Quawan Charles’ Disappearance Deserves Answers and Attention

He was missing for two weeks. Police didn’t issue an Amber Alert.

Quawan Charles, a 15-year-old Black boy, was missing for two weeks before his body was found in a rural Louisiana sugarcane field on November 3. Police determined the cause of death to be accidental drowning, but the family and local activists over this past weekend said they believe racial bias may be a factor in his death and in the police force’s lack of attention to this case.

“Systemic racism and bias is not just pulling someone over on the highway, or the police shooting them while unarmed,” Ron Haley, the family’s attorney, told the Washington Post. “It goes deeper; it’s a lack of empathy.”

“Police and people in this state that have perversely racially biased tendencies; when they see our children, they don’t see their children,” said Jamal Taylor, who leads the local advocacy group Stand Black.

Since local authorities have taken such little interest in the case, Charles’ family has decided to take measures into their own hands. In a gesture hauntingly similar to the funeral of Emmett Till, Roxanne Nelson, Charles’ mother, shared a photo of her son’s disfigured face on social media for the world to see. His aunt has told media that she doesn’t believe a solo drowning caused the disfigurement.

Now all eyes are on Louisiana, seeing, once again, how little authorities and the media seem to care when Black people go missing. Will this be the case that leads to a change?

Read the full story on the community’s reaction to Charles’ death below:

Louisiana boy's suspicious death leaves family asking if racial bias slowed police response