Natasha McKenna

Natasha McKenna, 37, a mother diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, died on February 8, 2015, five days after six Fairfax County, Virginia sheriff's deputies in biohazard suits and riot gear shocked her with a Taser four times while extracting her, naked and shackled, from her cell at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. She had been held for over a week awaiting transfer on an outstanding warrant; video of the extraction captured her saying, “You promised you wouldn't kill me.” She went into cardiac arrest during the struggle and never regained consciousness. Fairfax County's top prosecutor announced in September 2015 that no deputy would be charged, calling her death a “tragic accident,” and the state medical examiner ruled it accidental, attributing it to excited delirium linked to the restraints and stun gun. No one has ever been criminally charged in McKenna's death.

Fairfax, VA · Fairfax County

• 2015: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The extraction, the four Taser shocks while McKenna was shackled, and her subsequent cardiac arrest, per a 45-minute video the Fairfax County Sheriff's Office released publicly and the state medical examiner's report.
• McKenna had been held at the jail for over a week, in solitary confinement for part of that time, awaiting transfer to Alexandria on an outstanding warrant for assaulting an officer weeks earlier; her mental health deteriorated during the delay.
• The state medical examiner's office ruled the death accidental, attributing it to excited delirium associated with the use of restraints and a stun gun, with her schizophrenia listed as a contributing factor.
• Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond Morrogh announced on September 2, 2015 that no deputy would face charges, calling the death a “tragic accident” following a months-long criminal investigation.
• The case became the subject of a separate U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation.
• McKenna's family filed a $15 million federal lawsuit against Fairfax County, alleging gross negligence and that deputies and the jail were not properly trained to handle someone in a mental health crisis.
• McKenna's death, and the video's public release, helped galvanize the early Black Lives Matter movement's focus on deaths of Black women in police and jail custody, and led Fairfax County to establish its Diversion First program, which redirects some people with mental illness away from jail toward treatment.

• Whether the use of a stun gun four times against a shackled, restrained woman already in obvious mental distress was a reasonable response, as the prosecutor's office concluded, or excessive force, as her family and counsel argued, was never tested at any criminal trial.
• Why McKenna's transfer to Alexandria was delayed for over a week, during which her mental condition deteriorated, has not been fully explained in available public reporting.
• The full findings of the Department of Justice's separate civil rights investigation into the case have not been comprehensively made public.

• Wikipedia — “Death of Natasha McKenna” (sourced case history)
• WAMU — “No Charges Filed Following Police Probe Of Taser Death In Fairfax County Jail”
• WTOP News — “Family sues sheriff's office for in-custody death of Natasha McKenna”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs