Police in Jackson, Mississippi, arrested a man on Friday in connection with the homicide of Tasia Fortune, a 29-year-old Black woman found hanging from a tree outside an abandoned home in the area last month.
Jackson Police Chief RaShall Brackney identified the arrested man as Jacque Ratliff. She said officers apprehended him on the street after failing to encounter him at the address on their warrants.
“That arrest today is an important development in this investigation but it is not the conclusion,” Brackney said at a press conference on Friday. “This case remains active and additional arrests will be pending as our investigators continue to follow the evidence wherever it leads.”
Police secured warrants for Ratliff’s arrest after the Hinds County coroner determined on Thursday that Fortune’s death was a homicide.
Brackney said she was aware of the local and national attention to the case given Mississippi’s history, but she insisted she could not yet comment on the nature of the death beyond the medical examiner’s findings.
“We owe it to Ms. Fortune, to her family and the integrity of this investigation to let the evidence guide us,” Brackney said.
Mississippi is estimated to have led the nation in lynchings, most of which targeted Black people, between 1882 to 1968, with at least 581 recorded incidents in the state, according to the NAACP.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.