The family of an 18-year-old woman is demanding answers into the circumstances surrounding her death after the NYPD claimed that she took her own life while she was in custody.
Per NBC New York, police said that Saniyah Cheatham was being detained in a cell at stationhouse on Longwood Avenue when she was found unconscious in the wee hours of Saturday. Authorities said that she was given CPR by officers before she was later taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
But Cheatham’s mother, Thomasina Cheatham, said there was nothing to show that her daughter was suicidal because hours before she was arrested, she was at their July 4 family cookout and in a good mood.
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“She was happy and I was happy to see her,” Thomasina recalled.
Cheatham’s family said that she and her girlfriend got into a physical altercation after the cookout, adding that authorities arrested them over that incident.
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But Thomasina said she does not believe her daughter killed herself, adding that she wants to know what happened.
“Maybe she said something they didn’t like, they roughed her up. I don’t believe my daughter committed suicide,” she said.
In the wake of the incident, Cheatham’s family said that police informed them she died after she asphyxiated herself with a sweater. “She did not have on a sweater that day,” Cheatham’s mother claimed.
Besides demanding for the release of surveillance footage from the precinct, Cheatham’s family also wants the NYPD to provide the lapel videos of the arresting officers, NBC New York reported.
“Oh she hung herself on the bars. I would like to see that,” Thomasina said. The deceased 18-year-old woman’s brother also wants authorities to provide her autopsy results.
Cheatham’s cause of death is yet to be ruled by the medical examiner, and the NYPD’s Force Investigation Division has since launched an investigation into her death.
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