Samuel See, an English professor at Yale University, was found dead on Sunday in a jail in New Haven, Connecticut.
See’s death was revealed on Wednesday.
See was found dead at the police headquarters at 1 Union Avenue.
He was placed in detention at the headquarters after getting arrested on Saturday night.
See became outraged when police officers arrived at his house when his partner came back to retrieve some belongings. The pair had placed protective orders against each other.
“He yelled that it was his house and that he shouldn’t be arrested. See fought with officers when they tried handcuffing him,” David Hartman, spokesman with the New Haven Police Department, told the Yale Daily News. “As See was led to a police car, he yelled to one of the arresting officers, ‘I will kill you … I will destroy you.’”
See’s cause of death is under investigation. The New Haven Independent reported that he is not believed to have committed suicide. He was treated for a cut above his eye before he was placed in detention.
The detention facility at the police headquarters is run by marshals working for the state Judicial Department.
New Haven Police Chief Dean Esserman has ordered an internal inquiry.
“Any untimely death, this department will investigate fully,” Esserman said. That includes the department’s own actions, he added.
See was communicating with marshals throughout his detainment until he marshals found him non-responsive around 6 a.m.
Marshals then provided CPR and other lifesaving efforts until the New Haven Fire and Rescue arrived, a police statement said.
See, who was on leave this semester, was an assistant professor of English at Yale, after having graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles and California State University, Bakerfield.
He wrote in his profile on the university’s website that his research and teaching focused primarily on British and American modernist literature and sexuality studies.
Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in a statement that “The university community is deeply saddened to learn of the death of Samuel See. Our condolences go out to his family, faculty colleagues, and students, and his friends at Yale and elsewhere.
“We encourage anyone at Yale who needs comfort and support at this time of loss to reach out to friends in the community or to University resources that are available for consultation and counseling.”
