The Fourth of July was the last time family and friends saw or heard from Saniyah Cheatham.
Just hours before the 18-year-old was arrested in connection with a fight involving a friend, her mother said she was “happy” at their family barbecue. A close friend who texted with her that day agreed that she was in good spirits.
Police said after midnight on July 5, Cheatham was found unconscious within the 41st Precinct in the Bronx, New York. Inside a holding cell, authorities said she used her sweater to hang herself, according to news outlets.
Word of Cheatham’s death has raised more questions than answers for her mother, Thomasina Cheatham. Especially after unnamed police sources said her only daughter died by suicide using a sweater Thomasina says her daughter wasn’t even wearing that day.
“I just want to know what happened to Saniyah. That was my only daughter, she didn’t deserve this,” Thomasina Cheatham said at a press conference on Monday outside the police station where authorities said her daughter was found unresponsive. Saniyah Cheatham was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed in a July 14 email to Capital B that Saniyah Cheatham died by hanging and officials ruled her death a suicide. Her mother, along with civil rights attorney Ben Crump and community activists, are demanding the release of surveillance footage from inside the precinct — and an investigation into how a young person could die in police custody.
An online petition has been launched, echoing her family’s calls for accountability and transparency. As of July 16, it has over 10,000 signatures.
Ember Baez, 20, told a reporter from The New York Times that she was in disbelief of her close friend’s death: “When I heard this happened, I called her multiple times to see if it was real, and her phone just kept going straight to voice mail.”
“She was very bright, very independent, smart, outgoing,” Thomasina Cheatham said about her child while clutching a sheet of paper with a photograph of Saniyah. She said she wants justice.
Crump said Saniyah Cheatham, who was a Bronx Community College student, was “in good health.” Her death is under “questionable circumstances,” he added.
“Who was asleep at the wheel, to where this 18-year-old child ended up dead while she was in your care — in your custody?” said Crump. “If we learned anything … from George Floyd’s tragic killing, that is, when you’re in the custody of the police, you’re in the care of the police.
“Why did they not care for Saniyah? We want answers, and we want accountability.”
The New York City Police Department’s Force Investigation Division, which investigates in-custody deaths, is looking into Cheatham’s case.
Crump said he plans to explore every possible legal remedy to get to the truth. He said authorities should release video footage to the family and then to the public to help build trust and accountability when situations like this happen.
Thomasina Cheatham, 43, has denied that her daughter would take her own life. Likewise, Crump said during the July 14 press conference that the medical examiner’s report of suicide doesn’t add up.
He said the details authorities have released to multiple news outlets are reminiscent of the in-custody death of Sandra Bland, who was arrested following a traffic stop in July 2015. Bland, a social justice activist, died in a Texas jail. Officials ruled her death a suicide, but her family publicly pushed back at the authorities’ account of her death for years.
“We thought that we had learned from Sandra Bland that we will be able to prevent these things from happening in the future, and that’s why we’re demanding — from NYPD — answers,” Crump said.
On July 13, 2015, Bland was found hanging inside a Waller County, Texas, jail cell three days after her arrest. Despite Bland’s family reaching a $1.9 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit, they have continued to ask police for video footage and for her time of death with hopes of receiving closure about exactly what happened.
Tamika Mallory, co-founder of Until Freedom, a nonprofit social justice organization, was amongst the community leaders supporting the Cheatham family at the July 14 press conference. Mallory said she remembered holding protests and marches after Bland’s 2015 death asking for the type of transparency “her family needed and that our communities need.”
“We said that it was about ending Black women being unprotected, and that we had to ensure that Sandra Bland’s family got the justice that they deserved, so that we would not be standing here with Saniyah’s family today,” she said.
Ten years later, “that did not happen,” Mallory added.
Since Bland’s death, Mallory, Crump, and Black Live Matter Grassroots have called on the authorities to look into other killings of Black women in which police have been accused of using excessive force, including Breonna Taylor, Sonya Massey, Jada Johnson, and Niani Finlayson.
“If Saniyah committed a crime, they would have released the tape immediately,” Mallory said. “We will not leave this family until we have the video.”
If you are facing mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, dial 988. Counselors are available free of charge, nationwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
This story has been updated.
Great Job Christina Carrega & the Team @ Capital B News Source link for sharing this story.
