A 50-year-old man died at San Diego Central Jail after a deputy found him unresponsive in his cell during a routine security check, making him the seventh person to die in San Diego County Sheriff's Office custody this year. The man had been arrested and booked by San Diego police officers just a day earlier on several drug-related charges, including one accusing him of bringing drugs into a jail facility — a charge sheriff's officials said stemmed from an older case unrelated to Friday's arrest.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, the deputy discovered the man and another individual sharing the cell before calling 911 and beginning life-saving measures. The deputy also requested assistance from jail medical staff, and San Diego Fire-Rescue Department paramedics and firefighters later took over resuscitation efforts. The man was pronounced dead just after 7:30 p.m., per sheriff's officials.
The Sheriff's Office homicide unit is investigating the death, and the county Medical Examiner's Office will determine the official cause and manner of death. Officials have released no details about the suspected cause. The department also notified the Citizens' Law Enforcement Review Board and assigned a family liaison officer to support the man's family, the newspaper's report notes.
A Facility Already Under Scrutiny
This is not an isolated case. Three weeks earlier, a 34-year-old man died on August 14 after deputies found him unresponsive during a routine cell check at the same facility, just one day after his arrest on drug charges — a case Hoodline covered in August. In February, the available sources did not verify a Central Jail death, the identity or age of anyone involved, or a cause of death.
An independent study contracted by the Citizens' Law Enforcement Review Board in 2023, released in April and presented in May, found that 55% of all deaths across San Diego County's seven jail facilities from 2011 through 2024 were non-natural, according to the Times of San Diego. That same study, conducted by data firm The Mountain-Whisper-Light, found San Diego Central Jail has an in-custody death rate nearly twice that of the Vista Detention Facility, along with the county's highest staff assault rates and nearly all recorded jail homicides. The facility handles over half of all county jail bookings.
Sheriff Touts Reforms Amid Continued Deaths
San Diego County jails recorded 37 in-custody deaths across 2021 and 2022, a period that prompted a February 2022 audit by the California State Auditor examining 185 in-custody deaths in the county's jails from 2006 through 2020. That audit concluded the department failed to prevent deaths due to systemic deficiencies in medical care, mental health care, and protections for people in custody. Deaths later fell to 13 in 2023, 9 in 2024, and 10 in 2025. According to a County of San Diego study, 185 people died in San Diego County jails between 2006 and 2020. The County of San Diego study reported that the average daily population in the county jails from 2006 through 2020 was 5,162.
Sheriff Kelly Martinez appeared before the Board of Supervisors this month and said new Detention Services Bureau practices — including intake medical exams for all inmates and dedicated floor nurses — helped drive a 65% reduction in jail overdoses between 2024 and 2025, according to KPBS Public Media. Martinez has made jail health and safety reforms a core priority since taking office in 2023, and she promoted those changes as evidence of progress even as Central Jail remains the county's most heavily scrutinized facility.
Legal Fallout Continues to Mount
The reforms come amid steep legal exposure for the county. In October 2025, the Board of Supervisors approved a record $16 million wrongful-death settlement with the family of William Hayden Schuck, a 22-year-old who died of dehydration and drug withdrawal at San Diego Central Jail back in March 2022 — the largest in-custody wrongful death settlement in county history, per the National Law Review. Separately, in September 2025, before the October settlement, the Board finalized an ordinance expanding CLERB's jurisdiction to investigate jail healthcare staff and private medical contractors involved in in-custody deaths, oversight previously limited to sworn sheriff's deputies.
The expanded oversight follows continued friction with those contractors. In August, a federal judge ruled that private jail healthcare vendor NaphCare must face breach-of-contract claims brought by the county over the January 2024 cellmate murder of 24-year-old inmate Brandon Yates at Central Jail, with the county alleging NaphCare failed to properly evaluate the violent propensity of the killer, according to Courthouse News.
Back in September 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 2343, the Saving Lives in Custody Act, which San Diego Assemblymember Akilah Weber introduced to mandate higher mental health and intake screening standards statewide. Newsom cited concerns over the bill's board composition when he vetoed it. Nearly four years later, with annual deaths down from the 2022 peak but most county jail deaths occurring within the first few days to a week after booking, the pressure on county officials over drug screening and cellmate housing procedures has not let up.
