Jailed Native American woman died after police told her to 'quit faking' pain symptoms

(Image credit: iStock)

published 30 July 2015

Earlier this month, 24-year-old Sarah Lee Circle Bear was found unconscious in a jail cell in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where she was being held for a bond violation. She died in her cell soon after the incident, and her family is reportedly considering legal recourse.

Witnesses allege that Circle Bear, a mother of an infant and a toddler, was being transferred to a holding cell when she began crying out in pain, asking for medical attention. The jail staff reportedly told her to "quit faking" and "knock it off" before dragging her body into the cell where she would later be found unresponsive.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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