In 2019, after The San Diego Union-Tribunes Watchdog team first documented excessive deaths at the jails run by the San Diego County Sheriffs Department, the agency was dismissive. While the comprehensive report showed at least 140 jail deaths from 2009 to 2019 — an appalling mortality rate that was the highest among large counties in the state — Sheriff Bill Gore disputed nearly all the key findings.
As new deaths kept being reported, however, Gore began offering lip-service promises of reforms. But a scathing state audit — which Gore saw a draft of before he abruptly left office in February 2022 — depicted any improvements as illusory. It detailed a callous jail culture that couldnt be bothered to take such basic steps as ensuring sick inmates had access to their prescription medications or keeping an eye on inmates showing symptoms of potentially fatal drug withdrawals.
When Gores handpicked successor Kelly Martinez took office in January 2023, she vowed to welcome more thorough scrutiny. That never happened. Instead, were seeing a new phase in the departments response to criticism: open defiance. On Nov. 11, a Watchdog report detailed how for two years the department had stonewalled an investigation by data scientists into in-custody deaths. This was done over the objections of the agencys Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board.
After 18 years of jails averaging more than one death a month — and after a six-year stretch in which the county has paid about $80 million in settlements and jury awards related to harm suffered by those in custody — its more obvious than ever than Martinez and the Sheriffs Department dont want their dysfunction to be fixed. They want it to be hidden.
Which brings us to another part of county government that is failing to do its job: the Board of Supervisors. For years, members of the boards Democratic majority — especially Terra Lawson-Remer and, before his May 2023 resignation, Nathan Fletcher — said they were open to using their sweeping powers over the sheriffs budget to force change.
This week, in a U-T report about the anguish of parents of dead and maimed inmates, Lawson-Remer again called excessive jail deaths completely unacceptable. The rest of the board — Nora Vargas, Monica Montgomery Steppe, Joel Anderson and Jim Desmond — presumably agrees. But unless they take much stronger steps than grousing, their reaction isnt much different than the lip service from Gore and Martinez. They are part of the problem.
This was pointed out by Paul Parker, the oversight boards executive officer, when he resigned in March. “I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall, and the county doesn’t seem to want to do anything to have true oversight,” he said.
Maybe after 50 more jail deaths and $50 million more in court judgments, this will change. But nothing thats happened since 2019 suggests county leaders are ready to protect inmates — and taxpayers — from this long-running nightmare.