New York Police pulled the body of the country’s first Muslim judge out of the Hudson River Wednesday, reports PBS.
According to police sources who spoke to the New York Post, Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam committed suicide after a battle with depression.
She became the first Black woman to serve in the New York State Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, after being nominated by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2013.
She was elected to the State Supreme Court in 1993 after serving on the city’s Civil Court.
“I was proud to appoint her to the state’s highest court and am deeply saddened by her passing,” Cuomo said to WNBC.
“I feel like I want to cry,” her neighbor Michele Harris said. “It’s a loss.”
Abdus-Salaam was known as a defender of the vulnerable and her ruling last August greatly expanded the rights of LGBTQ parents.
She credited her mother for her success.
“If my mother wasn’t such a smart and resourceful woman, I might have ended up in foster care or worse,” Abdus-Salaam said. “Although she dropped out of school, my mother realized that a good education would help us escape the poverty that we were trapped in.”
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RE:First Muslim Judge in U.S. Found Dead in River. Suicide Suspected: She was NOT South Asian. And South Asisns are not black Africa.
RE: First Muslim Judge in U.S. Found Dead in River: Suicide Suspected(In reply to Eugene): Agreed. That’s why we tagged this story AMEMSA (Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, South Asian). There is a sizable number of Muslim followers among South Asians. That’s why we put it in our South Asian American category. But you are correct. She is not South Asian.