Florida man Jermaine Bell is recovering in hospital after he drank a cup of bleach when he was found guilty in court, WPLG-TV reports.
As he heard the verdict on the armed robbery charges against him, 38-year-old Bell was recorded drinking from a cup that contained a bleach-like chemical that immediately made him sick. Bell, who has been in custody for over three years, was taken out of the courtroom on a stretcher. While he has survived the incident, members of his family have questioned how he was able to bring the bleach into the courtroom in the first place.
“I see him drinking something that’s not right,” said Reverend Jerome Starling, a relative of Bell. “His attorneys are letting him drink it. Corrections letting him drink it. All of a sudden I see him collapse. And I said how could this happen.” Video of the moment he appeared to drink the bleach was recorded by Bell’s cousin, who didn’t identify herself by name. “Very emotional for the family,” she said. “We thought we was gonna lose Jermaine that day.”
At one moment during the courtroom drama, an officer approached Bell and attempted to get him to spit out the liquid. Additional footage shows him in serious pain as he’s taken out of the courtroom on a stretcher. The situation is currently under investigation by the Miami-Dade police and Miami-Dade County Corrections.
According to The Daily Mail, Bell was arrested in December, 2018 when he posed as a delivery courier and pulled a gun on employees at Miami’s Millenium Engine Plating Factory.
