BUFFALO, NY - The death of a 27-year old woman has a family crying out for answers.
Why is India Cummings dead?
Tawana Wyatt wants to know why her daughter that she was so close to is now dead.
"I want answers," she said.
Cummings of Rochester, NY, was living in Lackawanna. On February 1, she was seen going through the neighborhood asking for a ride back to her hometown. Her behavior was described as out of the ordinary.
Cummings called police, but when she saw them, she reportedly stole a vehicle and led police of a brief chase. She was arrested and jailed at the Erie County Holding Center.
The family believes she had a medical breakdown. The medical examiner's report hasn't been released to indicate if she had drugs, possibly a synthetic marijuana in her system which causes unusually violent behavior.
Tawana Wyatt would travel from Rochester to Buffalo to visit her daughter at the Holding Center only to be told that her daughter was "refusing her visits."
Wyatt found that strange, "with the type of relationship that me and India have I knew that she wouldn't refuse her visit with me."
The concerned mother called jail officials concerned that her daughter, now an inmate, was ill. The family says India should have been in a hospital, not in jail as she awaited medical tests that were ordered by Lackawanna Police and the jail.
A spokesman for Sheriff Timothy Howard said India received "appropriate care."
The day she was transported to the hospital from the jail, is also the same day the jail says they received a court order to release India Cummings, therefore they are not calling her case a 'death in custody.' The state is still investigating this matter.
Wyatt says she doesn't want money, she wants justice. "I definitely want answers because she didn't deserve it."
The lawyer representing the victim's family says India Cummings had "a broken arm, broken ribs, severe dehydration, a blood clot in her leg that would have required the amputation of her leg, and her kidneys were failing. She was brain dead and in cardiac arrest."