NEW YORK (AP) — Police say there have been no signs of criminality in the death of the first black woman appointed to New York state’s highest court.
An autopsy will be conducted to determine what caused the death 65-year-old Sheila Abdus-Salaam.
The New York City police harbor unit retrieved her body from the Hudson River in Manhattan on Wednesday, a day after she was reported missing.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who appointed Abdus-Salaam to the state’s Court of Appeals in 2013, called her a “trailblazing jurist.”
Abdus-Salaam graduated from Barnard College and received her law degree from Columbia Law School.
She started her career as a staff attorney for East Brooklyn Legal Services. She served as a judge in Manhattan state Supreme Court for 14 years.
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…but they haven’t done an autopsy yet. Perfect time to be flapping your gums as to the cause of her death.
Other than suicide or a boating accident I’m having a hard time coming up with a cause of death that results in one floating in the Hudson that doesn’t involve some sort of criminality.
There are some places where you could just have a bad fall.
On reflection, though, I’m going to blame the reporter rather than the police. Someone almost certainly asked an explicit question about whether there had been foul play, and there’s really no way to answer that question in a way that won’t lead to a misleading story if the reporter wants it.
This is just sad, sad news. By all accounts she sounds like a remarkable person.
The WaPo story doesn’t make any claims about cause of death.
No need to mention that she was Muslim.