Attorney Justin Drach, who has represented Martin since 2021, told Action News Jax he learned the details of the police report related to this incident through an Action News Jax report – not from the police. <\/p>\n
Drach says that before Action News Jax aired the news of Martin\u2019s death, he had submitted a public records request to the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office for body camera footage related to the incident. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Public records request <\/p>\n
Drach says that the request was sent just before 10 in the morning on Tuesday, October 29th.<\/p>\n
On that same day, the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office released a media report to local news outlets about the incident.<\/p>\n
Action News Jax received the release at 12:28 that afternoon, nearly two and a half hours after Attorney Drach had submitted his records request.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office released a media report to local news outlets about the incident <\/p>\n
Drach says both he and Martin\u2019s family were blindsided by the release of the information, and that the information in JSO\u2019s media release was never shared with him or Martin\u2019s family directly. Attorney Drach also says the sheriff\u2019s office still has not responded to his request for body camera video footage. Drach says the timing of the release of the information is suspicious. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey haven\u2019t provided me a police report. I got the police report from you,\u201d Drach told Action News Jax.<\/p>\n
According to the news release, when officers were called to this mother\u2019s house the night of October 24th, Martin tried to run when officers arrived, but he was taken into custody without incident.<\/p>\n
Police say Martin showed signs of distress, like incoherent speech and \u201cdisassociation with reality.\u201d <\/p>\n
Officers then called JFRD to evaluate him, and after it was determined that Martin should be Baker Acted, Martin was taken to the Mental Health Resource Center on Jacksonville\u2019s Northside.<\/p>\n
The report continues, saying that when police arrived at the center with Martin in the patrol car, he became unresponsive while waiting to be admitted. <\/p>\n
The police report lists that Martin had used drugs, and that officers administered multiple doses of Narcan, but it did not revive him. <\/p>\n
He was later pronounced dead at UF Health Jacksonville after he was transported from the parking lot of the mental health center. <\/p>\n
Attorney Drach is especially concerned about the Narcan use, saying Martin was never a drug user in the four years that he has known him.<\/p>\n
In a phone call with Martin\u2019s mother, his family also confirmed to Action News Jax that Martin did not use drugs. <\/p>\n
But they did confirm that he had been on his medication for his schizophrenia diagnosis at the time of his arrest. <\/p>\n
JSO\u2019s report, however, alleges that Martin was not on his medication at the time of the incident – something Martin\u2019s family repeatedly told Action News Jax was not true. <\/p>\n
The family says Martin is prescribed Xanax and Gabapentin – both of which he had taken the day of his arrest, according to his family. <\/p>\n
The police report confirms body camera footage exists and lists the incident location as the mental facility\u2019s parking lot. JSO\u2019s Cold Case Unit is handling the case while the investigation continues. <\/p>\n
Drach says that\u2019s exactly why he\u2019s pushing for the release of the body cam video.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a huge change going from the description that\u2019s in the report that was released to being unresponsive,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to know, was he left alone in the car at any point in time? Because certainly somebody that is experiencing a medical emergency \u2014 such that you need to call JFRD \u2014 probably should not be left alone in a vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n The attorney doubled down that JSO\u2019s timing of the release of information to the media is questionable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe timing is uncanny,\u201d Drach said. \u201cTwo hours later on a Tuesday, they contact the media when an attorney starts digging? That tells me somebody was probably looking at the requests that are coming in and saw something that might be newsworthy.\u201d<\/p>\n Attorney Drach says he knows exactly what he wants to see from JSO.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously we\u2019re going to want to know the names of the law enforcement officers that were involved in the incident. We\u2019re going to want to see all of the body camera footage that was taken. If somebody deactivated their body camera, which may have happened – we don\u2019t know yet – I want to know why. We\u2019re going to want to see the footage that would depict Rashaud in the back of the JSO vehicle, and then obviously we\u2019re going to want to hear statements.\u201d<\/p>\n The attorney said he still hasn\u2019t heard back from JSO for the records and body camera footage that he requested.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cThey haven\u2019t responded to me yet. It\u2019s kinda interesting when you make a public records request… I think they\u2019re saying that they\u2019re like 6 to 8 months behind in providing body camera footage… but I can tell you that we will get it much sooner than that. If they try to inhibit our investigation, we will do what we have to.\u201d<\/p>\n When we reached out to the sheriff\u2019s office to ask them about Drach\u2019s claims and about the timing of the media release, they said they were working on answering our questions. A spokesperson with the sheriff\u2019s office did, however, confirm a backup on body cam requests. <\/p>\n The sheriff\u2019s office says it\u2019s still waiting on autopsy and toxicology results from the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n Drach says those results \u2014 and the body camera video \u2014 will be key to understanding all that happened leading up to Martin\u2019s death. <\/p>\n Attorney Justin Drach says he first represented Rashaud Martin in 2021. Martin was trying to elope at UF Health Shands Hospital when he was tackled by a security guard, breaking his ankle. The parties settled the lawsuit amicably.<\/p>\n JSO shared the following statement with Action News Jax:<\/p>\n \u201cAs with all In-Custody Deaths, we pushed out a news release on this incident. The timing of the push was due to several factors on our end, but the process began with notifications early on. Once we received the information from the Cold Case Unit, a release was formulated with all available and applicable information on the incident. Once written and approved, the news release was pushed out to the community. The timing of our release and Mr. Drach\u2019s records requests were in no way related. And in fact, our process began days earlier than his request to the public records unit.<\/p>\n \u201cMr. Drach\u2019s public records request will be fulfilled in the order received by the Public Records Unit. Once an estimate has been derived, specific to the BWC, his approval would be required. Once paid, the Body Worn Camera Unit would fulfill his request, again, in the order received. As we have stipulated many times in the past to our media partners, the process for receiving, retrieving, vetting, redacting, and releasing BWC video to the community via a public records request is, unfortunately, a lengthy one due simply to the sheer volume of requests our agency receives on a daily basis. …<\/p>\n \u201cThis case continues to be an active investigation, and is currently classified as an Undetermined Death as we work through our investigation, and the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office works through theirs. As soon as there is further information to disseminate to the community, we will most certainly do so.\u201d<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The personal attorney for 32-year-old Rashaud Martin, a schizophrenic man who died in the custody…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[643,5228,6275,20035,12781,12909,18583,20037,20034,969,116,118,117,1134,20032,12814,1872,20033,634,326,20036,19005],"class_list":{"0":"post-26975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news_jack","9":"tag-action_news_jacks","10":"tag-attorney","11":"tag-baker_act","12":"tag-daja_mayfield","13":"tag-deja","14":"tag-deja_mayfield","15":"tag-drash","16":"tag-harriet_avenue","17":"tag-jack","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","20":"tag-jacksonville-news","21":"tag-jacksonville_sheriff","22":"tag-jacksonville_sheriffs","23":"tag-jfrd","24":"tag-jso","25":"tag-justin_drash","26":"tag-local","27":"tag-martin","28":"tag-narcan","29":"tag-rashad_martin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761854057_455_YYBKTQERSRCFFB64JYWEV6XNW4.jpeg\")
32-year-old Rashaud Martin ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761854058_234_QF7RVHST4ZCPHIGF6AWU5P6CTY.png\")
32-year-old Rashaud Martin ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761854058_339_QSBEU6H5PVEE7KM6VJHDUBEXTQ.png\")
32-year-old Rashaud Martin <\/p>\n