Yeah, a deeper reading of the article is necessary.
However, I will say that when I was in elementary school a kid knocked himself out during a school bus ride. There was one particular bump on the route where if you were sitting in the last couple rows (behind the rear wheels) and pushed up at just the right time going over it you could catch serious air. The kid pushed up too hard and put the top of his head right into the bus’s metal roof.
He didn’t have anything more than a slight concussion, and it was the 70’s, but we were still all banned from doing that, as a result.
It’s easy enough to imagine a scenario where if he’d come back down differently, out of his seat and onto the rear emergency exit door handle, it could have been a lot worse. So I’m not quick to dismiss the notion that police negligence (failure to strap him in) or even an act of commission (”nickle ride” back to the station) were major contributing factors in the fatal injury.
Since photos of the van in question have been posted with some of the news stories, I am willing to assert outright that not having shoulder restraints installed constitutes negligence in and of itself.
It is a hard walled narrow cell on wheels.
You would have to be a real idiot not to anticipate problems from that at some point with only lap belts - even without handcuffs.