Houston police mum on marijuana prisoner’s death
Published: June 23, 2009
Updated 8 months ago
A woman serving a short sentence in a Houston, Texas, jail for possession of marijuana died in custody over the weekend, and officers are not saying how or why.
The 29-year-old, identified as Theresa Anthony, had expected to spend just two and a half weeks behind bars in the Harris County lockup. On Saturday, Cynthia Prude, Theresa’s mother, received a phone call from the jail’s Chaplain informing her that her daughter was dead.
“I almost got in a wreck,” Prude told the local Fox affiliate. “I thought somebody was playing on the phone. I would like to know what happened to my daughter.”
Prude has not been allowed to see the body, nor has the Harris County Sheriff’s Department even spoken with her, according to area media.
“Today I still don’t know if that’s my daughter,” Prude told Houston news station KHOU. “I’m only going by a Social Security number that we got from Ben Taub Hospital.”
Houston’s Fox affiliate noted that an autopsy has not yet been conducted on Theresa’s body.
The Harris County Sheriff Department’s public information officer was not available to answer RAW STORY’s questions.
Not the first time
It is hardly the first time serious questions surrounded the death of a Harris County inmate.
On 4 June 2009, the Justice Department concluded a 15 months-long investigation into the Harris County facility and determined in the subsequent 27-page report that over 142 prisoners had died there since 2001. Most expired due to lack of medical care, the report claims.
The Associated Press noted that after the Justice Department declined to make its findings public, The Houston Chronicle was able to obtain a copy, which it released on the Internet.
The findings, addressed to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, lauded the prison’s efforts to maintain security, booking and intake programs and take basic fire safety precautions. The Justice Department said that by these measures, the facility “complies with constitutional requirements in a number of significant respects.”
The Justice Department added that in spite of these marginal safety and procedural issues, “certain conditions at the jail violate the constitutional rights of detainees. Indeed, the number of inmate deaths related to inadequate medical care [...] is alarming.”
This video is from My Fox Houston, broadcast late Monday, June 22, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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all this for having been caught smoking a joint right?
Evidently; but remember, this is Texas we’re talking about here, the country’s epicenter of jack-booted thugs. Wait and see; an ‘investigation’ will be held, claiming no culpability on the part of the cops. Maybe they’ll claim she ‘tried to escape’.
come the hell on down to Austin you hater’ Well not now b/c it is hott as shit but i think you would be pleasantly surprised.
listen to this song about MARI UAHNA, it is the best i have heard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTcb7PwysIE
Wow, and Iran is the top story?
They don’t call Houston the “arm pit of Texas” for nothing. For the record the Justice Dept. just completed a study of Harris County and condemned them on all fronts.
Police all over the country are getting out of control. My nephew was beaten even after he laid on the ground and put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed. I think the police are high on the stimulant drugs they confiscate from the streets. More evidence the U.S. is falling into a primative state. I wouldn’t live or visit Texas if you paid me. After all the most vile president in the history of the lives there.
No doubt “resisting arrest” when she “suddenly collapsed.” “Attempting to escape” is usually only used when the cops have to explain bullet wounds in the back. “Lack of medical care” usually means “we ignored her until we found out she wasn’t breathing.”
So much for pot never killing anyone..
I’m guessing she was raped by either cops or other prisoners, and the inbred fucktards in Texas figured “meh, she’s a criminal, who cares”.. yet, they are the first in line to say there’s no reason to go after the Shrub and the Dick for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.
Never going to Texas again, that’s for sure.
It sounds like murder by police of a person arrested for a victimless crime - which is not a crime at all. The crime is the law against any victimless activity.
There are just a few states that neither I nor my family will ever set foot in due to the third world justice system. Texas tops the list. This latest murder by police exemplifies Tejas justice.
Fuckin Tex-Ass!
Please Mexico take it back!!
Spot on djthud, spot on. This state and many other states in the US are becoming more of a third world type of policing that is common in those type of countries. It’s where the police are the law and thats it, they beat whomever they want and they kill whomever they want without any consequences. The reason why I believe she was killed is because they aren’t letting the parents or anybody see the body and also they aren’t saying why she died. They want to make sure everybodies story is the same before they say anything that is different latter on. These idiot police don’t even know what type of civilization they are bringing into being by being the way they are. This perversion of justice can just as easily be used against them or their family members to. the reason they don’t think this is the quality of people going into the police. They don’t care or think because in their mind It won’t ever happen to me, but there wrong.
