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April Brogan's In-Custody Death County States Autopsy Report Has Not Been Completed Brogan's Demise Reminds Us Of The 2009 In-Custody Death Of Tracy Veira Can The Medical Examiner's Autopsy Report Be Trusted? |
May 11, 2015 |
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April Brogan's In-Custody Death As outlined in the attached article from the Daytona Beach News-Journal, recently, a 28 year old female inmate died at the Volusia County jail, a few days after being arrested. The cause and manner of death is still unknown, OR has not been released. In our opinion, the events of Ms. Brogan's demise have similarities to Ms. Tracy Veira's (28) September 2009, in-custody death at the very same correctional facility, but under a different private medical provider. Records indicate, that the Veira matter is still currently under litigation. OUR VIEW: In-Custody Deaths Should Be Independently Investigated Prior to October 1996 - in-custody jail deaths were independently investigated by Florida State officials under the authority of Florida Administrative Code 33-8 (FAC 33-8). However, in October 1996, the Florida Legislature, under heavy lobbying from jail representatives, repealed FAC 33-8, replacing it with a self inspecting, peer group inspection procedure, known as Florida Model Jail Standards (FMJS). 
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In our opinion, the FMJS inspection program is a dangerous joke, that continues to this day, to cause otherwise preventable deaths within Florida's county jails.
VolusiaExposed has written several articles, in which we explain our concerns with the FMJS inspection and oversight process - below, we offer three of them for your review. Article 2 Article 3 |
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Important Within Volusia County Do Problems Exist Within The County's Medical Examiner's Office?
In most Florida counties, the medical examiner is a state office / employee. However, in Volusia County, due to it being a "chartered county" - the medical examiner is a county office / employee.
Under the old (pre-1996) jail oversight process (FAC 33-8) - the State of Florida, through the State Department of Corrections, conducted an independent investigation of all in-custody jail deaths. With the repeal of FAC 33-8, in favor of the new oversight process (FMJS), the counties, whereas the medical examiner's office is a state office, still have some independent oversight regarding autopsies. Obviously, this is NOT the case in Volusia County, whereas, the medical examiner holds a county office. In fact, both the medical examiner and the county jail are under the supervision of the same director (Director of Public Protection). So, in Volusia County, when a jail inmate dies in custody - the investigations are all conducted by county departments - the jail, the sheriff, and the county medical examiner. |
  
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Medical Examiner's Office Be Trusted? Recently, the Volusia County Medical Examiner's office has come under some suspicion. The catalyst for this suspicion is not external, but rather internal. According to the attached Daytona Beach News Journal article (see right of page), there are some rather disturbing suspicions attached to how the Volusia Medical Examiner's office handled the Marlon Brown autopsy. Brown, 38, was killed May 8, 2013, while fleeing from the Volusia Sheriff Department and DeLand Police, after being pulled over for not wearing his seat belt. While being pursued by DeLand police officers, Brown jumped from his moving car and ran through a vegetable garden. The dashcam within the patrol cars captured a Deland PD patrol car apparently running over Brown. We (VolusiaExposed) use the term "apparently" - due to some opininated flexiblity by the medical examiner's office, regarding what the video depicts. You can watch the video, and determine for yourself, if the patrol car ran over Brown. Dr. Shiping Bao, M.D. conducted the Brown autopsy. According to his sworn affidavit (see right of page), he initially ruled the cause of death to be "traumatic asphyxia", and the manner of death to be homicide. We (VolusiaExposed) invite you to fully read Dr. Bao's affidavit. Bao goes on to state, that the medical examiner ordered him to change his findings - to include ruling, that Brown was not "struck" by the patrol car. |
Dr. Bao's Sworn Affidavit Click To Download PDF Copy 
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We (VolusiaExposed.Com) have formed our own opinion on that question - we ask that you independently review the evidence, and form your own opinion. In the end, maybe the much larger question is this. IF the County M.E. is willing to provide cover for the DeLand P.D., would they (M.E) provide cover for the county jail, a sister division, within the very same Volusia County Department Of Public Protection? |
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VCSO Incident Report Click To Download PDF Copy    |
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