The Trees

Brady and Digby are stranded by a flat tire. A mob of Black men approach them, chanting “Rise.” Brady and Digby call for back-up.

Sheriff Jetty receives the call for help just as Ed, Jim, and Herbie return to his station. Brady and Digby cry out, and shots are fired. Sheriff Jetty asks for Ed, Jim, and Herbie’s help. The three of them agree.

When they arrive at Digby and Brady’s last known location, they find Digby and Brady hanging from a tree, dead, their scrotums removed. Near the tree on which they hang, the bodies of two unidentified Black men lie on the ground, Digby and Brady’s scrotums in their hands.

Copycat murders sweep throughout the country. White people in the areas these murders occur become even more racist and paranoid toward Black people in response, and Black men in particular. In Conway, South Carolina, a mob of Black men rioted in the streets and killed six white men. Police call the murders a hate crime. The governor of South Carolina holds a press conference in which he says that the actions of a small group should not be applied to everyone yet emphasizes that the rioters and murderers were all Black men.