Attorneys for the family of a man who died at Alameda County’s Santa Rita Jail in 2021, who settled with the county for $7 million, released more information last week about the case, including the changes that now need to be made to the prison.
The death of Maurice Monk, 45, found dead in his cell at Santa Rita Prison in Dublin on November 5, 2021, gave rise to an investigation after he allegedly lay dead in his cell for 72 hours before anyone noticed.
“We know that several prison guards and medical staff at Wellpath – which has a $250 million contract for medical services at the prison – saw him lying face down, motionless, in a growing puddle of fluids bodily, for days,” Adante said. Pointer, family lawyer. “This goes beyond negligence. It was criminal.”
Tya Modeste, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff’s office, said the case is not yet over.
“Although other media outlets have reported on the settlement, we have not completely concluded the case. The Sheriff’s Office will provide comment once the case is finalized,” Modeste wrote in an email.
Earlier this month, Alameda County Prosecutor Pamela Price said Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez agreed to provide information to investigators in Price’s office regarding Monk’s death.
Monk had been arrested about a month earlier on suspicion of disorderly conduct for allegedly refusing to get off an Alameda-Contra Costa Transit bus and failing to appear on an arrest warrant for another alleged altercation on a bus, according to prosecutors. His public defender said he missed his court date because he was turned away at the door and was unable to pay the $2,500 cash bail once arrested.
Pointer’s office said Monk suffered from mental health issues such as schizoaffective disorder.
“Mr. Monk, I was told, suffered from a mental illness, a diagnosis,” Price, the district attorney, said in a statement earlier this month. “He had health issues. We all know that mental illness is not a crime and should not be a death sentence in Alameda County.”
The settlement not only provides millions of dollars, it also stipulates that the prison strengthen its monitoring of inmates’ well-being during observation checks. Guards must now undergo annual training on how to assess “emerging issues related to the physical and mental health of incarcerated people, including deteriorating quality of life.”
Sheriff’s deputies’ body camera footage was released in October, showing the condition of Monk and his cell, including untouched meals, paper cups filled with medications thrown into his cell, and showing him lying face down lying on the ground in his bunk “above a growing pool of urine and bodies.” fluids,” according to Pointer.
Pointer also said an Alameda County Sheriff’s Office investigation showed guards falsified health check deadlines for Monk and ignored “obvious” signs of his deterioration.
By mid-March of this year, just months into Sánchez’s tenure as sheriff after being elected last year, four inmates had died in the Santa Rita jail in six weeks.
Santa Rita has one of the highest rates of in-custody deaths in the state, according to California Department of Justice data, and in 2021 the U.S. Department of Justice said the prison was the largest The county’s mental health provider, but said the services were inadequate and violated inmates’ civil rights.
In February 2022, a settlement in a 2018 lawsuit filed on behalf of several inmates resulted in a consent decree that the prison would improve its mental health services and increase its staffing levels. The DOJ also agreed to monitor the settlement for five years and conduct inspections of the prison twice a year.
In his ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins said the treatment of inmates at the prison was unconstitutional.
“Many spoke of the inhumane conditions at the jail,” Cousins wrote, “citing minimal out-of-cell time, lack of access to mental health resources, insensitive grievance process, and uncontrolled use of force .”
In May of this year, several inmates began a hunger strike to protest the alleged lack of mental health care at Santa Rita, as well as poor quality food and what one inmate called retaliation. from prison staff.
Monk’s family is also pursuing a lawsuit against Wellpath nurses and other medical staff.
