NEW ORLEANS — As loved ones gathered to celebrate the life of former Saints player Glenn Foster Jr., you can’t help but notice a longing for answers to the lingering questions about his death.
Friday, an independent autopsy alluded to foul play.
"The family deserves answers, that's all we want. We didn't initially start out saying we know something wrong was done, we just want to find out why something wasn't done," family friend Trebor Smith Sr. said.
On Dec. 4, Foster was arrested in Alabama following a high-speed chase that ended in a crash. He was booked into the Pickens County Jail on charges of reckless endangerment and resisting arrest. According to reports from the sheriff’s department, that’s where Foster got into a fight with another inmate and later injured a deputy.
Soon after, he died in police custody.
"We have not been provided with a death certificate that has a cause of death nor do we have any autopsy findings from the state at this time," Foster family attorney Fu Debrosse Zimmermann said.
Attorney Ben Crump, who is also on the family’s legal team, told Eyewitness News that the independent autopsy suggests Foster died by strangulation with signs of neck compressions. Crump said he’s seen this in past cases. The legal team added that Pickens County Jail’s recent history is alarming.
"Ben Crump, DiCello Levitt Gutzler, this entire family, this community, this country, can't stand by while Black and brown men are slaughtered," Zimmermann said.
For Foster’s loved ones, the headlines about slain Black and brown men have become all too familiar, but now it’s hit too close to home.
“It's got to change. This is so disheartening,” Foster’s brother-in-law Eric Hart said. “It's hard enough to deal with the death of a loved one. It makes it that much more difficult to have face the circumstances, have unanswered questions.”
The hope is that Foster’s story will lead to justice for not only him and his family, but for others.
“We really hope that this is another situation that propels us forward with progress towards ending this," Hart said.
For now, loved ones try to hold on to the bright parts of Foster’s life and hope that justice will shine a light in the dark.