World War II veteran Medgar Evers, whom President Trump called “a great American hero,” has been erased from the Arlington National Cemetery website, which featured a section honoring Black Americans who fought in the nation’s wars.

The U.S. Army purged the section that had lauded the late Army sergeant and civil rights leader, who was assassinated by a white supremacist in Jackson in 1963. The decision to erase Evers came after an executive order by Trump to eliminate all Diversity, Equality and Inclusion programs.

Former Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson, who gave Trump a 2017 tour of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, said he can’t imagine the president would want Evers removed. “That’s got to be a mistake,” he said. “That involves a great American who served in the military and was one of the most courageous Americans of all time.”

The White House could not be reached for comment.

Evers is far from the only war veteran whose name has been struck from the website. So was Army Maj. Gen. Charles Calvin Rogers, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam War.

“He got shot three times in Vietnam and survived,” said U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson. “History has not been kind to minorities, whether women, people of color or religious groups. Part of what we do in the greatest democracy known to man is to correct the record.”

The Mississippi Democrat said if the Trump administration truly cared about veterans, it wouldn’t have fired 80,000 people from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. “You think it’s hard to get a medical appointment now?” he asked. “You take 80,000 out of that system, and it’s not going to work.”

In 2013, Arlington National Cemetery held a service honoring Evers and his family on the 50th anniversary of his assassination, where Evers drew praise from Republicans and Democrats.

Mississippi’s entire congressional delegation pushed for Evers to posthumously receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom, which his family accepted last year.

President Donald Trump gets a tour of the newly-opened Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson on Saturday. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, left, joins the president on the tour.

President Trump came to Mississippi for the opening of the Civil Rights Museum in 2017 and spent much of his time praising Evers.

“He fought in Normandy in the Second World War,” Trump said, “and when he came back home to Mississippi, he kept fighting for the same rights and freedom that he had defended in the war. Mr. Evers became a civil rights leader in his community.

“He helped fellow African Americans register to vote, organized boycotts, and investigated grave injustices against very innocent people. For his courageous leadership in the Civil Rights movement, Mr. Evers was assassinated by a member of the KKK in the driveway of his own home.”

Trump recalled how “Sgt. Evers was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. In Arlington, he lies beside men and women of all races, backgrounds, and walks of life who have served and sacrificed for our country. Their headstones do not mark the color of their skin, but immortalize the courage of their deeds.

“Their memories are carved in stone as American heroes. That is what Medgar Evers was. He was a great American hero. That is what the others honored in this museum were: true American heroes.”

He called Evers an inspiration for everyone. “We want our country to be a place where every child, from every background, can grow up free from fear, innocent of hatred, and surrounded by love, opportunity, and hope,” he said. “Today, we pay solemn tribute to our heroes of the past and dedicate ourselves to building a future of freedom, equality, justice, and peace.”

Each summer, Civil War historian Kevin M. Levin takes teachers to visit the grave of Medgar Evers. “It’s impossible to talk about his accomplishments in the field of civil rights without mentioning his service in World War II,” he said. “There’s a straight line from his service to trying to expand voting rights and desegregate the University of Mississippi law school.”

It’s impossible to understand the sacrifices of his service in the civil rights movement without understanding the sacrifices of his service in the Army, he said. “Any attempt to minimize this history is being incredibly dishonest.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Pearl Police Department fired patrol officer Taylor Loftin for reportedly stealing $32,000 from a dying woman’s house. It’s the second officer dismissed for alleged criminal conduct in less than a year.

On the morning of Nov. 18, Jason Kelly’s mother, Jackie, collapsed unexpectedly, and his father called 911.

Ambulance workers arrived. So did four or five Pearl police officers, including Loftin, Kelly said.

His 80-year-old mother never recovered and may have died of a blood clot, he said. “It was unexpected.”

She had just inherited $32,000 and received the money in cash, which she put in an envelope in her drawer in the bedroom, he said.

After ambulance workers and police left, Kelly said his father determined the cash had been stolen and called Pearl police, who returned to the home.

