Justice for Steven Barrier

Steven Barrier was a son, a brother, and a friend. On October 23rd, the day of his 23rd birthday, he died in the custody of the Stamford Police Department in Connecticut. The only time Steven’s mother, Valerie Jaddo, has been able to see the body, was on the night of his death, while four officers were blocking the way. The State’s medical examiner claims that the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to natural causes. But Steven never had a history of cardiac arrest. When Steven’s body was moved from Stamford Hospital to Farmington for the state’s autopsy, they did not grant Valerie permission, and so they buried him without giving her a chance to see her son for the last time. A week later, the SPD attorney released 29 minutes of body cam footage from the arrest. In this video, Steven can be seen asking for help, bloody, and gasping for air as the police drag him to a cruiser and toss him in the back. When in the car, Steven continues his cries for help, indicating he cannot breath and asking to have the air conditioner put on. Instead of being taken to the hospital, Steven was taken to the police department. He was dead upon arrival. The police dragged him out of the car, only to humiliate him after he had passed away, joking that “he should win an Oscar” for ‘playing dead.’ Not in the video is a 5 minute segment of audio during the chase, nor the beginning when the officers first confronted Steven. The officers claim to have forgotten to turn on their body cams. None of the officers were reprimanded. None of the officers were fired. Yet the family remains without their pride and joy, Steven. Since then, Valerie has been fighting to get more information about SPD’s investigation into his death, only to be met with hostility, resistance, and a complete lack of transparency from the Stamford Police Department and the city government at large. It took them 8 months to release the incident report to her, yet they are still keeping his body and the internal investigation concealed. In order to bring Steven Barrier and his family justice, we are raising money for a private autopsy on his body, in order to find out what really happened to Steven. His mother needs help raising $6,000 in order to make this happen. Until the truth is known, she cannot grieve the loss of her son.