Last month, KMOX shared Raynah Rey's story. The 96.3 host was searching for answers after her son reportedly overdosed in jail and was taken to the hospital.
At the time, Raynah was skeptical about the situation, saying that her son Cedric hadn't overdosed. He was being held on assault charges, but has now been released after a jury found him innocent. Raynah and Cedric joined Total Information to share the whole story.
Last year, Cedric went to Jefferson County to buy drugs. When he met up with the dealers, a white mother and her daughter, they pulled a gun on him.
"My instinct kicks in and I grab it and end up wrestling them starting in the car, outside of the car, defending myself trying to get away. They were trying to take my stuff, steal from me," Cedric said.
Cedric was charged that same day. The women who were selling opioids were never arrested. "I was like, 'Well, they tried to rob me,'" Cedric said. "They tried to assault me. Why am I being incarcerated? And I already said that I was acting in self defense."
According to Raynah, the prosecuting attorney knew that the two women who were dealing drugs had confessed to bringing a gun to a drug deal which, she adds, is a felony punishable by a minimum of ten years in prison.
Cedric ended up in jail for about a year, and described the experience as humbling. But near the end of his time there, he got sick. He was found unresponsive in his cell, and was taken to a hospital. Officers claimed he had overdosed on fentanyl.
"I'm holding his medical records in my hands today," Raynah said. "Because when he went to the hospital, and they did drug tests on him for every possible drug: negative, negative, negative, negative. He did not have fentanyl in his system when he was taken to the hospital."
What actually happened, Raynah said, is that Cedric had gotten sick with pneumonia weeks before, and was left untreated. According to the medical records, his kidneys had failed and sepsis had set in, and eventually he had a heart attack.
"Sepsis is a poison that gets into your blood, an infection that gets into your blood after you've been sick for a very long time. Sepsis does not happen as a result of an overdose," she said. "Sepsis is not something that happens in a day, or a few days or even a week, you have to be sick for a long time for sepsis to set in."
Raynah added that the way her son's case was handled points to a larger problem in the Jefferson County justice system.
"I also have a really big issue with the way this was handled. And I'm going to say it. This was systemic racism at its worst, or best, whatever you want to call it," she said. "Three people did wrong that night. Jefferson County chose to only punish the brown person."
She added, "And when I heard the prosecuting attorney stand up in court, look at the jury and say to them, 'Look at these two ladies over here. Do they look like criminals to you? Do they look like criminals? Or does this robber sitting over here with his hair like that, does he look like a criminal?'"
Raynah is still seeking justice for her son, even after his release. She said she won't stop until Jefferson County holds the two women accountable the way they tried to hold her son accountable. Off the air, Raynah expressed her gratitude for the jury that found her son innocent. She said she was grateful for them "seeing through all the nonsense."
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