Jamaal Byrd

In the hours before dawn on October 1, 2019, an employee with the Metropolitan Police Department called, waking her from sleep, and began asking a string of questions: Was her name Roxane Johnson? Did she have a son named Jamaal Byrd? Yes and yes, she answered. The employee hung up the phone.Shortly after, a detective called her back. He told Johnson that her son had been found unresponsive in his cell at D.C. Central Cell Block. They’d taken him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Johnson didn’t even know he had been arrested. Johnson and activists are also concerned because they say a detective told her that Byrd had been arrested in a “jump out” operation—which consists of police officers jumping out of their cars and searching groups of people—a tactic that MPD says it discontinued years ago. A spokesperson for the department tells DCist “we do not use tactics commonly referred to under ‘jump outs.’” Based on official accounts, here’s what is known thus far about Byrd’s death: At about 5:30 p.m. on September 30, police witnessed Byrd in “a hand to hand transaction” with another person at a restaurant on the 1500 block of North Capitol Street NE, according to the incident report of his arrest. Police seized $82 from Byrd as evidence and arrested him. No drugs were listed as evidence or mentioned in the report. Officers then transported Byrd to D.C. Central Cell Block, a holding place for arrestees awaiting their initial hearing at D.C. Superior Court. According to a report from MPD, at 12:15 a.m. while counting the inmates in their cells, a guard at Central Cell Block noticed Byrd slumped over his bed. First responders arrived at the scene—it’s unclear from the report how long it took them to arrive—and began CPR. Byrd was pronounced dead at 1:16 a.m. at Howard University hospital, an hour after he was found.

Source: DCist