How the Police Can Use a Genetic Trait in Black People
Sickle cell trait has been cited in dozens of police custody deaths ruled accidental or natural, even though the condition is benign on its own, a Times investigation found.
When they carried the body of a 32-year-old Black man named Lamont Perry out of the woods in Wadesboro, N.C., there were no protests over his sudden death in police custody.
Instead, the final mark in the ledger of Mr. Perry’s life was made by a state medical examiner who attributed his death in large part to sickle cell trait, a genetic characteristic that overwhelmingly occurs in Black people. The official word was that he had died by accident.
But the examiner’s determination belied certain facts about that night in October 2016, public records and interviews show. Accused of violating probation in a misdemeanor assault case, Mr. Perry was chased by parole and local police officers through the dark into a stand of trees, where only they could witness what happened next.
He had swelling of the brain, and a forensic investigator reported that he had an open fracture of his right leg. He was covered in dirt, and residents of a nearby housing complex told his family that when the officers emerged from the woods, their shoes and the bottoms of their pants were spattered in blood.
