Ben Keita, an 18-year-old Running Start student from Lake Stevens, went missing last November. Two months after police investigated his disappearance, Keita, who is Black and Muslim, was found hanging from a tree in a wooded area near the family’s home, which had been previously searched by officers with the Lake Stevens Police Department (LSPD). Officials with the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s office wrote in an autopsy report that Keita died of asphyxiation by hanging. An initial report ruled Keita’s death a suicide, but the cause of death was later changed to “undetermined.”
During two press conferences hosted by Washington’s Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), Keita’s parents, Ibrahima and Aicha, described their son as a healthy and happy teenager who had no known history of mental illness. He had dreams of going to medical school and becoming a medical examiner, Ibrahima said. With support from CAIR and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Keitas called on the Seattle Federal Bureau of Investigation office to launch their own investigation into their son’s death.
Due to the “undetermined” nature of Keita’s death—and possibly the current political climate—people in the Seattle area are casting doubt on whether the Lake Stevens teen committed suicide or was instead lynched, Sara Jean Green reports for The Seattle Times.
Fueled by social media amid a surge in reported hate crimes against Muslims across the country, the Keita case has taken on something of a life of its own, with his presumed suicide cast as a possible lynching. With veiled suggestions of an indifferent and racist police investigation and sparse, uncaring media coverage, the furor surrounding Keita’s death also touched off questions about reporting on such incidents by The Seattle Times and other media.
This was even brought up during the February press conference by Doctor Reverend Kelle Brown of Plymouth Church Seattle United Church of Christ, who was there in support of the Keita family. Although the family and their supporters were “careful not to rush to judgement,” she said, the community needed to be aware of the historical nature of lynchings, which “were deemed as suicide without full inquiry.”
“We love this community, but we don’t want to live in fear because of our faith or color of our skin,” Ibrahima Keita said during the press event.
The Times‘ Green notes that the response to the investigation of Keita’s death echoes similarly to the death of Hamza Warsame, a 16-year-old Seattle Central Community College student who died in December 2015 after an “unintentional fall” from a friend’s rooftop. Investigators ultimately classified his death as an accident.
During the investigation into Warsame’s death, the teen’s sister, Ikram, told Ansel Herz that she was frustrated that Seattle Police officers didn’t initially investigate her brother’s death as a possible homicide.
“When that came out, she said, people began speculating that her brother committed suicide,” Herz reported at the time. “Others raised the possibility he had been murdered.”
SPD Public Information Officer Sean Whitcomb told the Times that the social media speculation around Warsame’s case, which he described as being “presented as fact,” was “damaging to the family because they were led to believe another narrative.”
Green, in her Times story, notes that during a vigil held for Keita at the University of Washington earlier this month, attendees invoked Warsame’s name “as an example of a death brushed aside due to race and religion.”
The investigation into Keita’s death is still in progress.
When reached for comment, Seattle FBI Media Coordinator Ayn Dietrich told The Stranger that her office “continues to support the Lake Stevens Police Department by augmenting its investigative perspective.”
She continued: “We are familiar with LSPD’s appropriate and thorough investigative steps. While it is still premature to make any conclusion because the investigation is active and ongoing, the FBI concurs with LSPD’s assessment that evidence collected to date does not provide any indication of a criminal act. However, the FBI will remain in contact with the LSPD and will reevaluate our position if information develops that suggest otherwise.”
