© Michigan Department of CorrectionsAbdul Akbar
What officials say caused Abdul Akbar to collapse and die in Wayne County Jail is nothing but a "cover up" according to Akbar's daughter, who is suing the county and two sheriff's sergeants for $25 million in a wrongful death case.
Nine days before his sudden death, a confrontation with guards left 59-year-old, mentally-ill Abdul Akbar hospitalized for two nights. Malikah Akbar and her lawyer David Robinson say that altercation was the true cause, but investigations by the Wayne County Sheriff's Office, Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, and the Detroit Police Homicide Unit all found no criminal wrongdoing by the guards.
Wayne County Medical Examiner Dr. Carl Schmidt's autopsy report made it official: Natural causes related to heart disease were the culprit.Robinson and Akbar will make the case that a brain injury induced by guards is what ended Abdul Akbar's life.
Abdul was less than a month into his nine-month sentence for breaking and entering when, on October 23, 2014, he caused a scene that led guards to use physical force to restrain him. Reportedly, he was upset that he had woken up late and missed breakfast, and before a clerk could arrange for food to be brought to him, he grabbed her desktop computer and monitor and smashed them to the ground. When Abdul climbed on a dining table, the jail clerk buzzed for emergency help and guards pulled him down to handcuff him.
That encounter, which took place at about 5 o'clock in the morning, and the immediate aftermath
may or may not be on video. Robinson suspects there is video that hasn't been released, but for now what is available is video of a languid Abdul Akbar being dragged by his arms face down along a 107-foot hallway into an elevator."No, I know it is not" the correct way to move prisoners, a commanding officer quoted as Captain Seegars said in the jail's Internal Affairs report.
Comment: This story begs the questions: What caused the engine to explode? Would an exploding engine account for the incredibly rapid descent and the almost complete disintegration of the plane?