In Charlotte, North Carolina, 41-year-old Harold Easter suffered a drug overdose and was left to die in a police interrogation room for seven minutes. Three days later, he died as a result of the authorities’ neglect. Despite being arrested on drug charges, Easter had eaten an excessive amount of cocaine after he was pulled over by cops on January 23, 2021 – but they refused to assist him when he started to experience a deadly substance overdose.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department has published seventeen video clips of Easter overdosing while in their care. Despite the fact that the man was plainly suffering and on the verge of death, the cops did nothing to assist the Black suspect.
Easter was held in the police detention room for roughly 45 minutes. He was left alone throughout the event. He is handed a cup of water at one point. Easter, on the other hand, was heard screaming and asking for more water from his cops captors during the recording.
Although he requested water, no one came to his assistance. Instead, he was left alone for around twenty minutes. He began having a seizure and was captured on camera seizing for approximately twenty minutes during this time. On the table, he passed out and later fell to the floor. Police took no action while Easter had a medical emergency since they were not called.
Easter has died as a result of the emergency he had while in police custody, according to his surviving family member. Alex Heroy, an attorney working for Easter’s deceased family member, told CNN that when the rest of the family saw how Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department disregarded Easter’s cry for help and allowed him to have a seizure in the interrogation room for minutes on end, they were overcome with emotion.
According to Chief Johnny Jennings of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, his cops broke department regulations. They were instructed to check on Easter every fifteen minutes, but they did not do so. Furthermore, while officers recognized that Easter had ingested a significant amount of cocaine, they neglected to call for medical assistance. Would a white suspect have received the same lack of attention?
“I don’t believe these officers had malicious intent. But they did make a bad decision, and they didn’t follow policy,” he stated. “So those bad decisions have consequences. Especially when those decisions have contributed to the loss of a life, a life that we had the responsibility to protect.”
As a result of Easter’s death, an internal inquiry was ordered. Five police officers have resigned as a result of the circumstances that led to Easter’s tragic death. Spencer Merriweather, Mecklenburg County’s District Attorney, does not intend on charging the cops who were responsible for negligence with any criminal offenses, according to WFAE-FM.
The coroners who conducted the autopsies said that “cannot prove that Mr. Easter, after having voluntarily eaten a large amount of crack cocaine, would have lived had he received immediate medical attention,” Merriweather wrote in a letter to the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, “In fact, none of the medical experts consulted about the evidence in this matter would be able to testify to a degree of medical certainty that Mr. Easter would have lived after having ingested that amount of cocaine, even if officers had called for medical attention at the time of the initial traffic stop.”
The North Carolina state chief medical examiner determined that Easter’s death was attributed to a “toxic agent.”