Jermaine Bell, Miami Dade, Florida man drinks cup of bleach after jury finds him guilty of armed robbery. Had been fighting case for three years.
How did he get a hold of the bleach? A Florida man drank a cup of bleach at a Miami-Dade courtroom moments after hearing the jury finding him guilty of armed robbery in its verdict.
Jermaine Bell, 38, leading up to his trial had spent more than three years in custody for the December 2018 robbery for which he was convicted on Tuesday. At the time of the crime, Bell according to prosecutors pulled a gun on employees at the Millennium Engine Plating while he was disguised as a courier.
Bell was seen drinking the bleach from a white disposable cup before an officer approached him with a trash can and attempted to have the inmate spit up the liquid. Bell instead continued to drink from the cup until he eventually sitting down, video showed (see below).
The inmate immediately became ill after drinking the bleach and was transported out of the Miami-Dade courtroom on a stretcher. He was then taken to the hospital for medical treatment.
Reports told of Bell being in stable condition at the hospital after ingesting the bleach. Nevertheless it remained unclear how the inmate was able to obtain it in the courtroom. Questions are also being raised by his family about why nobody intervened as he was drinking the product.
‘I see him drinking something that’s not right,’
‘I see him drinking something that’s not right,’ Reverend Jerome Starling, a distant relative of Bell, told Local 10. ‘His attorneys are letting him drink it. Corrections letting him drink it. All of a sudden I see him collapse. And I said how could this happen.’
Starling said there needs to be accountability for what happened in the courtroom.
Bell’s cousin, who recorded the incident, said she immediately attempted to save him.
‘I was the only one like that jumped up and tried to get him help,’ she told Local 10. ‘[It’s] very emotional for the whole family. We thought we were going to lose Jermaine that day.’
The Miami-Dade County Corrections and Miami-Dade Police are investigating the incident.
