We have been following the story of Yale University professor Samuel See, who was arrested on charges of fighting police officers, then taken to a jail where he died the next day.

A police investigation uncovered his second job: Male escort.  Now, a protest is being organized by the colleagues and friends of the late Yale assistant professor that focuses on the circumstances of his death and the police handling of the case.

A public demonstration scheduled for this Tuesday will protest actions taken by New Haven Police officers surrounding — and allegedly involved in precipitating — See’s death in a New Haven jail roughly two weeks ago. A Saturday email forwarded to members of the Yale faculty by Christopher Miller ’83, professor of French and African-American studies, asked concerned members of the University community to attend a march beginning at 12 p.m. in front of New Haven City Hall.

“A death in jail is a political death,” wrote the organizer of the march, Nathan Brown, an assistant professor of English at the University of California, Davis. “This is especially the case when it is the death of a gay man, given the structural and historical homophobia of policing, incarceration, and the legal system in the United States.”

The march will proceed through campus and the downtown neighborhood before ending at NHPD headquarters at 1 Union Avenue, where See was found dead on Nov. 24. See, who was on leave this semester from the English department, had been detained following a domestic dispute the previous afternoon with his husband, Sunder Ganglani.

“We need to demand answers,” Miller told the News in a Sunday email. “And the silence of Yale University in this is deafening.”

Yale Spokesman Tom Conroy could not be reached for immediate comment Sunday evening. The University issued a press statement on Nov. 27 following news of See’s death, expressing condolences to See’s family, colleagues and friends. Conroy said in an email to the News last week that Yale was in touch with police as well as state judicial officials — and focusing its efforts on providing support to those in grief.

Brown said the protest will raise questions not only about the handling of See’s arrest and incarceration but also about the validity of the information the NHPD has released on the subject. Though See’s cause of death is unknown — and will likely remain so at least until the chief state medical examiner’s office concludes its toxicology report — Brown said the “carelessness and … violence of the police response certainly exacerbated those causes and contributed to his death.”


 
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