Investigation continues into murder of Ja’Quarius Taylor

3rd February 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer

It’s been two weeks since the January 12 murder of Ja’Quarius Taylor, a 17-year-old high school senior in Varnado, Washington Parish, and pressure from the victim’s family and advocacy groups continues to mount against local and national authorities.

A fisherman checking pond water levels found Taylor’s body the morning after he was shot and killed, not long after his mother filed a missing person’s report. Shell casings were found at the scene, as well as, according to the sheriff’s department, a “key piece of evidence,” which divers, brought in from nearby St. Tammany Parish, collected when searching the pond.

According to Washington Parish Chief Deputy Mike Haley, there are currently no suspects in the case, and his department is utilizing all its resources, as well as those of other agencies, to solve the crime. Taylor’s family, and national advocacy groups, are pushing for FBI involvement, saying that local police have not done enough.

In a statement to WWL-TV Eyewitness News, the family’s lawyer said, “We hope the FBI will get involved because of the perceived conflicts of interest and family relations the local sheriff may have. We’re looking at this as a hate crime based on the race and sexual orientation of Ja’Quarius Taylor.”

The sheriff’s office refutes any conflict of interest, and is currently investigating the crime as a homicide. “At this time, it is premature to speculate on whether or not this was a hate crime. If the investigation reveals that it was, then we shall classify it as such. Until that time, any speculation is presumptuous at best and contributes nothing positive to the investigation,” Haley said.

David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, disagrees.

“We live in a society where identity constructs, how we identify, predicates our access to opportunities. Belonging to a particular ethnic group, identifying as male, female, or neither, all these things matter. Racism and anti-Blackness are both things in this country, and compounding that with him being gay, this murder-execution is particularly alarming.”

The National Black Justice Coalition recently partnered with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law to release a statement on Taylor’s murder, connecting the crime to a pattern of increasing hate crimes following the 2016 election.

“The dangers faced by young, Black, LGBTQ+ people are disturbing and becoming increasingly violent and fatal. With the increase in reported hate crimes since President Trump took office, we are deeply concerned that there is not a full accounting of the violence that members of our community have faced. It is critical that the FBI support Washington Parish law enforcement by providing the resources necessary to ensure a full and fair investigation,” the statement said.

Some family members have disputed that Ja’Quarius is gay, including his aunt in a recent Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate article. Authorities “do not know for certain whether or not Mr. Taylor was homosexual,” according to Haley.

Johns positions the confusion surrounding Taylor’s sexuality as connected to his identity as a Black man, particularly in the rural South: “Most Black queer people don’t have the privileges white people do. White people can move to gayboyhoods like Chelsea, and derive power from being white and gay. Many Black people live with other Black people, in states and places where it’s still legal to discriminate against people based on sexual orientation, and spaces like pride parades are predominantly white. It isn’t safe to come out. There is also the influence of the church. It’s not a surprise that a family that’s already grieving the loss of their son is not also celebrating publicly that their son was queer. In our society, Black men are assumed to be without queer possibility, and it can be very dangerous for those for whom that is not true.”

Johns points to a problematic lack of intersectional data in FBI reports on hate crimes that means attacks against Black LGBTQ+ people are likely under-reported. “If I were a victim, I wouldn’t know if it was because I’m a Black man or because I’m same-gender loving,” he said.

In response to national calls for action, the FBI released a statement: “We are aware of the incident in Washington Parish and are presently assessing the circumstances surrounding this event. If information comes to light of a potential federal civil rights violation, the FBI is prepared to investigate. The FBI takes seriously all acts or threats of violence and is committed to investigating crimes that are potentially hate-motivated and we continue to work with all our community partners.”

This article originally published in the February 3, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.