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Sugaria

“Shoog-uh-ree-uh”

The surreal autonomous journal of a candy freak

Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz carried her mattress across the stage at her graduation ceremony this morning. Sulkowicz and her friends have been carrying the mattress around for the whole academic year in protest of the way the school handles sexual assault issues.  As New York Magazine explains, for her senior thesis in visual art, Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), Sulkowicz vowed that she would carry her dorm-room mattress whenever she was on campus as long as her alleged rapist remained on campus. “The piece could potentially take a day, or it could go on until I graduate,” she said. 

For more on the project, check out our podcast “Feminism on Campus.” 

MENTALLY ILL WOMAN TASED TO DEATH WHILE SHACKELED, BEATEN, AND HANDCUFFED

Natasha Mckenna, a mentally ill woman who died after a stun gun was used on her at the Fairfax County jail in February, was restrained with handcuffs behind her back, leg shackles and a mask when a sheriff’s deputy tasered her four times, incident reports obtained by The Washington Post show.

Six members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, dressed in white full-body biohazard suits and gas masks, arrived and placed a wildly struggling 130-pound McKenna into full restraints, their reports state. But when McKenna wouldn’t bend her knees so she could be placed into a wheeled restraint chair, a lieutenant delivered four 50,000-volt shocks from the Taser, enabling the other deputies to strap her into the chair. 

Minutes later, she stopped breathing. Days later, she died.

The truth is, though, that police have been covering up the real details on Natasha’s death for months. And, even after all of this, police are not quite clear on why Natasha McKenna was even jailed in the first place. On the day she was arrested, she had actually called the police herself to report being assaulted and appeared to be struggling mightily with mental illness before she bounced around between hospitals and jails for days.

Nothing has happened to the officers yet.

Source / Source / Source