Libel Lawsuit Filed over Discovering Kendrick Bell Documentary

On July 30, 2021, the documentary movie Discovering Kendrick Johnson (the “Documentary Movie”) was first launched, and by December 27, 2021, it was out there for web customers to stream on a number of on-line platforms…. The Documentary purports to inform the story of the homicide of Kendrick Johnson (the “Decedent”), a Lowndes County Excessive Faculty pupil whose physique was found in a rolled-up health club mat in the highschool’s health club in January 2013.

Defendants maliciously exploited the mysterious loss of life of the Decedent and the imagery and controversy surrounding the Decedent’s loss of life to manufacture a completely false narrative and revenue financially by portray the Bells as modern-day variations of these answerable for considered one of America’s most brutal and notorious hate crimes. The Documentary Movie represents that the Decedent’s loss of life was a homicide. The Documentary Movie additional portrays that the homicide was the results of felony acts dedicated by Brian and Branden, two different Lowndes County Excessive Faculty college students who it represents had “issues” with the Decedent across the time of his loss of life. Defendants current the central thesis of the movie, which is that the Decedent’s homicide was a second iteration of the horrific, racially motivated homicide of Emmett Until….

[T]he Documentary propagates a conspiracy concept that the Decedent’s loss of life was improperly dominated an accident, and it claims that Rick, the daddy of Brian and Branden, who labored as an FBI agent, engaged in a canopy up operation to hide his sons’ involvement within the Decedent’s homicide.

The Documentary Movie additional states that Rick met with and intimidated potential witnesses. The Documentary Movie additionally represents that Rick exploited his FBI connections to take the main focus of the investigation off his sons to hide their involvement within the Decedent’s homicide…. The Documentary Movie additionally falsely maintains that Rick was pressured to resign from his place after the Division of Justice found proof of his “corruption” in relation to the investigation.

The declare printed within the Documentary Movie that Brian, with the help of Branden, performed a job within the Decedent’s loss of life is clearly false to anybody who has performed any inquiry into the details surrounding the Decedent’s unlucky and mysterious loss of life.

After all, these assertions are simply the allegations within the Grievance (and simply among the allegations; the Grievance is lengthy). We’ll see what occurs to the case in court docket.