© Eric Gaillard / Reuters
Almost 7,000 individuals in Texas died while in prison or police custody from 2005 to 2015,
nearly 2,000 of whom had not been convicted of a crime, according to a new report. Latinos died of justifiable homicides at higher rates.
According to the Wednesday
report from the Texas Justice Initiative, there were 6,913 total incidents of people dying in custody in the state over the course of the decade.
Seventy percent of those individuals died of natural causes, 11 percent committed suicide, and 8 percent died in a "justifiable homicide." Another eight percent died from either drugs and alcohol, accidental injury, or other reasons.
The Texas Justice Initiative was created by University of Texas at Austin postdoctoral fellow Amanda Woog.
"We can't have an informed conversation about who's dying at the hands of police or who's dying in jails, if we don't literally know who's dying and how they're dying," said Woog, according to ABC affiliate WFAA."I think this information can help us get to the bottom causes of mortality in the criminal justice system and with that lead us to solutions," Woog added.
Comment: Terror attacks, real or facsimiles, make the rounds these days to stir the pot; keep Europe on the edge and politicians in line.