Cindy Hyde-Smith Controversy Mississippi

A Reporter Asked Cindy Hyde-Smith One Question About Nolan Wells, the Black Mississippi Teen Whose Death Is Still Unexplained. She Called Capitol Police.

Days after a grand jury declined to charge anyone in 18-year-old Nolan Wells' death, a reporter tried to ask Mississippi's senator about it in a Capitol hallway. She said 'I don't do hallway interviews' and, TheGrio reported, asked a security desk to have him removed.

MAGA Report Cards · Sep 25, 2026

A Reporter Asked Cindy Hyde-Smith One Question About Nolan Wells, the Black Mississippi Teen Whose Death Is Still Unexplained. She Called Capitol Police.

On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, a reporter walked up to Cindy Hyde-Smith in the Hart Senate Office Building and said: "Just one quick question about your state with Nolan Wells…"

Mississippi's Republican senator didn't take the question. "I don't do the hallway interviews," she said. Then she walked to a security desk a few feet away and asked, "Can somebody help me here?" — asking that the reporter be removed, TheGrio reported. The Advocate, which reviewed the footage, wrote that she "appeared to motion toward Capitol Police officers" but that the video "does not establish what, if anything, she said."

The reporter was Daniel Grimes, a correspondent for The Don Lemon Show. When he told a Capitol Police officer it was a public space, the officer told him, "She's not willing to give you an interview... You can't keep harassing her, okay?" Grimes said it was "primarily them using their bodies to box me in," according to The Advocate, though he stressed it wasn't intensely physical.

One question. About a dead teenager from her own state.

Who Nolan Wells was

Nolan Xavier Wells was an 18-year-old Black Mississippian. On July 4, 2026, he went by boat to Horn Island, off the Gulf Coast, with friends. He stayed behind on the island when they left. His body was found there on July 6.

Earlier this week, a Jackson County grand jury declined to bring any criminal charges. It concluded he likely drowned.

His family says that answer doesn't fit the evidence. On Thursday, their lawyers — including civil rights attorney Ben Crump — released the state's own autopsy report and data recovered from his phone, Mississippi Today reported:

The autopsy notes two bruises on the back of his skull.
It found no fluid in his airway, lungs or stomach — which the family's lawyer said is usually present in a drowning.
Forensic experts found evidence that messages sent to his phone had been deleted.

Both the state medical examiner and the family's independent pathologist classified the cause and manner of death as undetermined, The Advocate reported. The family is asking for the investigation to stay open and for the U.S. Department of Justice to review it.

"This mystery still needs to be investigated," Crump said. "We cannot simply close the chapter, wash our hands of it, put a bow on it and say, 'Nothing to see here.'"

Why she's the one to ask

A family in Mississippi wants the Justice Department to take a look. A U.S. senator is exactly the person who can make that call to DOJ, press for the records to be released, or at the very least say she's paying attention.

Hyde-Smith didn't say she'd look into it. She didn't say she wouldn't. She didn't say anything about Nolan Wells at all. She asked for security.

Her Democratic opponent, Scott Colom, said: "A reporter asked Cindy Hyde-Smith a serious question about Nolan Wells' tragic passing, and she chose to run away and call security."

A senator who doesn't answer

This isn't a one-off. Hyde-Smith hasn't debated an opponent since 2018, and when asked to hold even one town hall, her campaign answered with a line about George Soros. When Mississippi reporters asked her about her failing grade on trade from the Center for New Liberalism, she didn't respond.

And Black Mississippians have reason to want to hear from her on this in particular. In 2018, she was caught on video praising a supporter by saying, "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row." A question about a Black teenager's unexplained death is one she should be ready to answer.

What the record shows

On September 23, 2026, a reporter tried to ask Cindy Hyde-Smith one question about Nolan Wells, an 18-year-old Black Mississippian whose death officials called undetermined and a grand jury declined to charge. She said she doesn't do hallway interviews and asked a Capitol security desk to have the reporter removed. His family is asking for a federal review; their senator wouldn't take a question about it.