VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) - The Georgia NAACP is calling for a federal investigation into the death of a Valdosta teenager found inside a rolled-up wrestling mat in his school gym.
Edward DuBose, president of the Georgia NAACP, was scheduled to attend a rally and march Saturday in Valdosta calling for the Justice Department to reopen the case of 17-year-old Kendrick Johnson.
Lowndes County sheriff's investigators say Johnson's death Jan. 11 was an accident. They say he couldn't breathe after falling into the center of a wrestling mat that had been rolled up behind the gym bleachers.
But a second autopsy by a pathologist hired by Johnson's parents concluded he died from a blow to the neck.
The Justice Department has said it reviewed the case and found insufficient cause for a civil rights investigation.