A Saturday Reid: Georgia mountain horror
A tragic mystery in Georgia is heartbreaking and genuinely terrifying, especially in times like these
This story has been sitting on my heart all week. Black twin teenage boys found shot to death in rural Georgia. They were supposed to be flying to Boston to meet up with friends, and instead, their family is burying them. Nothing about this case and the allegations of murder-suicide ring true. From NBC News:
Hikers found Qaadir Malik Lewis and Naazir Rahim Lewis, who were about to turn 20, at the summit of Bell Mountain in Hiawassee on the morning of March 8. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a statement that both men had gunshot wounds and that "the preliminary investigation reveals the deaths to be a murder-suicide."
"They’re very protective of each other. They love each other," Rahim Brawner, an uncle, told NBC affiliate WXIA of Atlanta. "They’re, like, inseparable. I couldn’t imagine them hurting each other, because I’ve never seen them get into a fistfight before."
More:
The GBI said in a brief update Sunday that autopsies have been completed but that a medical examiner ruling had not been released because further forensic testing was needed. The GBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pair, from Lawrenceville, had planned to travel to Boston to see friends and were due to fly at 7 a.m. March 7. Authorities say that they never made the flight and that their bodies were found 90 miles away from their home in an area their family says they had never visited.
The twins' family have said the police explanation makes no sense, arguing the brothers were close and had no history of conflict.
"We want answers. We want to know exactly what happened to the twins," Samira Brawner, an aunt, told WXIA.
The family said they were bewildered why the pair ended up on an unfamiliar mountain that is popular with hikers and tourists and not far from the North Carolina line. The twin's plane tickets were still in their wallets.
"How did they end up out in the mountains? They don’t hike out there; they’ve never been out there," Brawner said. "They don’t know anything about Hiawassee, Georgia. They never even heard of Bell Mountain, so how did they end up right there?"
A firefighter has been charged with obstruction for taking photos of the boys’ bodies and sharing them publicly. The investigation is ongoing.
I did a story in 2015 while I was working as a field reporter at MSNBC, between my old show The Reid Report and when I started doing my weekend show, AM Joy, about a Black man found hanged in rural Mississippi. His name was Otis Byrd. Local authorities claimed it was suicide, but the family didn’t believe it. Two decades earlier he had been convicted of killing a white woman store owner, and he’d done his time and been released. He was found hanging near her family’s property. One of the moments that sticks out to me to this day about that trip, aside from the eerie feeling of passing the confederate flag-embossed state flag in front of the State Capitol (the confederate emblem was removed from the state flag five years later, in 2020) was sitting inside a local McDonald’s, alongside my producer, talking with about half a dozen older Black men who gathered there almost daily for breakfast. There was one white man who joined them, and the conversation was jovial and seemed entirely normal, though no one seemed to know much about the Byrd case. But when the white man left, the mood changed abruptly. The Black men told me not to trust the “friend” who’d just left and gave me and my producer helpful information to move our investigation forward. Apparently they didn’t feel comfortable sharing that information in “mixed company,” even in 21st century Mississippi.
I covered other strange deaths, and a series of Black church burnings in the American South for AM Joy, including interviewing former ATF official Jim Cavanaugh about a small spate of hangings in 2020, and this really strange case of a young Black man named Kendrick Johnson who was found dead in Valdosta, Georgia with his body rolled up in a gym mat, amid fears that lynching had returned as a uniquely American form of racial violence.
That’s not to say that this is the case with these twin boys. We just don’t know what happened out there, and hopefully eventually the family will. But it’s one of those times when you realize how frightening it is to live as a sometimes hated minority in a country that effectively has no functioning federal government — which has typically been the last bastion of protection for marginalized people, and particularly for Black Americans. Even back in the 1950s and 60s, a family facing this kind of horror could appeal to the FBI, and even under J. Edgar Hoover, the desire to cool regional tensions and prevent international embarassment would sometimes compel the agency to act. I can’t imagine this particular FBI, under the current regime, lifting a finger for a family the American right likely derides as “DEI.”
Feeling intensely sad for this family, having to bury their beautiful boys. And beyond sad for the chaotic and ugly state of our country.
