Quawan Charles Wiki – Quawan Charles Biography
Quawan Charles was a Black boy who was found dead in a field in rural Louisiana on November 3. A preliminary autopsy report suggested drowning as his cause of death, but the local sheriff’s office has since said the investigation is ongoing, and that they are treating his death as a “homicide.” Charles’ family has commissioned an independent autopsy, to be done in the coming days.
Charles’ family were the first to criticize the initial claim that Charles had drowned to death. Charles Cousin, Celina Charles, told The Washington Post this explanation was “bogus,” and said, “His face says different.”
Charles’ family has since released a photo of Charles taken after he was found. They’ve compared the photo to the infamous photograph of Emmett Till after his death.
Till was gruesomely murdered by two white men in 1955 after being falsely accused of whistling at a white woman; that women has since admitted that she lied, and he never did such a thing. At his ensuing public funeral, thousands of people came to view his disfigured body as a representation of the hate crime. The moment came to be a cataclysmic moment for the civil rights movement in the nation at the time.
Quawan Charles Age
Quawan Charles was 15 years old.
Family
According to his family, Charles, 15, disappeared on Oct. 30. His disappearance was noted when his mother tried to pick him up from his father’s house to take him to a haircut, and his father kicked down his bedroom door to find the room empty. The Charles family contacted local authorities that day, the New York Times reports. The family then contacted Iberia Parish Sheriff’s deputies on November 3 to ask for help in the search.
After pinging Charles’ cell phone, authorities were able to find him within hours. Charles’ family and lawyer have since criticized local authorities for taking several days to ping his phone.
The preliminary autopsy report Iberia Parish coroner said Charles died by drowning, citing muddy water found in his airways, and hyperinflated lungs. As for his disfigured face, Haley said investigators claimed this was the result of wild animals gnawing on his face.
Per the Washington Post, Charles’ family confirmed through another source that Charles was picked up by his 17-year-old white friend, Gavin Irvin, and that friend’s parents, Janet and Alvin Irvin, at 3 p.m. on the day he went missing. The parents have since confirmed they picked Charles up, and that Charles spent some time at their house before leaving later that night.
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Charle’s father, Kenneth Jackie, said, “[Gavin] said Quawan got up and said he was leaving. [Gavin] asked about where Quawan was going, and after that, he disappeared.”
The sheriff’s office visited Irvin’s home on November 3, a spokesperson reported, but there has been no confirmation that any of the family members are being treated as suspects.
Charles’ mother has since said she wants the Irvins, particularly Janet Irvan, to be held “accountable.”
“I want the lady who came to get my son without my permission, his dad’s permission, to be held accountable,” Charles‘ mother said at a recent vigil for her son. “She took them to her house. He was alive and well when he was here, and now he is dead.”
Investigation report
In a statement, Haley challenged the findings of this preliminary report. In particular, he noted that the only bodies of water found in the sugar cane field where Charles’s body was found were all less than two feet deep.
Per The New York Times, Haley said, “If in fact, he did die of drowning — and we’re saying that as an if — we’re calling into question how exactly that would have happened. Can somebody who’s 5-foot-6 typically drown in two feet of water? No, not unless there’s another cause associated with that.”
Chase Trichell, another lawyer representing Charles’ family, said, via NBC, “No able-bodied 15-year-old is going to drown in ankle-deep water without some outside influence that contributed to his death.”
Andre Arcenaux, a local activist and a founder of advocacy group Stand Black, was with the family when they saw a photo of Charles’ disfigured face for the first time. He told The New York Times the family immediately likened the image to the photo of Till from 1955. Arcenaux explained why Charles’ mother felt the need to share the photo with the public.
“She somehow had the bravery to say, ‘The world needs to see my child; the world needs to see what he looks like,’” he told the publication. “Sometimes it takes something like that for people to see the severity of what happened.”