Civil rights groups say Layleen Cubilette-Polanco's death represents a web of factors that can trap people of color in the justice system — especially transgender women of color — with devastating outcomes.
The City of New York has reached a settlement with the family of Layleen Cubilette-Polanco for $5.9 million following her June 2019 death while in custody on Rikers Island.
The transgender woman was arrested in April 2019 and sent to the jail complex because she could not afford $500 bail, her family previously told CNN. She was found unresponsive in her cell on June 7, 2019, and later pronounced dead. Civil rights groups say Polanco's death represents a web of factors that can trap people of color in the justice system -- especially transgender women of color -- with devastating outcomes.
New York now has a bail reform lawNew York state passed bail reform legislation in April 2019 that ends cash bail for most misdemeanor and nonviolent felonies.Had Polanco been arrested after January 2020, when the new measures took effect, she would not have been held on bail."Polanco was caught at the intersections of terrible criminal legal policies, and this systemic violence led to her death," Audacia Ray with the New York City Anti-Violence Project said last year.
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