Benjamin Brown

Benjamin Brown was fatally shot during unrest connected to a civil rights protest in Jackson on May 11, 1967. Initial eyewitnesses identified Jackson Police Department Major Anthony “Buddy” Kane Sr. as the shooter, while other witnesses said the shooters were not in police uniform but wearing white shirts, pointing toward Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol detectives who were also on the scene that night. A later ballistics analysis found that the buckshot pellets recovered from Brown's fatal head wound and body matched ammunition used by the Highway Safety Patrol, not the type carried by Jackson police, leading investigators to conclude decades later that Brown's shooter was most likely a Highway Safety Patrol officer rather than a city officer, effectively clearing the originally accused JPD officers. No one was ever charged, and all identified subjects were confirmed deceased by the time the DOJ closed the case.

Jackson, MS · Hinds County

• 1967: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• Victim identity and the May 11, 1967 date and circumstances, per the DOJ's public case file.
• A later ballistics analysis of the recovered buckshot pointed toward a Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol officer rather than the Jackson Police Department officer originally accused by eyewitnesses, per the same file; no one was ever charged.

• The specific individual who fired the fatal shot was never conclusively identified, despite the ballistics analysis narrowing the likely agency involved.
• Why witnesses' original identification of a Jackson police officer as the shooter conflicted so directly with the later ballistics findings was never fully resolved.

• U.S. Department of Justice — Notice to Close File
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs