Picture Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Each day Beast/Flickr Commons/Pixabay/Courtesy of Sarah Hartman-Exline
After over six weeks of ready, over 100 calls to West Virginia State Police, and even an announcement by the governor, it may really feel as if everybody however the household of Edmond “Eddie” Exline is aware of how he died.
On Monday, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, in saying a sweeping investigation into misconduct throughout the West Virginia State Police, highlighted the case by vaguely suggesting he had seen “very regarding” video of Exline’s arrest. The next day the ousted head of the state police known as what was heard in a body-cam video “horrible.”
However the household has obtained little info past what they learn within the papers—and is decrying what they are saying is a failure of West Virginia State Police to correctly shield the mentally unwell.
“The state is failing this household of simply widespread courtesy of giving us some info,” Tina Balzhiser, the mom of Exline’s son, mentioned in a message to The Each day Beast. “We now have discovered each single factor out from the newspapers. We will’t even get info from the state. His son has had one cellphone name from one police investigator.”
West Virginia State Police declined to remark to The Each day Beast, citing an ongoing investigation.
Edmond Exline and his son.
by way of Tina Balzhiser/GoFundMe
What little they've realized is disturbing: that Exline, a 45-year-old caring father who liked to farm and experience bikes, and who later struggled with psychological sickness, died within the custody of a state police company now on the heart of a scandalous misconduct investigation.
“No one needs to get that knock on the door at two o'clock within the morning after which to not have solutions for weeks later. That’s what hurts,” mentioned Sarah Hartman-Exline, Edmond’s sister-in-law, who known as for higher coaching for officers. “As a result of he was a human, and nobody deserves to die like that on the facet of an interstate.”
In accordance with an preliminary launch by West Virginia State Police, at 9:15 p.m. on Feb. 12, a single state trooper responded to studies that a person was strolling alongside a freeway close to Martinsburg, West Virginia. That particular person, Exline, was later confirmed to be useless.
In accordance with Hartman-Exline, she and her husband first discovered about Exline’s loss of life after they obtained a loud knock on their door round 2 a.m.
A Maryland State Trooper advised them that their brother had died, however little extra, and that they need to anticipate to listen to from West Virginia State Police. (The household lives on either side of the border.)
As a substitute, Exline’s brothers, son, and different family endured two days of silence.
Relations say they known as state police over 100 instances for almost 50 hours earlier than they obtained any info—and needed to depend upon newspaper articles to begin to decide up the items of how their liked one ended up within the morgue.
“They had been form of taking turns, ,” mentioned John-Mark Atkinson, the lawyer representing Hartman-Exline and her husband James Exline. “As a result of it is simply exhausting calling, calling, calling so that they'd rotate who would name.”
Preliminary particulars they realized by means of newspaper articles had been frustratingly obscure: that a battle occurred after a trooper discovered Exline strolling alongside the freeway and earlier than Exline turned unresponsive.
Finally, after hours of desperately hounding the company for additional info, Hartman-Exline lastly was in a position to converse to a trooper from neighboring Charles City, who shared extra particulars from the encounter: that two different officers responded to the scene; that there was a battle to the bottom to get Exline handcuffed; that cops had been out of contact with dispatch for 5 minutes; and that after he was cuffed within the automobile, Exline was taken again out of the automobile so cops may attempt to revive him.
On Monday, a WVSP officer from Charles City confirmed to ABC Information that Exline was tased through the encounter, and the previous high cop within the West Virginia State Police advised listeners at Metro Information that three officers had been on go away and a legal investigation had been launched.
However though a number of officers have copped to the existence of video—which may inform, as soon as and for all, what actually occurred through the lethal encounter—state police have but to launch it.
“What I've seen the video is just not nice as a result of it is at night time time on a Sunday night time however the audio is horrible,” former state police Superintendent Jan Cahill advised discuss radio host Hoppy Kercheval in an interview after his exit from the company. “And I will not go into the small print as a result of it is an lively investigation.”
The rising cloud over what actually occurred that day is darkened by a historical past in Berkeley County of alleged police brutality by state troopers. In 2018, police had been caught on video allegedly beating a teenager in the identical county, and state cops have just lately turn out to be the topic of an increasing misconduct probe after an nameless letter was despatched to lawmakers—prompting, it appears, Exline’s case to cross the governor’s desk.
On Monday, Justice admitted he, too, had seen the video, and known as the case “very very regarding.”
Exline, family mentioned, grew up on a farm proper over the border from the japanese panhandle of West Virginia together with his 4 brothers, the place he realized to like working with the earth and, later, to experience bikes.
“They had been spoiled. There you go. They had been spoiled,” mentioned Hartman-Exline. “They obtained what they needed and… up till they had been adults, , them boys lived with [their mother] the remainder of her life.”
Exline’s father, a trucker and a Vietnam veteran, struggled with psychological sickness, the household defined.
Finally, Exline’s thoughts additionally started to battle towards him as nicely, and he was first recognized with paranoid schizophrenia within the mid-2000s, in line with a GoFundMe posted by Balzhiser.
“The Exline household has been plagued with psychological sickness. If it isn't been PTSD or paranoid schizophrenia or simply one thing all through the household,” mentioned Hartman-Exline. At one level, she mentioned, “, we needed to love him from a distance.”
Regardless of a number of run-ins with the legislation, together with home violence-related allegations, Balzhiser mentioned that Exline’s actions had been pushed by his sickness and the failures of society to guard those that are sick.
He was “the perfect dad that he knew how one can be,” Balzhiser advised The Each day Beast, a sentiment echoed by his son.
Exline helped train his son to farm and experience a motorcycle and how one can work on vehicles, and by no means missed a baseball recreation, members of the family mentioned.
“And if there's something on this world that my son is aware of it’s that his dad liked him and his dad didn't need to die by the very arms that ought to be defending him,” Balzhiser mentioned.
State authorities nonetheless have but to launch Exline’s physique to household or any primary details about his explanation for loss of life to household or the press.
“We have to maintain not solely the wv state police accountable however america we have to work as a rustic and get long run amenities nationwide for our mentally unwell,” Balzhiser wrote to The Each day Beast, additionally explaining in her GoFundMe that “anybody who is aware of this illness would know as soon as they're on meds they assume they're higher and cease taking the meds.”
“We put these mentally ills in hospitals lengthy sufficient to make them appear a bit regular then throw them again out on the streets. It don’t work and it’s simply getting worse,” Balzhiser advised The Each day Beast. “The system fails our mentally unwell. The [West Virginia] state police have failed our group.”