Ashley Judd Describes 'Terrible' Police Interviews She Endured As Her Mom Died

Ashley Judd has written a strong essay arguing for her “proper to maintain personal ache personal” after the demise of her mom, singer Naomi Judd, in April.

Within the essay printed by The New York Occasions this week, the actor voiced deep considerations that non-public and traumatic exchanges she and her household had with police throughout and following her mom’s demise could be made public beneath a Tennessee regulation that permits police experiences from closed investigations to be publicly launched.

“Within the instant aftermath of a life-altering tragedy, after we are in a state of acute shock, trauma, panic and misery, the authorities present as much as discuss to us,” she wrote. “As a result of many people are socially conditioned to cooperate with regulation enforcement, we're completely unguarded in what we are saying.”

“I gushed solutions to the various probing questions directed at me within the 4 interviews the police insisted I do on the very day my mom died — questions I'd by no means have answered on another day and questions on which I by no means thought to ask my very own questions, together with: Is your physique digicam on? Am I being audio recorded once more? The place and the way will what I'm sharing be saved, used and made out there to the general public?”

Naomi Judd, center, and her two daughters, Wynonna, right, and Ashley Judd.
Naomi Judd, middle, and her two daughters, Wynonna, proper, and Ashley Judd.
Theo Wargo through Getty Pictures

Naomi Judd, the Kentucky-born singer of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds, died by suicide in April, simply days earlier than she was inducted into the Nation Music Corridor of Fame. She was 76.

Ashley Judd stated she felt “cornered and powerless as regulation enforcement officers started questioning me whereas the final of my mom’s life was fading.” However she doesn’t blame the officers concerned on the day, she stated. Quite, the problem lies within the system, she wrote, which should be reformed.

“I need to be clear that the police have been merely following horrible, outdated interview procedures and strategies of interacting with members of the family who're in shock or trauma and that the people in my mom’s bed room that harrowing day weren't unhealthy or flawed,” she wrote.

“It's now well-known that regulation enforcement personnel needs to be educated in how to reply to and examine instances involving trauma, however the males who have been current left us feeling stripped of any delicate boundary, interrogated and, in my case, as if I used to be a doable suspect in my mom’s suicide.”

She stated she and her household had filed a petition with the courts initially of August to stop the police file from being publicly launched.

“This profoundly intimate private and medical info doesn't belong within the press, on the web or wherever besides in our reminiscences,” she stated.

Learn her op-ed in The New York Occasions.

If you happen to or somebody you understand wants assist, dial 988 or name 1-800-273-8255 for the Nationwide Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can too get help through textual content by visiting suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat. Outdoors of the U.S., please go to the Worldwide Affiliation for Suicide Prevention for a database of sources.

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