For the Cheatham family, the July 4th holiday was initially a time of joy and celebration. The family had gathered for a cookout, where 18-year-old Saniyah Cheatham was reportedly healthy and in good spirits. The evening took a tragic turn only hours later after the family received news that Cheatham had died while in NYPD custody.

Thomasina Cheatham told CBS News her daughter, Saniyah, was her normal self during a Fourth of July cookout at Crotona Park. “We [were] hanging out, having a good time. ‘Mommy, I love you,’ giving me a kiss. And now to wake up that she’s no longer here with us, it’s really sickening.” 

At some point after the cookout, the NYPD arrested Saniyah Cheatham for allegedly being involved in a fight. She was taken to the 41st Police Precinct in the Longwood neighborhood of the Bronx shortly before midnight. Anonymous NYPD officials with knowledge of the case told the New York Times that at about 12:15 a.m. Saniyah hanged herself with the sweater she was wearing while in her cell. An NYPD official told the Times she had only been in the cell for two minutes when she hanged herself.

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In a statement sent to CBS, the NYPD said they called for Emergency Medical Services at about 12:40 a.m. and attempted CPR while awaiting medical help. Saniyah Cheatham was transferred to Lincoln Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. It’s unclear if there were any other detainees in the cell, if anyone witnessed the incident, or if Saniyah called for help. 

“How could that happen in a precinct? Was anybody watching her? Was she calling out for help?” Thomasina asked in an interview with CBS.

The NYPD has said that the Force Investigation Division is looking into the circumstances surrounding Saniyah Cheatham’s death. Thomasina is hopeful that security cameras in the jail and the medical examiner’s autopsy will give a clearer understanding of what led to her daughter’s death. 

“The cameras should show exactly what happened…I’m praying that it does. I’m really praying. This is very heartbreaking to me and my family. That was my only princess. I have four boys and one girl. And we just … we just [are] really heartbroken right now,” Thomasina Cheatham told CBS.

Saniyah Cheatham’s death and alleged suicide have shocked many of her close friends and family. They say she enrolled at Bronx Community College and worked so she could save up money to live on her own. Growing up, Saniyah was active in the church, which initially caused her to struggle with her sexuality. When she came out as gay to her older brother, he accepted her with no hesitation. 

“That’s what made our bond really close,” her older brother told the Times. “She knew all of me, and I knew all of her. She just got me.”

Ember Baez, Saniyah Cheatham’s friend and former partner, told the Times, “Everyone who has spoken to her recently knows she’s been happy. So when I heard this happened, I called her multiple times to see if it was real, and her phone just kept going straight to voicemail.”

The alleged details of Saniyah Cheatham’s death bear a striking similarity to Sandra Bland, a Black woman who died while in police custody. Bland was arrested during a traffic stop and taken into custody at Waller County Jail in Texas. She was unable to post the $5,000 cash bail, and after three days in custody, she allegedly hanged herself in her cell. While Bland’s death was officially ruled a suicide, there has long been skepticism over the official narrative. 

Bland’s death while in police custody helped bring more awareness to the #SayHerName campaign, which was launched in December 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS) “to cut through this disturbing reality and resist the invisibility of Black women, girls, and femmes by telling their stories of police violence.”

From Freddie Gray, Marvin Scott III, Noni Battiste-Kosoko, and Ta’Neasha Chappell, there has been an alarming trend of Black people dying in police custody in the years since Sandra Bland’s death. Sadly, Saniyah Cheatham’s name is now added to that list. 

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The post What Happened to Saniyah Cheatham? 18-Year-Old Black Teen Dies in NYPD Custody, Family Demands Answers appeared first on MadameNoire.



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Microsoft Outlook users were thrown for a loop as the email service experienced an outage.

According to Forbes, users have reported several issues, including Microsoft Outlook not recognizing their licenses and the service working extremely slowly.

Users started reporting service issues Wednesday evening

Downdetector, an online platform that tracks service outages, determined Microsoft Outlook users started reporting issues Wednesday evening. By Thursday morning, thousands of users were reporting issues, with 60% claiming login issues and 35% noting server connection issues. The outage seemingly affected users in several countries, including the U.K., Australia and Canada, USA Today reported. It’s unclear how many users are impacted by the outage.

The Microsoft Office service health portal confirmed the outage and let users know that Microsoft is “working on it.” It also explained that the outage impacted several Outlook email services, including Outlook.com, Outlook Mobile and the Outlook desktop client.

Microsoft provided an update to users early Thursday morning on X, formerly Twitter, informing them a fix for the issue had been deployed; however, many responded that it still wasn’t working for them.

“We’ve begun a broad expedited deployment of the configuration change across all affected infrastructure. We expect most impacted users will experience relief within the next two hours, as the fix saturates the environment. We’re closely monitoring service health telemetry to ensure the recovery continues as expected. We understand how impactful incidents of this type can be, and we’re continuing to open any additional workstreams to expedite recovery and restore availability. We’re continuing to apply the configuration changes to fix the underlying problem and completing additional validation efforts to ensure authentication components are properly configured,” the services’ current status reads.

Microsoft Outlook crashed last month after a system update

The Microsoft Outlook outage comes after years of frequent issues impacting Microsoft services. In June, an update to Microsoft Outlook left many users unable to read messages or create a new one, Forbes reported. Attempts to do so led to crashes, with Microsoft claiming, “This issue occurs because Outlook cannot open the Forms Library.”

The Outlook crashes appeared to affect users who updated Outlook for Microsoft 365, beginning with version 2504. Microsoft encouraged users experiencing the issue to create a FORMS2 folder to improve their email service.

Regarding the most recent outage, Microsoft’s service status mentions the next update by Thursday at 6:30 p.m. UTC / 2:30 p.m. ET.

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