Denise Johnson is comforted by a protester during the Saturday night demonstration as she talks about how she suspects her son was murdered 12 years ago. Blue Nyguen/Spartan Daily.
By Jovanna Olivares & Isalia Gallo
Protesters seeking justice for a San Jose State student who died in 2008 gathered at San Jose City Hall and marched to a boarded up Sigma Chi fraternity house Saturday night.
A Sigma Chi fraternity member found the then 20-year-old Gregory Johnson Jr., who was also a Sigma Chi member, hanging in the fraternity’s basement.The University Police Department and Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office ruled the case a suicide, according to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner autopsy report.
But 12 years after his death, his mother isn’t convinced her son killed himself.
University to review suicide case
In an email, SJSU President Mary Papazian responded to concerns the public raised about Gregory’s case. She said she consulted with “legally permitted individuals” to review Gregory’s case.
“My understanding is the investigation was meticulous and thorough, and that the facts reflect a deeply unfortunate loss of a young man’s life,” Papazian said in the email.
Papazian said that the university is committed to addressing systemic racism by closely examining and or creating mental health services and practices for Black students, faculty, and staff.
Papazian’s email states the university would provide other resources such as mental health services and research in violence to help Black students at SJSU but will not reopen the case.
The Instagram page Justice for Gregory Johnson, which is managed by Gregory’s mother Denise Johnson and a group of students that would like to remain anonymous for safety reasons, all confirmed they received the President’s email.
The protest goes on
The Instagram account Students4GregoryJohnson, an SJSU student advocacy group dedicated to seeking justice for Gregory’s death, posted on Oct. 9, the night before the protest, that organizers met with Nancy Nguyen, associated director of student involvement at SJSU, over Zoom to discuss the event. Nguyen warned the group that they would be held liable if any SJSU community guidelines, like illegal disruptive misconduct, were broken during Saturday’s protest.
Even after Nguyen’s warning, many students still showed up to support the Johnson family.
Just before the march started, organizers set up a table outside San Jose City Hall to sell T-shirts that had a photo of Gregory’s face with the words “Who killed Gregory Johnson?” on the back and Black Lives Matter-themed masks. All merchandise proceeds went to the Johnson family.
After the event started around 7 p.m., organizers handed out sheets with specific chants for protesters to use. The number of participants grew rapidly within the hour, resulting in more than 200 people at the end of the night.
In May, SJSU sociology sophomore Tiffany Yep created a petition on Change.org back in June to raise awareness for Gregory’s death. Since then, more than 106,000 people signed the petition as of publication.
UPD Chief of Police Gina Di Napoli told the Spartan Daily in an email in late June that there are various details in the petition that are wrong.
“What I have discovered from talking to people who have knowledge of the case, shows that the petition is incorrect in some places,” Di Napoli said. “I wish the person putting the petition together would have called before misleading others.”
At approximately 8 p.m., protesters began flooding the streets and blocked off traffic as they headed east on Santa Clara Street,chanting “San Jose has got to know, Sigma Chi has got to go.”
As the crowd approached the fraternity house, an organizer announced over a loudspeaker that Sigma Chi members boarded up the house beforehand and the fraternity brothers were asked not to speak about the situation.
Upon arrival, the house appeared vacant and had plywood boards covering most of the windows and doors.
Various protesters then made a shrine around a tree in front of the fraternity house. Organizers handed out candles and many brought flowers to honor Gregory’s memory.
Gregory’s mother, Denise, spoke at a lectern in front of the fraternity house as organizers projected the words “Goodbye Sigma Chi” across the street onto the university’s Central Plant building.
“Nov. 22, 2008, four [Clearlake, California] police officers came to my home. Seven hours after Gregory was found dead in the Sigma Chi fraternity house in the basement,” she said. “I called the coroner’s office and asked to come down here in Santa Clara County coroner’s [office] to see my son, identify him. I didn’t believe it was him. I didn’t because they said he committed suicide.”
Black Liberation and Collective Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K) Outreach, a San Jose-based activist group, encouraged protesters to paint “Justice for Gregory Johnson” on the road in front of the Sigma Chi fraternity house.
San Jose Police Department helicopters flew over the crowd as officers told people to clear 10th Street, which was taken over by protesters who didn’t budge.
