This news is devastating. Former New Orleans Saint’s player Glenn Forster Jr. has died while in police custody after he was arrested for reportedly driving twice the speed limit through a rural Alabama community.
According to authorities, “Glenn Foster Jr. wound up in a jail where he allegedly beat up another prisoner while trying to steal socks.”
Via ESPN:
It was still a mystery Wednesday exactly what caused Foster’s death, and Alabama state police said they were investigating.
Police in Reform, located about 90 miles west of Birmingham, said in a news release that an officer clocked Foster driving a black Jeep Wrangler 92 mph in a 45 mph zone late Friday. The Jeep sped up to get away and officers in the nearby town of Gordo put spike strips on the road to burst the tires, the statement said.
Once stopped, Foster was handcuffed without further problem and taken to the Pickens County Jail in Carrollton on charges of reckless endangerment, attempting to elude and resisting arrest, police said.
“He was healthy when we left him at the jail,” Reform Police Chief Richard Black said Wednesday.
This is when the story becomes very strange, and no one seems to have any answers.
It was obvious that Foster was going through mental health issues, but at some point, while in police custody, he died, and no one knows how.
Foster’s family came to town Saturday and made bond on the condition that police took him to Birmingham for any medical assessment that was needed, the statement said. But the Pickens County Sheriff’s Office had placed a hold on Foster by Sunday, when he allegedly beat another prisoner so badly while trying to take socks that the man needed medical attention.
Foster had an initial court appearance before Pickens County District Judge Samuel Junkin in which he was “non-compliant and refused to respond to answer any questions” aside from demanding an attorney, the judge wrote in an order Monday.
Based on police observations and how Foster behaved, the judge said Foster was “not mentally stable and a danger to himself and others” and ordered him held without bond for a mental evaluation at Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Facility in Tuscaloosa.
What happened from that time until his death Monday is unclear. Few other details, including the results of an autopsy, have been released.
Someone is going to have to answer for this.
Healthy black men don’t die randomly for no reason.
May he rest in peace.
Flip the pages for more about the mysterious circumstances of Foster’s death.