When the mechanism of the police state is through with you police, they will get rid of you.
It’s not that the police don’t know what type of civilization they are bringing into being, they actively want that type of civilization because they would do well in it. In Texas the incidence of wife beating and child abuse by cops is very, very high. These people are not anyone you want living in your neighborhood.
Just another compelling reason why pot should be legalized and my condolences to the family. Why in the world should ANYONE be arrested for smoking a harmless herb when tobacco (as addictive as heroin) remains legal for any adult to purchase. We sure have misplaced priorities in this country! I hope her mother sues the shit out of the jailers.
Feds should investigate this..Bet this is not the first time were talking about texas..
Mom needs to see her before they autopsy up all the evidence.
Any city that has “George H.W. Bush International” as it’s airport, with it’s warning signs and P.A. announcements threatening arrest for even joking about certain circumstances, says all I needed to know about Houston and Texas. THE “Mega-Church” society at it’s finest.
Been there twice the last 5 years, my only trips to U.S. since 1997. Business. Guarantee, I won’t ever return.
Ever go into a franchise Mexican food restaurant, and have a 20 year old ask you, a 50 year old, for I.D. to order a beer with your burrito? That’s Texas.
Texas reminds of a state where a Military/Industrial Complex, with strong Police State tendencies, have blossomed.
Frankly, in the towns I stayed in (Killeen and Copperas Cove), it reeked of an inbred idiocy spawned by decades of willing military servitude craved by serfs in desperate need of someone to structure their thoughts, life and moral outlooks. Independent thinking is not necessarily verboten, just looked upon as “weird.” That brain-washing, repetitive “CNN Headline News” blares from nearly every tv in every business.
So an African-American died in custody for use of a harmless plant. That doesn’t register a bleep in the Texas heartbeat, I guarantee. This is a state where driving with cash (DWC) especially if you are Black driving with cash (BDWC) means the police can stop you, and confiscate your hard earned money, so they can vacation on it in Hawaii. Where they think “Reefer Madness” and “Forest Gump” were documentaries.
O, That Texas couldn’t be jettisoned, and left to fester along it’s incompetent direction. Let them appoint Hair Perry as Emperor.
That no msm sources pointed out that under Gov. Bush, by 2000, Texas was the worst, or one of the three worst states, in terms of education, health care for the poor, lack of corporate/industrial oversight, pollution, while intentionally misleading the American public by portraying him as the “leading candidate” (that somehow ended up with at LEAST 550,000 fewer votes than the second place finisher, even with rampant voter fraud), indicates a media pattern of deceit that has now engulfed our nation.
Have you forgotten Bush tried to “backdoor” a $50 billion “bailout” for Enron RIGHT BEFORE the shit hit the fan in Houston-based Enron? Flew around campaigning in the Enron jet? ANY MSM inquiries or articles about those circumstances? Naw…….
We got EXACTLY what we asked for in Bush: America’s intentional degradation. If you reap what you sow, we are harvesting the crop of an American Nazi regime started by Prescott Bush, through Nixon and Ford, and two terms of Dubya. With G.H.W. Bush attempting to remove the brain-addled Reagan along the way.
Nixon started this “War On (Americans that use) Drugs.” He was the Nazi Prescott’s protege. Obama seems to relish continuing it. What does that tell you?
And Ike warned us it was so, and we didn’t listen. “Those crazy Texas Oilmen” he warned us of. They Murdered JFK. Their CIA Murdered RFK.
They intentionally Murdered thousands on 9/11/01, without cause: they could just have had their government controlled media direct fake outrage against Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to get the oil and pipeline countries they coveted. It worked well for the first invasion of Iraq. There was no “need” for a “New Pearl Harbor.”
The “30 second sound bite” minds of Americans have long been controlled and their opinions shaped by msm.
