VOLUSIA EXPOSED.COM |
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Keyshonda Campbell's In-Custody Death County States That "Nothing Suspicious OR Unexpected Was Discovered During Autopsy" - But The County Refuses To Release The Autopsy Report |
May 11, 2015 |
As outlined in the attached article from the Daytona Beach News-Journal, Keyshonda Campbell, 25 died in-custody, shortly after she was arrested. The cause and manner of death is still unknown, OR has not been released. The Volusia County Sheriff Department reportedly stated that "nothing suspicious or unexpected was discovered during the autopsy". Is that code for - no severed spine? However, in an email to VolusiaExposed.Com, County Spokesperson, Dave Byron advised us that the autopsy had not yet been completed. 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 However, in October 1996, the Florida Legislature, under heavy lobbying from jail representatives, repealed FAC 33-8, replacing it with a self inspecting, peer group inspection procedure, known as Florida Model Jail Standards (FMJS).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 |
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 |
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? |
VCSO Incident Report Click To Download PDF Copy |
Jail Incident Report Click To Download PDF Copy |