After a series of speakers shared stories outside the fraternity house about the importance of protesting and raising awareness, the group marched back to City Hall.
B.L.A.C.K. Outreach members used sage to “cleanse” the energy while marching back through the neighborhood of fraternities.
When the protesters arrived back at City Hall, they continued to chant “Justice for Gregory Johnson” while projecting the faces of various 2008 Sigma Chi Fraternity members on the Rotunda building. Organizers said these members were responsible for Gregory’s death.
Gregory supporters speak out
Prior to walking with the protesters, Denise said she was told her son committed suicide because he had a $4,000 student loan.
She expressed her frustration at what she feels is a shoddy investigation and “a cover up”.
“[UPD] laughed at me, they made fun of our family, they said Gregory was crazy,” Denise said.
She said UPD ridiculed her by treating the fraternity brothers as witnesses, rather than murder suspects.
Some protesters spoke in front of the crowd when they gathered in front of Sigma Chi to support reinvestigating Gregory’s case.
Briena Brown, a sociology senior and speaker at the demonstration said she found out about Gregory’s death over six months ago.
“I am genuinely ashamed,” she said during her speech.
Brown, who is also an Alpha Omicron Pi sorority member, said she’s ashamed because it took her this long to know about the case.
“It’s ridiculous to me that this conversation is just happening,” she said. “It needs to happen more often, but most importantly it needs to happen in the chapters, all the chapters.”
Psychology junior Sam Royal said it’s fundamental to support the SJSU community and Black people, who have been oppressed for years, especially in Greek life.
“It’s important to speak about something that’s so blatantly a murder,” Royal said. “It’s so clearly not right and there is not enough being done.”
Identifying Gregory’s body
Denise said the Clearlake Police Department notified her of Gregory’s death several hours after he died. Moreover, she said the university notified its students, staff and faculty members about Gregory’s death in a campuswide email before contacting her.
Steven Campman, the San Diego County chief deputy medical examiner said in an email that there is no real method of identifying a body. He said that it is common for bodies to be identified by government-issued identification images, such as a driver’s license or passport.
Denise said the coroner’s office denied her a viewing of the body because police used Gregory’s driver’s license and the help of Sigma Chi fraternity members to identify Gregory’s body.
The Santa Clara County coroner’s office reported that a body cannot be viewed once it has been identified, according to a Feb. 19, 2009 Spartan Daily article.
No ligature marks and a cracked skull in question
According to the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s autopsy report, a fraternity brother reported finding Gregory at around 2:45 p.m.
Gregory was hanging from a ceiling water pipe in the fraternity basement with an orange electrical cord around his neck. The Johnson family finds the death suspicious because Gregory measured 6 foot, 1 inch tall and weighed 220 pounds, according to the autopsy report, but the distance from the floor to the water pipe measured about 5 feet, 10 inches.
Denise said the lack of ligature marks around Gregory’s neck are an indication that he didn’t hang himself.
Campman said ligature markings, marks made by cord, rope or other materials when used in strangulation, do not always appear after death from lack of oxygen.
“When their whole weight is not pulling against the object around their neck, like if they were sitting or their feet were on the ground . . . the arteries taking the blood up into the head are still at least somewhat open,” he said.
He said ligature marks tend to be less common when a person is fully suspended or has the blood flow going up to their head fully blocked by the object which was used to hang themselves.
Denise said the position Gregory was found in would logically indicate that markings should have been visible.
A 6-inch crack she found on Gregory’s head raised unanswered questions among his family and friends.
“It took me 13 days to raise money. To get him home. So I could find a crack on the back of his head,” Denise said.
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office told the Johnson family that the head injury occurred as part of the autopsy process according to a Feb. 25, 2015 Spartan Daily article.
Case faces jurisdiction issues
UPD investigated Gregory’s case, but it’s chief of police at the time, Andre Barnes, told the Johnson family that UPD was not prepared to handle a homicide.
Instead of SJPD handling the case, UPD took over because it had jurisdiction over the area where Gregory’s body was found.
The FBI also investigated the case as a hate crime after being asked to look into it by the Lake County NAACP branch. The case eventually went cold in 2009, according to a Feb. 25 Spartan Daily article.
Denise said she and her husband were denied information regarding the FBI investigation because it was a “matter of national security.”
Andrea Briseño contributed to this article