Jackson Free Press

Details about the shooting death of 19-year-old Nolan Ryan Henderson at the Palisades apartments over the weekend are slowly emerging, but much still remains unknown.

Assistant Police Chief Lee Vance confirmed that investigators recovered two handguns from the scene and a projectile from Henderson's body that have been sent to the state crime lab. Vance said he hopes to have the results of that analysis by early next week.

In the meantime, JPD investigators are talking to people who can help police piece together what happened. Most of the people interviewed have been cooperative, Vance said.

"The most important thing is that we had a young person lose his life. We just want to conduct the best investigation that we can, get closure for his family, get whoever is responsible for it locked up. That's what we need to do right now," Vance said.

JSU officials declined to speak with media representatives on Tuesday, but the university emailed a statement stressing that the incident occurred off campus and urged anyone with information about the shooting to contact police.

According to the news release, JSU President Carolyn W. Meyers met with Henderson's family Tuesday afternoon.

"This is the time to step forward," Meyers said in the statement. "We need to do whatever we can to help the Henderson family and the Jackson State family. We are all grieving."

Meyers was scheduled to release a video statement on Tuesday evening after the Jackson Free Press went to print.

At a rally held Sunday at City Hall for Trayvon Martin, the black 17-year-old shot and killed by a Latino neighborhood watch patrolman in Florida, only cursory acknowledgment was given to the events that had transpired here the previous night.

Much of what is known about Henderson's case is through his family and friends' social-media posts.

A woman who claims to be Henderson's cousin wrote on her Tumblr page that after Henderson accidentally bumped into a member of the Jackson State University football at a pool party, the players "jumped" him three times and chased him around the apartments.

"This story needs to be spread across the country. We are outraged when another race kills our own, yet we are killing each other," she wrote.

Henderson's brother, Damien, called his brother "his everything" and used Twitter to express his grief: "I'm doing better. Just trying to get the word out there. There's yet to be anything done," he wrote in one.

See earlier blog posts on the Henderson murder and speculation by his family here and JSU's statement here.

See photos of a vigil held at JSU in Henderson's memory in the JFP photo galleries.