Circumstances… When A Prisoner Dies Enroute To Jail

Periodically, the community learns that a person who has been arrested by police officers dies on the way to jail. Naturally, such circumstances arouse interests and varying concerns among family members, friends and anyone who becomes aware of the death. According to sources such a death recently occurred after an arrest was made recently. Considering the widespread media about incidents happening to Blacks who are in the process of being arrested, everyone, people of all races, are concerned about circumstances. It is most important that local authorities get a firm hand on police brutality because it becomes a suspicious act in such cases. Police brutality may be defined as the excessive or unwarranted use of force by law enforcement. It is an extreme form of police misconduct or violence and is a civil rights violation. It also refers to a situation were officers exercise undue or excessive force against a person. Types of misconduct include among some: coerced false confession, intimidation, false arrest, false imprisonment, falsification of evidence, spoliation of evidence, police perjury, witness tampering, racial profiling, unwarranted surveillance, unwarranted searches… None of these acts of misconduct really explain or give reasons as to why a prisoner would die on his way to jail. In the United States forms of police brutality have ranged from assault and battery to mayhem, torture and murder. We can go back as far as the Rodney King beating and note that far too often cases of police brutality continue to surface throughout the country. Right here at home, we have reported cases of persons who are about to be arrested or who are arrested, and they are treated in such a brutal manner, that is has to be police brutality. Unfortunately, these situations occur in cases related to Blacks.

The fear of unwarranted police brutality is often the topic at the dinner table in many homes of Black families. Parents are teaching and warning their children on how to act if they are stopped by a police officer to avoid being mysteriously harmed. Somehow, Blacks are viewed as deserving of harsh treatment in the criminal justice system simply because they are Black. In Police Brutality Against Black Males, the author includes verbal assault in his definition of the term because language and tone can be so damaging and hurtful that it injures the psychological being of the Black male. Local authorities are admonished, even urged to take an extremely close look at how Black prisoners are treated when they are under arrest by police officers. Without doubt, they are many questions about how a prisoner dies on his way to jail.