Executive Summary
- A grand jury declined to indict Marquavius and Michael McLeod for the Jackson parade shooting.
- The brothers were previously charged with murder and aggravated assault.
- Defense attorney Carlos Tanner cited a lack of witness identification during preliminary hearings.
- Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey defended the investigation despite a lack of public cooperation.
- A third suspect, Kanye Davis, remains in jail facing murder charges.
A Hinds County grand jury has declined to indict two brothers who were arrested and charged with murder following a mass shooting near a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Jackson, Mississippi, leading to their release from custody. Marquavius and Michael McLeod had been held at the Raymond Detention Center, facing charges of murder and multiple counts of aggravated assault in connection with the violence that erupted last year.
The charges stemmed from a chaotic shooting incident near Lamar and Pearl streets following Hal’s St. Paddy’s Parade, which resulted in the death of Cortez George and injuries to seven other individuals. Hinds County Circuit Clerk Zack Wallace confirmed the grand jury’s decision to issue a “no bill,” effectively halting the prosecution against the brothers based on the evidence presented.
Defense attorney Carlos Tanner, representing Marquavius McLeod, strongly criticized the initial investigation conducted by the Capitol Police. Speaking to local reporters, Tanner argued that law enforcement faced intense public pressure to solve the high-profile case, which he believes led to wrongful arrests. Tanner highlighted testimony from a preliminary hearing in January, where he claimed a detective admitted to being unable to identify specifically who fired the shots that struck the victims. “I asked the cop, ‘Who shot them?’ The cop said, ‘I don’t know,'” Tanner stated, emphasizing the lack of direct evidence linking his client to the gunfire.
In response to the judicial outcome, Capitol Police Chief Bo Luckey defended the department’s work. In a written statement, Luckey asserted that investigators had identified three shooters despite facing “very little cooperation from anyone.” He acknowledged the procedural limitation, noting that once a case is presented to a grand jury, the outcome is beyond the department’s control. Meanwhile, a third suspect, Kanye Davis, remains incarcerated. Davis faces one count of murder and seven counts of aggravated assault and has previously been denied bond, with proceedings pending in Hinds County.
Legal Procedural Outlook
The refusal of a grand jury to return an indictment indicates that jurors did not find sufficient probable cause to proceed to trial based on the evidence presented by the prosecution. In complex mass shooting cases involving multiple potential shooters and chaotic crime scenes, establishing individual criminal liability for specific injuries can be legally challenging without ballistic matches or cooperating witnesses. While the McLeod brothers have been cleared of these specific charges by the grand jury, the investigation remains active regarding the remaining defendant. It is important to note that all individuals, including the remaining suspect Kanye Davis, are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
