[Peace-discuss] FW: URGENT ACTION: No more deaths in the Champaign jail!

[David Johnson]

From: James Kilgore [mailto:jjincu at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 13, 2016 7:22 AM
To: James Kilgore
Subject: URGENT ACTION: No more deaths in the Champaign jail!

 

URGENT ACTION:

 

The death of Veronica Horstead last Friday makes three deaths in the Champaign County jail in a little over 6 months. These deaths are a serious and heinous tragedy. 

 

Build Programs, Not Jails urges you to bring this crisis to the attention of the Champaign County board this TUESDAY, JUNE 14TH at 6:30PM (Brookens Administrative Center, 1776 E. Washington, Urbana) For more background on these recent deaths please see below.

 

No more deaths in the jail! 

 

Build Programs, Not Jails

 

*     *    *

 

Local activists and concerned community members are planning to attend the county board meeting Tuesday night 6:30 p.m. to protest a rash of recent deaths in the local jail. On Friday, Veronica “Love” Horstead was found unresponsive in the Champaign County Jail. Her death was the third in the jail in just over six months. She was the mother of a six-year-old, and a 2014 graduate of Eastern Illinois University, but for years had struggled with drug addiction. On December 1, 2015, jail video footage showed Toya Frazier laid presumably dead in a solitary cell for nearly an hour and a half before being discovered by jail guards. She had spent the previous night screaming from the pain of heroin withdrawal. On Easter Morning, March 27, 2016, Paul Clifton was pronounced dead of “natural causes,” after multiple asthma attacks in the jail. He had been arrested late night at his home for a warrant of driving on a suspended license. All three were African American, in a jail where Blacks make up 60-70% of the daily population. They were each well-known in the community and will be sorely missed.

 

As concerned community members we will address the Champaign County Board during public comment on Tuesday night, 6:30 p.m. at Brookens Administrative Center, 1776 E. Washington, Urbana.

 

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