FBI awaits autopsy in hanging of black man in Mississippi

PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi sheriff said today that a black man found hanging from a tree did not appear to have stepped off anything before he died.

Claiborne County Sheriff Marvin Lucas Sr. told The Associated Press the body was found Thursday hanging by a bed sheet from a tree limb about 12 feet high, and that his feet were dangling about two feet off the ground. The hands on the body were not bound, he said.

The results of an autopsy by the Mississippi Crime Lab to determine whether the death was homicide or suicide could take days, Lucas said.

The hanging is being investigated by the FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney's office as well as the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

The feds are there to determine if it's a potential hate crime or other violation of federal law, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

"We simply don't know enough facts," Holder told MSNBC. "We do have a substantial federal presence to determine what the facts are."