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Family of Bronx woman who died in NYPD custody sues to find the truth
New York Amsterdam News
|November 20, 2025
The family of a Bronx woman who died in police custody does not believe the ruling of the city medical examiner regarding her death and insists she had no reason to die.
Saniyah Cheatham. (Facebookphoto)
(Facebookphoto)
Despite that ruling, they say they are determined to find the truth and have filed a $25 million lawsuit.
City medical examiners said in July that Saniyah Cheatham, 18, died when she hanged herself after being taken into custody in an assault case. She was found unresponsive on July 5 in the holding cell at the NYPD’s 41st precinct in the Bronx.
Cheatham’s family is adamant that she did not take her own life and suspects that police may have had something to do with her death — one of nine in NYPD custody this year..
“I don't believe she killed herself,” Cheathman’s mother, Thomasina, told WNBC. “Maybe she said something they didn’t like, they roughed her up. I don’t believe my daughter committed suicide.”
This story is from the November 20, 2025 edition of New York Amsterdam News.
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