Darryl Mefferd’s death was labeled an ‘accident’, but a report questions a Vallejo police officer’s role in the fatal incident
California law enforcement officials have worked for seven years to keep secret a death in police custody, labeling the case an “accident” and refusing to disclose basic information to journalists and the family of the victim, an investigation published on Monday reveals.
Darryl Mefferd, 49, died on 8 December 2016 while he was detained by police in Vallejo, a city of 125,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The case was uncovered by Open Vallejo, a local non-profit news organization, which shared its records with the Guardian.
The afternoon before he died, Mefferd had seemed disoriented and dehydrated and was making paranoid remarks, so his niece, Courtney Mefferd, took him to a local hospital. He was treated with vitamins and a sedative and declared “stable”, medical records show. By around 11pm, he was anxious to be discharged and left the hospital against doctors’ recommendations.
News of Mefferd’s case will increase scrutiny on VPD, which has a long history of scandals, including extraordinarily high rates of killings by police and allegations that some officers have commemorated their killings by bending tips on their badges.
And again, ACAB.
I’d like to know how they managed to find Death in the first place. He’s a sneaky son of a bitch.
