The death of a 21-year-old at Delta State University (DSU) in Mississippi on Monday has been ruled a suicide, according to police.
Demartravion “Trey” Reed of Grenada, Mississippi, was found deceased at around 7 a.m. near the pickleball courts, University Police Chief Mike Peeler told reporters during a .
An autopsy report by the Mississippi State Medical Examiner “determined the cause of death to be hanging and the manner of death as suicide,” the Cleveland Police Department said in a Thursday news release.
Police added that final toxicology results are pending and may take two to four weeks to complete.
The case remains an “active investigation” and all materials have been given to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for further review, police said.
A released on Tuesday by the Bolivar County Coroner’s Office “indicates no evidence of foul play.”
Reed “did not suffer any lacerations, contusions, compound fractures, broken bones, or injuries consistent with an assault,” the report read.
Delta State President Dan Ennis acknowledged during a that the way Reed was found “stirred many emotions in this community and many emotions around the state of the nation.”
Ennis said the school has increased law enforcement on campus due to threats received in the wake of Reed’s death.
“In that regard, we have been very grateful that we have had increased law enforcement presence on this campus, and, unfortunately, that’s because this campus has received threats, and my message to that regard would be, we have students here,” Ennis continued. “They came here to get an education, and folks who threaten the institution are hurting students, and we don’t want that. We are supposed to be a place where students come to feel safe and to learn. That’s our mission, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”
University Police Chief Mike Peeler told reporters he was the second officer from his department to arrive on the scene, adding that investigators with the Cleveland Police Department are reviewing video related to Reed’s death.
“There are videos and they’re in the hands of the investigation team,” he said.
National civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing Reed’s family and demanded that the video of his death investigation be shown to his family.
“Trey’s family deserves answers they can trust. We cannot accept rushed, conclusions when the stakes are this high,” a . “By demanding the family be allowed to view any video and commissioning an independent autopsy, we are taking every step to uncover the truth about what happened to Trey.”
Crump also said the family will “commission a separate, independent autopsy to verify the findings of the state medical examiner and ensure no question goes unanswered.”
Additionally, the NAACP expressed “skepticism” in the preliminary findings.
“The body of 21-year-old Trey Reed was found hanging from a tree on the campus of Delta State University. While initial reports offered no evidence of ‘foul play,’ you’d have to excuse our skepticism amidst growing racially motivated violence targeted at our communities across this nation,” the NAACP said in a . “So while we await more formal autopsy reports and information, we offer this piece of history with a level of certainty: Our people have not historically hung ourselves from trees”