In 2023, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 519 to require sheriff’s departments to release far more information related to deaths in county jails, some may have hoped this would lead to a new era of ability. The bill — by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego — won approval despite the clout of law enforcement unions who routinely object to agencies sharing information that may get officers in trouble.
But in San Diego County, there was little optimism that the law would matter. The county’s jails, where more than 200 inmates have died since 2006 — many because of staff callousness and indifference — were why Atkins sponsored the bill. Under Bill Gore, sheriff from 2009 to early 2022; interim Sheriff Anthony Ray; and Sheriff Kelly Martinez, elected in 2022, reactions to criticism of the high rate of jail deaths were varied — from seemingly sincere vows that change was coming to perfunctory contrition to the anger Gore flashed toward widely respected state Auditor Elaine Howle after she released a scathing assessment of county jails. But even as officials insisted problems were exaggerated, they resisted the scrutiny that could have ed their claims.
This is why the recent U-T Watchdog report on how the department had responded to Atkins’ law came as no surprise. The newspaper was given records related to two inmates who died in custody — Matthew Settles and Eric Wolf — that under the law were required to include all “documents setting forth findings or recommended findings” made after such a death. But as the report noted, “No such records are included in either man’s file, despite clear evidence of safety lapses that contributed to their deaths.”
The report came less than three months after another Watchdog story detailed how the department had impeded an investigation by data scientists into in-custody deaths. It also came amid indications that county supervisors were never going to follow through on budget threats meant to force change — hardball that would have been spun as an attempt to “defund the police.”
What’s going on here? The grim truth is that both supervisors and Sheriff Martinez appear to grasp that the public by and large doesn’t care much about jail deaths — a sentiment memorably captured last year by a U-T letter writer who disputed the idea that such deaths were really “tragedies” at all.
So what might bring about change? Maybe still more costly settlements of lawsuits like the $14 million paid out last year over the appalling death of a pregnant inmate whose extreme distress — caught on camera — was ignored for hours on end by deputies and medical staff.
Or maybe not. The Sheriff’s Department is what it is. If you don’t like it, tough.