The regime intends to intimidate
The ICE deportations being carried out by Donald Trump’s ICE squads, under the direction of cartoon villain Tom Homan have not increased the number of people being detained and deported from the United States versus what happened under President Biden. What has changed, however, is the traffic at the Southern border, and the terror felt by immigrants on the U.S. side of it.
This administration is not just grabbing bad guys, criminals and Hannibal Lecter types like Trump promised during the campaign. They’re snatching moms, kids, construction workers and even tourists, like this Canadian woman, and these Germans (prompting Germany to issue a travel warning) and this Georgetown researcher from India, while stopping people at visa checkpoints to check their phones for criticism of Donald Trump or his policies on their social media accounts; facts that are sure to boost tourism and thus the economy that Trump is busy cratering with his whiplash tariffs. From The New York Times:
U.S. immigration agents wearing masks arrested a Georgetown University academic outside his home in Virginia. They detained two German tourists for weeks when they tried to enter the country legally through the southern border. They knocked on doors at Columbia University apartments, searching for pro-Palestinian protesters.
The Trump administration has opened a new phase in its immigration agenda, one that goes well beyond the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants.
U.S. border officials are using more aggressive tactics, which the administration calls “enhanced vetting,” at ports of entry to the United States, prompting American allies like Germany to update their travel advisories. At the same time, the administration is targeting legal immigrants who have expressed views that the government believes threaten national security and undermine foreign policy.
The tactics have unnerved foreign tourists and sent a chill through immigrant communities in the United States, who say they are being targeted for speech — not for breaking any laws.
“Whether it’s speech and criticism, green cards, they’re really taking it to a whole new level,” said Gil Kerlikowske, a former Customs and Border Protection commissioner and an ex-police chief of four cities. Recalling the anti-immigration agenda in Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Kerlikowske said that “it’s déjà vu all over again on steroids.” …
…Customs agents have wide latitude to search cellphones or computers of travelers crossing into the United States. According to Customs and Border Protection, however, such searches have typically been rare. In 2024, less than 0.01 percent of arriving international travelers had their electronic devices searched, the agency said.
Homeland security agents also have access to a large database called the National Targeting Center to detect risks among visitors to the United States. With the help of other nations sharing information about residents traveling to the United States, the database allows agents to flag visitors when they enter the nation’s ports.
Some of the detentions seem designed to do more than just spread broad, ambiguous terror. Take the essential abduction of Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil. The Intercept asked and answered the question of why the Trump Elon administration is so determined not just to detain him, but to disappear him…
Beside sheer brutality, there is a clear strategic reason that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents quickly whisked Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil out of New York City last weekend. It’s the reason he was first transported to New Jersey, then to a private detention center in Louisiana. And it’s why the Trump administration is fighting to keep him there, more than a thousand miles away from his pregnant wife and lawyers.
That reason: Ravi Ragbir, whose court victories against the first Trump administration regarding his own retaliatory detention made New York a far less friendly forum for the government.
“Their intent is to intimidate, to create fear among people who don’t agree with them,” Ragbir told The Intercept in an interview.
Like Khalil, Ragbir is an activist in New York City who was targeted for deportation over his speech during the first Trump administration. Like Khalil, Ragbir was quickly flown to a far-off detention center — in his case, in Miami — as his family, friends, and attorney frantically tried to locate him. And like Khalil, whose attorney worked through the night to file a rapid petition for his release, Ragbir quickly challenged his detention and deportation.
Quite clearly, this is about speech, not immigration. Which is why they’ve also targeted immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra:
US District Judge Nina Wang on Friday issued an injunction to prevent the removal by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of Jeanette Vizguerra, the immigration rights activist who was detained by ICE on Monday.
Judge Wang has asked the US government to "show cause" or why she should not grant Vizguerra's release, sought in a petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus against ICE, the Department of Homeland Security's Kristi Noem and US Attorney General Pam Bondi. Wang has asked for the government's response by Monday, March 24.
… and Melissa Atwell Holder:
According to reports, 31-year-old Melissa “Melly Mel” Atwell Holder, a social media activist who’s been a vocal critic of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) government of Guyana and the Opposition, is currently being held in ICE custody in Louisiana.
