JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A protest against the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has grown out of the death of a baby.
Alani Asher’s family wants cops to be held responsible, so they held a gathering on Jacksonville’s Southbank to bring attention to the case.
Heather Asher, Alani’s grandma, said, “I thought at least I would get to hold her and say goodbye, but that didn’t happen.”
Asher’s granddaughter was being taken away by a rescuer the last time she saw her before she was put in a coffin.
When Asher and her daughter Erin found Alani not breathing, they called 9-1-1.
“Why can’t we just say goodbye at the hospital? We could be interviewed there, I’m sure, because they have places just for that.” “They wouldn’t let us go, though.”
They say that cops kept them in the driveway for five hours and that they didn’t see her again for a whole week after she was declared dead.
Asher said, “I want the Jacksonville sheriff’s office to change.” “I want the Jacksonville sheriff’s office to be trained, and I want the Jacksonville sheriff’s office to be overseen by civilians.”
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that, with a few exceptions, death investigations are murder investigations, and it would be standard practice to keep witnesses and/or possible suspects in custody and away from other spectators and/or subjects.
Asher says that she and other groups, like the Northside Coalition and Community Action Committee, put together the gathering to keep people thinking about the problem.
“We don’t want any other family to be treated the way we were,” Asher said.
Asher says that in addition to training, she’d like the department to send an advocate to calls about babies who have died to tell the family what happened and support them while the first rescuers take care of the baby.
She says that JSO is planning a training, but that the office hasn’t heard when or what it will be about yet.
