Jackson officials settle lawsuit over George Robinson’s death

The family of a Jackson man who died in 2019 days after an interaction with police officers will receive nearly $18,000 in a wrongful death lawsuit settlement. 

That $17,786.25 settlement, according to city council documents, “does not constitute an admission of liability” by the city of Jackson and the three former Jackson police officers who the family say pulled 62-year-old George Robinson from his car and beat him in the Washington Addition neighborhood. 

Robinson died days later on Jan. 15, 2019, and the state medical examiners said his death was a homicide from three blunt head injuries. 

One of the officers, former detective Anthony Fox, was convicted of culpable-negligence manslaughter in 2022, receiving a 20-year sentence with 15 years suspended. Charges against the other two officers, Desmond Barney and Lincoln Lampley, were dismissed in 2021. 

Fox’s conviction stood for about two years, until January when the Mississippi Court of Appeals reversed the conviction and issued an acquittal. In a majority opinion, the judges agreed the evidence was insufficient for the verdict and that Robinson’s medical history made it difficult to tell whether his injuries from Fox was the sole contributor to his death. 

The Hinds County district attorney did not support challenging the conviction, while Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked for it to be reversed. 

Fox left prison in February and went back to work for the Clinton Police Department, where he was employed up until his conviction after leaving the Jackson Police Department.
Bettersen Wade, Robinson’s sister who was a plaintiff in the wrongful death lawsuit, is also the mother of 37-year-old Dexter Wade, the Jackson man who died last year and was buried in the Hinds County pauper’s grave, despite having identification and his family calling the coroner’s office and Jackson police.