Four days after a man hung himself in a Savannah police interrogation room, cops allegedly circulated a meme of a Black man hanging himself in a mass text asking if it was “too early” for a Black officer to receive it.
The man’s family is now seeking $12 million from the city and its police officers, according to a wrongful death lawsuit obtained by Atlanta Black Star.
William Zachary Harvey, 60, was arrested in April 2021 after he unintentionally cut another man’s hand with a knife, the lawsuit details. Harvey and another man got into an altercation, and a third man told police he fell into a knife Harvey was holding while trying to break up the fight.
Savannah police detective Silver Leuschner said Harvey was emotional and mumbling as he explained what happened in an interview room at the agency’s headquarters on April 2, 2021. It was captured on Leuschner’s body-worn camera.
He told the detective that he was paranoid schizophrenic, “really depressed” and had anxiety. Harvey said he was on medication for depression and was crying during the interview. He was distraught over the arrest, worried that his mother and probation officer would be disappointed, according to the lawsuit’s description of the footage.
Harvey, who has said he’s “not a violent person,” told Leuschner he’d “rather die than go to jail,” and police would have to kill him before he would go back. He told the detective that he stabbed the man, who was intoxicated, in self-defense, the lawsuit says.
Another officer, Matthew White, reported that Harvey was emotional and upset during the interview, during which he reportedly cried.
“I can’t go back to jail,” Harvey said.
Leuschner reportedly also observed the handcuffed man bang his head on a table in the interview room. The detective believed that Harvey’s self-defense argument could be valid. That’s when attorneys for Harvey’s family said Leuschner left the room to speak to…
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