But no, they WANTED TO KILL THOUSANDS of AMERICANS, just because THEY COULD. And they DID: Nanothermite. Military-grade. Proof, end of discussion.
And WE have let them get away with it. I feel shame they haven’t been hung. I will feel shame until they are.
I hope this mother gets a Federal agency to look into this death. And successfully sues for millions this criminal gang known as Houston Police.
But , look what just happened to a drunken off-duty cop that was VIDEOTAPED BEAT THE CRAP out of a petite barmaid because she wouldn’t serve him more of HIS drug of choice: two months “probation.” Justice is never done for The People, only skewered, jaded results for the Plutocracy. And their thugs enforcing it.
It isn’t just Texas that is screwed up: it is our country.
Spot on Farang, spot on. Ike did have it right, and also many people (including me) didn’t know that there was almost a take over of the US by the bankers. They wanted to use a famous WWI Marine general to take charge of a militia and military of 1/2 million men. He went along and then outed them in congressional testimony which was filmed. We aren’t taught or shown this and other examples of history, because it would show that our govt. is no different than any other one on the planet. Also I’ve heard of the Nanothermite, it’s some dangerous stuff.
Maybe she wasn’t forfeiting her assets quickly enough.
djthud… It’s steroids they’re taking. All over the country steroids ar available in any police weight room. Also in the military. Our troops are supplied with all the roids they want and also downers for when they have to act human. Roid rage plain and simple. Look at your typical cop a roidster for sure. You think there is a CEO or CFO that isn’t wired on Coke? Not a chance. Our country is being taken over by tweekers.
Well finally, FAUX NEWS and the media can say something truthful–POT KILLS………….
even if hypothetically we find out one of the Houston cops was a racist skinhead that beat this woman to death after raping her repeatedly infront of multiple eye withnesses, they’d still give the bastard paid leave for years while this case is under review and in the end he’ll probably get to keep his job
tino
If it went to the Supreme Court, clarence “uncle tom” thomas would ask the defence if he could borrow the pictures to study over night…..
Pigs.
November 22 1963, I decide as an 11 year old that I will never go to Texas.
Houston, TX: Headquarters for the neo-Nazi Bush clan and their sycophants. Prescott would be proud.
Its called murder ..Same rules for police…….
Our president should focus on civil rights in Texas. He right in letting the Iranians play out theirs.
We need to take our country back from these animals. If you see someone getting beaten by jackboot thugs, Please people, do the right thing. Constitutionally we have the right and the duty to resist unlawful arrests. This is OUR country, not theirs.
Is it true that texas has the highest capital death sentences. in the country. it seems they want to set A new record in texas.
Bayside 1022…. What freak’in country do you live in? In the USA you have all of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution as long as you can afford $20K to $50K for a good lawyer. You still have some rights if you can afford $10K for a shitty lawyer. If you have a public defender or a cheap lawyer, you are guilty with a lesser sentence for a having a shitty lawyer. If you are a Pig, ( federal, state, or local,) or can afford a million dollars for defense you can get away with murder in cold blood in front of witnesses. Pigs get paid vacations and promotions for murder in the USA. You must be one of the rulers in this Corporate Feudal State, or you would never have to ask. Turn off Fux news, quit attending church for a couple of weeks, meet some people not from your church, get out see what’s going on. You’ll be amazed at how far in the dark you have been kept.
It’s asphyxiation..
Regardless of what the coroner’s report says.
You people have no idea what Texas is like. It is in no way a military complex run by overeager and violent policemen. Yes, this is an absolutely fucked up story, but don’t use it as an excuse to bash Texas. I have been arrested for possession, as have my roommate and another good friend. My friend was arrested in Houston not only for possession, but for drunk driving and paraphernalia, and when he went to court, all he got was the charge for paraphernalia. When I went to court it a small as town in the middle of nowhere, I expected the worst and ended up with just a paraphernalia charge.
Cops are fucked up everywhere, and it is NOT confined to Texas. Besides, any real marijuana advocate knows that NYC arrests more people for weed than anywhere else in the world.
Besides, there was this little thing called Marley Fest in Austin with open air smoking and cops walking all around and not a single arrest.
Oh yea, Ron Paul is from Texas