Three University of Mississippi students were suspended from their fraternity Wednesday after they posed in front of the Emmett Till Memorial sign with guns, ProPublica reports. In a now-deleted Instagram post, Kappa Alpha brothers Ben LeClere, John Lowe, and another fraternity member were seen posing in front of the bullet-riddled sign—with LeClere holding a shotgun and Lowe posing with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. It is reportedly unclear whether the students shot the sign. LeClere posted the photo in early March, and it got 274 likes. Kappa Alpha suspended the three members after fraternity officials were given a copy of the photo by news organizations. “The photo is inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. It does not represent our chapter,” Taylor Anderson, Ole Miss Kappa Alpha president, wrote in an email. U.S. Attorney Chad Lamar said information about the incident was referred to the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
Days after the photo was posted, a person who saw the photo filed a bias report with the university and the matter was eventually referred to the FBI. The agency said it would not investigate further because the picture did not pose a specific threat. Ole Miss called the photo “offensive,” but claimed it did not violate their code of conduct.
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