Jackson Free Press

Four days after 39-year-old Jonathan Sanders was killed during an altercation with white police officer Kevin Herrington in Stonewall, the public still knows little about what happened between the men, and the authorities investigating the incident are trying to keep tensions from flaring.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is handling the case that centers on the community of 1,088 people, 21 miles south of Meridian, in Clarke County. The Jackson-based law firm of Lumumba & Associates is representing Sanders' family.

Warren Strain, an MBI spokesman, told the Jackson Free Press this morning that the same team that investigated the shooting deaths of Hattiesburg police officers Benjamin Deen and Liquori Tate is handling the Sanders death investigation. Strain had no new information but said investigators must also work against a tide of misinformation from the public.

Specifically, early accounts alleged that Herrington had used a flashlight to choke Sanders, who had been operating a horse and buggy.

"There is no flashlight involved at all. (The idea) sounds really horrible, but there is no flashlight involved. We want to make sure everyone understands that," Strain told the JFP.

Before MBI took over the case, Stonewall Police Chief Michael Street also denied those reports but gave few details about the incident that happened between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m., citing the ongoing investigation.

Street said that "Sanders had no active warrants against him and that Harrington did not know who he was when the confrontation took place," in a statement posted on the Guardian website.

However, Street was concerned about anxiety in the community that is 75 percent white and 24 percent African American. Reports of Sanders' death were hauntingly similar to the case of Eric Garner in New York City almost exactly one year ago.

"We just ask that the citizens allow (the investigation) to take place, not to try to take anything out in the streets. Our door is open," Street told Meridian's WTOK-TV.

On Saturday night, more than 100 of Sanders' friends and supporters held a peaceful vigil in Stonewall.

Additional reporting by Zachary Oren Smith.

Read more of JFP's coverage of Jonathan Sanders' case here.