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By Kayla Meraz
LOS ANGELES, CA — At Twin Towers jail here last month, an incarcerated man died after a suicide because of the guards’ inability to perform welfare checks—guards allegedly watched YouTube videos or played video games during the suicide, according to a story in the Los Angeles Public Press.
The news outlet noted, “As a part of a jail welfare check on the veteran’s dorm, deputies are required to walk the cell block at least every half hour,” but added the deputies “missed as many as three mandatory welfare checks around the time the man hanged himself because they were watching videos on county computers.”
Commissioners, said the LA Public Press, discovered during a jail inspection that a “group of at least seven (Los Angeles Sheriff Dept) personnel of various ranks” were involved in the act of watching YouTube or playing video games while on the clock,” as presented by a report by the Sybil Brand Commission.
It was also noted by the Sybil Brand Commission that this was occurring while “in the next room, people with serious mental illness languished in solitary confinement for up to 23 hours per day and complained about not being permitted to take a shower.”
As per insights of the in-custody death tracker, “thirty-seven people have died this year so far in LA County jail, about one a week.”
An attorney with ACLU, Melissa Camacho, told the LA Public Press, “With deaths in the LA County jails approaching one per week, it is appalling that a deputy whose job is to make sure people are alive was watching videos in their watch…people who are at risk of death by suicide are in danger in the LA County jails.”
Due to the concern of the ACLU a lawsuit was filed against LA County.
Both parties reached a settlement in June over what was deemed “barbaric” jail conditions in the perspective of the ACLU, which said, “The county agreed to create nearly 2,000 more community beds as an alternative to incarceration, and increase mental health staff in the jails, among other terms.”
