A Black man who’d been arrested on cannabis charges died after several detention officers restrained him, pepper-sprayed him, and cloaked his face in a “spit hood.”
Marvin David Scott III apparently suffocated to death in Texas’ Collin County Detention Facility on Sunday hours after Allen police officers arrested him for carrying a cannabis joint, a prominent civil rights attorney representing his family, Lee Merritt,
told the Dallas Morning News. Scott’s relatives believe the 26-year-old, who had a history of mental illness, was in crisis at the time he was detained. Because of that, Scott should have been taken to a mental ealth facility, which officers had done during three prior arrests, Merritt told the Dallas Morning News. The incident leading up to Scott’s in-custody death began when Allen police encountered him at a local outlet mall Sunday while responding to a disturbance call. They noticed he was acting erratically, Police Chief Brian Harvey
said in a news release Thursday, and “were concerned for his safety due to the possible ingestion of drugs.” They asked for assistance from the Allen Fire Department.
The nature of the alleged erratic behavior was unclear; the Dallas Morning News reported Scott had been taking medication and hadn’t experienced a psychotic break in over a year. Scott was initially taken by ambulance to a local hospital, and later released with a physician’s clearance, processed at the Allen Police Headquarters holding facility, and handed over to the custody of the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, Harvey said in the release.
Harvey’s statement didn’t mention anything about cannabis, but Scott ultimately was arrested by Allen police for possessing fewer than 2 ounces of weed, Capt. Nick Bristow, a spokesperson for the Collin County Sheriff’s Office, told VICE News. He had been sitting next to a rolled joint at the outlet mall, Merritt told the Dallas Morning News.
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