Daily News | After two suicides in Yeadon police custody, families are demanding answers and pushing for change
Wendy Spence and Shawn Morcho died by suicide four months apart while in police custody in Yeadon. Their families are now urging borough officials to make what they say are much-needed changes to the way the department handles people in distress.The families of Shawn Morcho and Wendy Spence called Yeadon police for help. Their loved ones, they told dispatchers, were undergoing mental health crises.
and by their inaction, causing his death. If the department’s practices and procedures do not change, the suit warns, more people could die. “Why would they not take a cry out for help seriously?” Maritza Spence asked. “You don’t take that lightly. You don’t hear somebody saying that they’re going to kill themselves and then say, ‘Okay, whatever. You’re going to jail anyway.’ That’s inhuman.”But they say they have taken steps to address the families’ concerns. People arrested by Yeadon police are no longer placed in basement holding cells in the tiny borough, but taken instead to the larger police station in nearby Upper Darby.
As she got older, Spence struggled with mental health challenges and self-harm. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD and borderline personality disorder, and spent her teenage years in different treatment centers.A woman in police custody in Yeadon was hospitalized after attempting to hang herself, officials said
Spence was taken into custody on Nov. 8 for allegedly assaulting the mother of a man she was living with, according to borough officials. She told the officers who arrested her that she was struggling with her mental health and feared she would harm herself, officials said.
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