The specifics of Atwell Holder’s immigration status remain unclear. She reportedly traveled to the U.S. last year, but the details of her legal standing haven’t been publicly disclosed.
The activist has a master hearing set for March 28 with Judge Francis Mwangi presiding over the case. A master hearing typically serves as the first appearance in an immigration case. It’s not a trial and no decisions are set to be made on the merits of the case during the hearing.
No official reports have confirmed whether Atwell Holder is facing deportation.
More here:
Atwell’s detention has sparked a wave of support from her followers and political allies. A GoFundMe campaign titled “Help Melissa Atwell Defend Democracy” has been launched to cover her legal costs, raising over $35,000 of its $100,000 goal. Donations continue to pour in as supporters rally to prevent her deportation.
On Wednesday, around 300 individuals gathered at the Square of the Revolution in Guyana in solidarity with Atwell. The demonstration featured speeches from prominent figures, including Odessa Primus, Amanza Walton Desir, Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton, Cathy Hughes, Coretta McDonald, and Nigel London. Many speakers framed Atwell’s detention as an attack on free speech and political dissent.
Aubrey Norton, leader of the opposition, warned that Atwell’s case reflects a broader crackdown. “Do not see what happened to Melissa as a one-off,” he said. “Melissa’s only crime is that she exposes corruption…and the only thing the PPP government produces is forgery and corruption, so she has been targeted.” Norton urged Guyanese citizens abroad to petition U.S. lawmakers for Atwell’s release.
Can you spot the pattern?
Also among the disappeared is a soccer coach of Venezuelan origin named Jerce Reyes Barrios who was nabbed allegedly because of his tattoos, which the U.S. government claims are insignia from a notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Arogua. In fact, the ink is an ode to his favorite football team….
In a court filing Wednesday night, Linette Tobin said her client, Jerce Reyes Barrios, 36, had fled his home country after he was tortured for taking part in anti-regime demonstrations last year. According to the filing, Reyes Barrios has no ties to Tren de Aragua (TdA), which the U.S. government alleges.
"The accusation is based on two things," Tobin wrote. "First, he has a tattoo on his arm of a crown sitting atop a soccer ball with a rosary and the word 'Dios'. DHS alleges that this tattoos is proof of his gang membership. In reality, he chose this tattoo because it is similar to he logo for his favorite soccer team Real Madrid."
Imagine fleeing oppression and torture in Maduro’s Venezuela, only to be arrested and shipped by America’s Maduro to a notorious Salvadoran prison without a hearing and in open defiance of U.S. judge’s orders, using a law that should have remained in the 18th century. From the Brennan Center:
What is the Alien Enemies Act?
The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is a wartime authority that allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation. The law permits the president to target these immigrants without a hearing and based only on their country of birth or citizenship. Although the law was enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be — and has been — wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States. It is an overbroad authority that may violate constitutional rights in wartime and is subject to abuse in peacetime.
Has the Alien Enemies Act been used in the past?
The Alien Enemies Act has been invoked three times, each time during a major conflict: the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. In World Wars I and II, the law was a key authority behind detentions, expulsions, and restrictions targeting German, Austro-Hungarian, Japanese, and Italian immigrants based solely on their ancestry. The law is best known for its role in Japanese internment, a shameful part of U.S. history for which Congress, presidents, and the courts have apologized.
Is it any wonder the Elon Trump administration has shuttered the civil rights office at the Department of Homeland Security? It’s the office that used to investigate abuses by ICE. We are a lawless nation now, so we no longer need it.
The authoritarian crackdown also includes elite universities. Columbia University has reportedly caved to Emperor Trump’s demands to create a 36-officer “arrest squad,” ban face masks during protests, and adopt a definition of antisemitism that effectively outlaws pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in order to get back the $400 million in federal grants the regime stripped from them. And I’m quite sure that number … $400 million … is entirely coincidental…
Stay woke, playas…
Thank you for the work you do, this is truly heartbreaking but needs to be told.
JOY YOU ARE A TREASURE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK. PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. XXXOOOO