Scrutiny has intensified around the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department following the disclosure of findings that deputies failed to conduct adequate safety checks leading up to the deaths of two men in custody. The Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) accused the department of "monumental failures," a sentiment echoed by the families of those who died. This takes place within a context of 19 in-custody deaths in 2022 alone, reported The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Matthew Settles, a 54-year-old man with schizoaffective disorder, was one of those who died by suicide after being housed in an isolation cell, wherein his condition was neglected. His family has asserted that he should never have been in jail but rather in a healthcare facility equipped to manage his illness. According to the FOX 5/KUSI report, his mother, Brenda Settles, lamented, "He was very, very sick and the last time when I called the sheriff's, because he did have an episode, I didn’t know I was signing his death sentence."
CLERB’s investigation revealed gaps between the policy-mandated safety checks and those conducted. For example, video footage did not align with the sheriff’s log entries regarding the intervals at which Settles was checked. An interval of 75 minutes was found between visual observations on the night of his death, contrary to the stipulated hourly checks. Moreover, in the sad case of Abdiel Sarabia, another detainee who died just one month earlier, the board found similar discrepancies. A sworn officer was shown to have completed a welfare check of 34 detainees in under 30 seconds, which contradicts the policy requiring individual checks.
Recent changes voted in by the county Board of Supervisors will soon provide CLERB with greater authority to investigate the role of medical and mental health staff in death cases, a development welcomed by the families in pursuit of accountability. Still, these claims represent a mere fraction of the litigation the county faces, with over $57 million spent on jury awards and legal settlements for various instances of sheriff’s negligence and misconduct since 2019.
