(AllHipHop News) Shocking footage emerged earlier this month of two Caucasian men attacking a Black man in Bloomington, Indiana. It appeared that Sean Purdy and Jerry Cox were attempting to lynch civil rights activist Vauhxx Booker at Lake Monroe.
Purdy and Cox have been charged with criminal confinement, battery, and intimidation by Monroe County Prosecuting Attorney Erika Oliphant. However, Memphis rapper Mario “Yo Gotti” Mims is among the people calling for a federal hate crime investigation.
Gotti and WNBA All-Star Skylar Diggins-Smith as well as attorneys Joe Tacopina and Jordan Siev signed a letter addressed to U.S. Attorney General William Barr. Team Roc, the social justice arm of Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, also secured Tacopina and Siev to assist Booker’s local attorney in the case.
The opening paragraph of the Team Roc letter reads:
We write to you about a recent hate crime that took place in Indiana which has outraged and appalled Americans nationwide: the attempted lynching of Vauhxx Booker. We write as a group of concerned citizens and lawyers working with Team Roc—the social justice division of entertainment company Roc Nation LLC— in order to respectfully call on your office to fulfill its duty to see that justice is done, by taking swift and sure action to hold the perpetrators of this heinous crime accountable pursuant to the Shepard Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, 18 U.S.C. section 249.
The letter ends:
Now more than ever, it is crucial that federal law enforcement entities show that they take racism seriously, and stand on the same side as the Black Americans who face it every single day. Americans are watching: only bringing the attackers to justice will honor their trust.
Earlier this year, Yo Gotti partnered with Jay-Z and Team Roc to back a federal lawsuit in Mississippi on behalf of incarcerated individuals who have reportedly been enduring inhumane living conditions in prison. Over 150 inmates gave firsthand accounts about the lack of clean water, adequate food, electricity, heat, access to healthcare, and clothing in the facilities.
