Wednesday, July 29, 2015

What People Care About This Week: Raynette Turner


Another arrest, another person dying in police custody. This time it was mother of eight kids 42 year old Raynette Turner of Mount Vernon, New York. While waiting for arraignment after being arrested for shoplifting she was found dead in her holding cell. Her husband of 23 years, Herman Turner is not taking this lightly. “Sounds like a cover-up to me. If they Mount Vernon police did their job she would still be alive. I want somebody's head to roll on this. I am not going to rest until I get some type of justice for my wife. That's the bottom line.”

So far the officials results have been inconclusive as to how she died. Herman wasn't even sure that his wife was arrested on Friday of Saturday for stealing crab legs where she was found a short distance away from by police. He was told she was complaining of feeling ill on Monday and was found dead on Tuesday. He didn't find out that his wife was dead until two detectives showed up at his house to tell him. “We know she was requesting medical treatment and it seems that, at some level, the system and the protocols that the city was following failed.”

Officials say that this was Raynette's third arrest for shoplifting recently which her husband says is a “bald-faced lie.” He says she has been on probation for the past five years and has not been arrested in that time. She was taken to the hospital between 7:30pm and 8pm and treated for high blood pressure and then brought back to her cell after 10pm. She was last seen awake in her cell between noon and 1pm and found dead at 2pm when police needed to wake her to be arraigned.


Her husband waited for her in court until 4pm, no one telling him that she had already died. “No one said anything to me about my wife was downstairs, dead. They just let me sit in the courtroom all day long, waiting for her to come and be seen by the judge.” He also said that there is no record of his wife being at the hospital. “I'm angry. Very angry. Somebody needs to pay. Somebody really needs to pay for this. I'm sorry, I'm not going to let this rest.”

There is talk of better procedures to be in lace when there are people arrested that have or complain of health issues but it seems like more and more people will be dying under strange circumstances while they try to work the bugs out. I have no idea how a man is supposed to raise eight children, ranging from 8 to 21, all on his own.

Click here for previous What People Care About This Week.

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