ACLU speaks out after Audit Design Team announces that 100 in-custody deaths will be investigated. The review will be of police-involved deaths during tenure of David Fowler, the former Maryland chief medical examiner who testified in court in defense of Derek Chauvin, who was convicted for the murder of George Floyd.
The following quote is from Sonia Kumar, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Maryland:
"For decades, family members of those killed by police have said that the medical examiner’s reports are wrong. This preliminary audit report is a vindication of exactly what they said. That it does not pass the smell test to claim that their loved ones died because of car exhaust, or hot temperatures, or bipolar disorder, when police restrained them right before they died. The government must tell the truth about what caused death in these cases, and it must do so based on evidence. If we don’t tell the truth about what caused the deaths, we can’t learn how to prevent them.”
More details about Black et al v. Webster.
