Forsyth County prosecutors are seeking to prevent the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services from releasing records on the jail-related death of John Elliott Neville in December 2019.Â
A day after DHHS officials indicated they would be releasing certain documents in its possession to a news organization, a Forsyth County prosecutor filed an objection and a request for a temporary protective order, which a Forsyth County judge granted the same day, according to court documents filed in Forsyth Superior Court.Â
Attorneys for a media coalition that includes the Winston-Salem Journal were not notified. (The Winston-Salem Journal was part of a coalition that requested public release of videos showing the events that led to Neville s death.)
The first time John Elliott Neville s name appeared on the front pages of the Winston-Salem Journal was on June 27, seven months after his death.Â
At the beginning of the summer, Winston-Salem, like the rest of the country, witnessed people pouring out into the streets, angered at the death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who died on May 25 after a white police officer placed his knee on Floyd s neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd was unarmed and lying on the ground, handcuffed.Â
He is seen on a cellphone video, saying the words, I can t breathe. Â
John Neville said the same phrase at least 28 times over a three-minute period, as he lay on his stomach in a jail cell while detention officers piled on top of him in an attempt to remove his handcuffs. His feet were tucked up toward his buttocks. On July 8, the five detention officers and a nurse were charged with involuntary manslaughter â Lt. Lavette Maria Williams, 48; Cpl. Edward Roussel, 51, Officer
Sitting here on the eve of the eve of New Yearâs Eve, reminiscing on the collective shit show this year has been for everyone in the country, state, and Triad is definitely a bummer. But things certainly could have been a lot worse for both Ian and me. That is the thing about our white, cisgender privilege, just the acknowledgment of this truth is something that a lot of those who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color, differently-abled, and of a different gender identity donât have the luxury of doing.
With the senseless murders of Black people by police this year, especially that of Breonna Taylor, many white folks like Ian and myself have (finally) started to wake up and realize that Black women in this country have been consistently dealt a bad hand and deserve better. As Megan Thee Stallion artfully put it in her recent