving someone found deceased in this manner\u201d is treated as a homicide investigation, Iberia Parish sheriff Tommy Romero said in a statement<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheriff\u2019s office has not named a suspect, but said officers had spoken to the people believed to have been with Quawan before he died. \u201cWe interviewed these same individuals and are currently tracking their whereabouts,\u201d police said, though they declined to confirm they had spoken with the Irvins. Neighbors of the Irvins say they were evicted from their mobile home this week, for unknown reasons. Romero also said he had reviewed a video that showed that Quawan was alone in the area where his body was found for at least part of the time before he died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law enforcement has also released the preliminary autopsy report<\/a> in which the coroner states that, in his estimation, Quawan drowned. The report said his death was a \u201clikely drowning\u201d and that there was muddy water found in his airways. The coroner also attributed the scratches and wounds on Quawan\u2019s face to \u201caquatic animal activity\u201d and said that the boy had not sustained the injuries before his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But family attorney Haley says that there is no more than two feet of water in the area where Quawan was found. \u201cIf in fact he did die of drowning \u2014 and we\u2019re saying that as an if \u2014 we\u2019re calling into question how exactly that would have happened,\u201d Haley told<\/a> the New York Times<\/em>. \u201cCan somebody who\u2019s 5-foot-6 typically drown in two feet of water? No, not unless there\u2019s another cause associated with that.\u201d The Charles family had ordered their own independent autopsy, and last week asked for help<\/a> online in raising $15,000 to conduct the autopsy. They soon raised over $100,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of that independent autopsy were leaked on November 16, and allegedly confirm that Quawan\u2019s injuries are \u201cconsistent with drowning.\u201d Though the report declined to definitively state a cause of death, it found no premortem \u201ctrauma or natural disease,\u201d per the New York Daily News<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> The family, however, remains \u201cmore interested in the manner of death,\u201d Chase Trichell, one of their lawyers, said on Monday. \u201cIf the scientific explanation is drowning, okay. Now let\u2019s narrow the focus to how Quawan came to drown in a sugarcane field. He was an able-bodied person before he ended up facedown in water that was ankle-deep.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quawan\u2019s family says police did not act quickly enough after his disappearance. <\/strong>
\ufeffIn the weeks since his body was found, Quawan\u2019s family has demanded accountability from local law enforcement, who they say were delayed in their response to his disappearance. They criticized police for not alerting local news, and say that an Amber Alert was not sent out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family says<\/a> the Baldwin police told them Quawan was entered into an Amber Alert database that must be activated by state police, who apparently determined that the circumstances didn\u2019t meet the threshold to trigger one. \u201cIt begs the question, had the protocols been followed, would Quawan be alive today?\u201d family attorney Trichell said<\/a>. \u201cOnce this became public, almost every local news station said, \u2018We had no idea a child was even missing,\u201d Haley, the other attorney, told the Post<\/em>, adding that authorities hadn\u2019t tried pinging Quawan\u2019s cellphone until three days after he disappeared. \u201cThat\u2019s how they knew where to narrow the search for him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want the lady who came to get my son without my permission, his dad\u2019s permission, to be held accountable,\u201d Nelson said during a vigil for her son. \u201cShe took them to her house. He was alive and well when he was here, and now he is dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ACLU of Louisiana is joining the family<\/a> in their calls for justice. \u201cThe disrespect and lack of transparency demonstrated by local officials in response to Bobby\u2019s tragic and suspicious death is unacceptable,\u201d Alanah Odoms Hebert of ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement. \u201cWe join the family in demanding a full and transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Bobby\u2019s death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post has been updated with new information.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Bridget Read November 18, 2020 (thecut.com) Photo: JusticeforQuawan\/Twitter Quawan \u201cBobby\u201d Charles, a quiet 15-year-old who loved the outdoors and his dog, \u201cMy Baby,\u201d went missing in rural Louisiana on October 30. His body was discovered days later in a sugarcane field, 20 miles from his home; the sheriff\u2019s department told his family… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16629,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16628\/revisions\/16629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}