The Lost Sons of Omaha

December 1, 2022

On May 30, 2020, during protests in Omaha, NE, following George Floyd's murder, white bar owner Jake Gardner shot Black protestor James Scurlock to death. An investigation by white district attorney Don Kleine concluded that Gardner had legally acted in self-defense and released him, while a second investigation by Black special prosecutor Fred Franklin indicted Gardner for manslaughter and demanded that he face trial. Gardner subsequently committed suicide. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sexton examines the truths and falsehoods surrounding the case as he reflects on issues of divisiveness and social justice in the United States today.

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April 15, 2023
Carefully written account of a tragic encounter during a Black Lives Matter protest. Nebraska is a deep-red state, Omaha a purplish blue. While the city has made efforts to address racial inequalities, it has much still to do. As veteran journalist and debut author Sexton observes, in the demonstrations following George Floyd's death, Omaha police were involved in more than 120 "use of force" encounters with protestors. In one zone of demonstration, a young Black man confronted a business owner and was shot to death. Instantly, as Sexton shows, a war of words ensued on social media, with White nationalists declaring that the deceased was a thug and worse and the left proclaiming that the bar owner was a racist, Nazi, and more. The story is a complex one at every turn, and the author handles it well. The business owner was a Marine veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who ran a tight ship, including enforcing a dress code in his bar that some believed was discriminatory against young Black men; the deceased was a sometime patron with a long history of legal troubles. Yet that story was immediately simplified in the hands of ideologues. As Sexton writes, "a narrative was taking hold, and it gained momentum at extraordinary speed." One fomenter of the narrative that the bar owner was a racist with an itchy trigger finger later admitted to Sexton that he had no evidence. However, having bombarded social media with allegations, he "could not have been prouder of his efforts." He was far from alone, and although Omaha police did not bring charges, a prosecutor conducted a heavily politicized inquiry. Sexton does exemplary journalistic work not just in digging up the facts and interviewing family members and eyewitnesses, but also in exposing how the whirlwind of opinionating works against finding the truth on all sides. A well-reported, somber, troubling look at crime and punishment without justice.

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Starred review from May 15, 2023
The murder of George Floyd in May of 2020 sparked Black Lives Matter protests across America. A demonstration in Omaha, Nebraska, quickly escalated into chaos. One resident, a decorated Iraq War veteran, stood outside his business, a popular downtown club. Another young man, a new father, decided to go check out the action. Shortly after, the young Black man, James Scurlock, was dead. Jake Gardner, the white club owner, had fired the lethal shot. Originally, charges against Gardner were dismissed on the basis of self-defense. When a specially convened grand jury handed down an indictment, Gardner ended his own life. Seasoned journalist Sexton meticulously investigates these tragic events, filling in background information about these two longtime residents of Omaha and their extended families, documenting the way social media exploded with false, incendiary reports and hateful, racially motivated rhetoric. Related police records, transcripts, time lines, eyewitness accounts, and follow-up interviews with principal players and family members are all set within Sexton's reporting on the decades-long racial violence that defines Omaha's past. This searing account is a true tragedy, in that there is nothing cut-and-dried about it and there are no happy endings. Sexton does a remarkable job of capturing the complexities with nuanced thoroughness and empathy.

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