Saniyah Cheatham’s Family Demands Answers in Her Death

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July 16, 2025

By Christina Carrega, Capital B

Officials from the New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office said the 18-year-old died by hanging while in police custody.

Saniyah Cheatham was a Bronx Community College student. Authorities ruled her death a suicide. (Courtesy of Ben Crump Law)

The Fourth of July was the last time family and friends saw or heard from Saniyah Cheatham.

Just hours before the 18-year-old was arrested in connection with a fight involving a friend, her mother said she was “happy” at their family barbecue. A close friend who texted with her that day agreed that she was in good spirits.

Police said after midnight on July 5, Cheatham was found unconscious within the 41st Precinct in the Bronx, New York. Inside a holding cell, authorities said she used her sweater to hang herself, according to news outlets.

Word of Cheatham’s death has raised more questions than answers for her mother, Thomasina Cheatham. Especially after unnamed police sources said her only daughter died by suicide using a sweater Thomasina says her daughter wasn’t even wearing that day.

“I just want to know what happened to Saniyah. That was my only daughter, she didn’t deserve this,” Thomasina Cheatham said at a press conference on Monday outside the police station where authorities said her daughter was found unresponsive. Saniyah Cheatham was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

The New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed in a July 14 email to Capital B that Saniyah Cheatham died by hanging and officials ruled her death a suicide. Her mother, along with civil rights attorney Ben Crump and community activists, are demanding the release of surveillance footage from inside the precinct — and an investigation into how a young person could die in police custody.

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