Shanquella Robinson’s Family Holds Rally as Officials Investigate Her Mysterious Death
It’s been more than a month since North Carolina braider Shanquella Robinson died under mysterious circumstances while on a trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Her family says they’re still waiting for justice— and won’t be quiet until they get it. On Saturday, Dec. 10 family members and friends of Robinson filled Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte, North Carolina for a rally, calling on authorities to seek arrests in Robinson’s case.
While her family was in attendance, they did not speak during the two-and-a-half hour event, which featured speeches from friends, community activists, ministers and pastors. City and county officials, including Charlotte Mayor pro tem Braxton Winston and Mecklenburg County commissioner Pat Cotham, also offered words of comfort.
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“I’m going to be honest — this is tough. This is hard,” Winston said. “How many words of comfort can you bring to a situation like this?”
“There’s so much grief in our community,” he said, noting that the community is connected by trauma. Addressing the Robinson family, he said, “I assure you this community will not forget you.”
Several speakers addressed the need for justice, invoking church-wide chants of “Justice for Shanquella” and call-and-responses: “What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now.”
When Robinson’s traveling companions returned from Cabo without her, her mother Salamondra told reporters she was told conflicting stories about her daughter’s death.
“They said she wasn’t feeling well. She had alcohol poisoning,” Salamondra said, via WBTW 13. “They couldn’t get a pulse. Each one of the people that were there with her was telling different stories.”
According to Queen City News, the U.S. State Department originally said there was no clear evidence to suggest Robinson was murdered. But when Salamondra received a copy of Robinson’s death certificate, it listed the cause of death as severe spinal cord injury and atlas luxation — not alcohol poisoning.
“When the autopsy came back, they said it didn’t have anything to do with the alcohol,” Salamondra said. “[They] said that she had a broken neck and her spine in the back was cracked. She had been beaten.”
Days after social media outrage began over a perceived lack of response from authorities, footage began circulating on social media of a fight between two women, one of whom was identified by her family as Robinson. In the video, a naked woman can be seen being punched and hit — while at least two people can be heard out of frame encouraging “Quella” to fight back. The woman appears disoriented and is thrown heavily to the floor without any apparent help from onlookers. Several friends who Queen City News confirmed were on the Cabo trip have since removed or privated their social media accounts.
Robinson’s death is currently being investigated as a potential femicide by Mexican authorities, with at least one arrest warrant already issued by prosecutors. But the suspect, who Mexican authorities have declined to name, has yet to be extradited from the United States and no arrests have been publicized. The Charlotte FBI field office could not be reached by Rolling Stone for comment. Robinson’s family has been vocal about their belief that authorities are wasting time and have been pushing for more arrests to be made.
“Everybody being arrested and doing time there,” Quilla Long, Robinson’s sister, said in a press conference. “That’ll be justice for us.”
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