Legal team for Shanquella Robinson to meet with White House, Senate officials
The legal team for the family of Shanquella Robinson expects a meeting soon with White House and Senate officials, family attorney Benjamin Crump announced Thursday.
Robinson,25, died in Oct.2022 while vacationing in Mexico with six others. The companions told Robinson’s parents that their daughter had died from alcohol poisoning, but autopsy reports list the cause of death as “severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation.”
Mexican authorities have charged a person of interest with femicide, but no arrests have been made.
At a press conference held at Livingstone College, Crump and other activists stood alongside the mother and sister of Robinson, calling out U.S. officials for their lack of urgency in addressing the case.
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“She was an American citizen. She was killed on a foreign land on video,” Crump said. “We expect for you to care about this Black woman, just like you would care about any other American citizen killed in a foreign country on video.”
No official date for the meeting has been announced, but it is expected to happen “after April 1,” according to a Crump.
The announcement comes a week after Robinson’s family, Crump and attorney Sue-Ann Robinson traveled to Washington D.C., in attempts to persuade President Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of State to intervene in the investigation of their daughter’s death in Mexico last October.
During the visit to D.C., the attorneys shared a letter sent to the White House on March 13 naming a 26-year-old woman as the suspect wanted in Mexico.
The letter includes findings from an independent investigation conducted by Sue-Ann Robinson in Mexico. The 18-page report includes an autopsy and unreleased documents from prosecutors and police.
Robinson’s sister Quilla and mother Sallamondra offered their own brief statements Thursday.
Both expressed their frustrations with how much time has passed without American authorities taking definitive action on the case.
“At this point, everybody in that room should’ve been held accountable, Quilla said. “At least one person should’ve been brought in for questioning.”
“The whole world has seen the video, and there’s been no arrest since October 29,” Sallamondra said. ”What kind of system is this?”
Crump said he will continue to press U.S. authorities for two courses of action:
- Extradite the suspect(s) back to Mexico for them to be tried by Mexican prosecutors.
- Take jurisdiction of the case and prosecute her killer(s) in the U.S.
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