After arriving, Loftin admitted that he had opened the drawer and seen the money, but he insisted he closed it right back, Kelly said. “He turned off his camera and stole $32,000.”

Kelly praised Pearl police’s swift response and said, “I hope they press charges.”

He said he doesn’t know if the city is going to pay the family back.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating, but spokesperson Bailey Martin said the agency could not comment further. Loftin could not be reached for comment.

Kelly believes there must have been thefts on previous occasions as well. “This ain’t his first time doing this,” he said.

Pearl Police Chief Nick McLendon said he’s not aware of any previous incidents.

Asked about possible criminal prosecution, he said he could not comment further because the case is under investigation.

He said in a statement made public that the officer hasn’t been charged with any crime and should be presumed innocent. But the department, he said, “must be concerned with even the slightest appearance of impropriety — and especially in the area of law enforcement.”

Two days before Christmas 2023, Pearl police officer Michael Christian Green forced a man he arrested to lick urine from a holding cell floor.

The 26-year-old officer took the man into custody after a family disturbance call to Sam’s Club in Pearl. After he booked the man into a holding cell, footage showed the man telling Green he needed to urinate, but when Green failed to respond, the man urinated in a corner, according to the federal bill of information.

When Green found out what the man had done, Green berated him, “Let me tell you something. You see this phone? I will beat your f—ing ass with it. You’re fixin’ to go in there, and you’re gonna lick that p— up. Do you understand me? … Go suck it up right now.”

Green filmed the man as he licked the urine from the floor, and when the man gagged, Green said, “Don’t spit it out.” When the man gagged, Green responded, “Lick that s— up. Drink your f—in’ p—.”

When the man was allowed to leave the booking area, he vomited in a garbage can.

On June 13, Green was sentenced to a year in federal prison and a $1,500 fine. He told the judge he regrets what he did.

At a press conference after Green’s guilty plea, Pearl Mayor Jake Windham told reporters, “God created us in his image. Treating someone like this is despicable.”

“If you’re going to operate as a police officer,” said Windham, who served in law enforcement for 16 years, “you’ve got to do things right.”

He apologized to the man and his family for “the horrible treatment by an officer of the law.”

At the time, Windham declared, “We hold our officers to a higher standard.”

Four days after the incident, Windham confronted Green and told him to resign, which he did.

The city handles matters swiftly, Windham said. “I think there’s a stark contrast between the Pearl Police Department and this incident [and the handling of] the ‘Goon Squad.’”

Six Rankin County officers were involved in the January 2023 torture of two Black men and the shooting of one of them, but it wasn’t until six months later that those involved were fired. The six officers pleaded guilty and are now serving between 10 and 40 years in federal prison.

Green had been on the force six months when this incident occurred. “His certificate was clean when he came to the Pearl Police Department,” Windham said. “We strive to do an extensive background check on people.”

He said he hopes law enforcement agencies would report any problems with officers to the Mississippi Board on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Training.

A new law, passed in the wake of the Goon Squad’s acts, beefs up the board’s ability to investigate allegations against officers.

As for Loftin, McLendon put the officer on administrative leave after investigating the matter. On Thursday, the Pearl Board of Aldermen fired the officer on McLendon's recommendation.

“We acted on it immediately,” Windham said. “We don’t put up with it.”

It’s a bad situation when “you have to terminate officers,” he said, “but we’re going to make sure that if they screw up, we’re going to send them down the road.”

Asked about getting the $32,000 back to the family, the mayor replied, “Our goal is to make the family whole as soon as possible.”

Loftin was hired by Dean Scott, who resigned as Pearl police chief in January after an investigation into possible misuse of tax dollars. A WLBT investigation revealed that Scott claimed to work for Rankin County as a homestead fraud investigator while on city business at law enforcement conferences on the Coast. He now works as a lieutenant for Capitol Police.

Loftin worked at a series of jobs in law enforcement. He worked at Flowood Police Department and Brandon Police Department before starting at Pearl Police Department, where he had worked a few years.

Loftin graduated from Baylor University, is married and has a newborn son, according to his Facebook page.

“He threw his whole life away,” Kelly said. “You risk your whole family for $32,000?”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.