Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton vowed this week to file a federal inquiry into the death of Mitrice Richardson, a missing 25-year-old woman thought to be mentally ill whose remains were found last week. She had been allowed to leave a sheriff's station nearly a year ago against the wishes of her parents.
Richardson disappeared on Sept. 17, 2009, from the Malibu-Lost Hills substation of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department in Calabasas, according to news reports.
Sharpton said that Richardson's death was emblematic of law enforcement's general lack of interest in finding and saving missing African Americans.
She had been released after reportedly exhibiting erratic behavior and failing to pay a dinner tab at a restaurant in Malibu. She was booked for defrauding an innkeeper and possessing less than one ounce of marijuana in her car, reports say.
Her mother, Latice Sutton, pleaded with deputies to hold her until family could pick her up because she was mentally ill and far from home, in the middle of the night, with no money, no purse, no cell phone and no car. The items were in her impounded vehicle, the report said.
But the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department said at the time that Richardson seemed rational and they believed they were legally obligated to release her. A draft report of the Office Independent Review, a watchdog panel for the sheriff's department, found that the department acted in due diligence. Additionally, the Los Angeles Times reported that Richardson was given an opportunity to stay at the sheriff's office but declined, saying she was going to "hook up with some friends."
But in a sad turn of events, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca announced, at a news conference late last week, the discovery of the remains of the former beauty pageant contestant. Her bones were found in a ravine several miles from the sheriff's station, reports say. Now her family has filed a civil negligence lawsuit against authorities.
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