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After investigating too many fatal drug overdoses in San Diego County jails, the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board executive officer last year began formally blaming the Sheriff’s Office for the deaths. Paul Parker, who resigned as the top civilian-oversight official earlier this year, said even though it was not clear how the victims acquired the drugs that killed them, the department was at fault for allowing the contraband into the jails. “Ultimately, this investigation was unable to determine how the decedent obtained the drugs which contributed to his death,” the review board said after the February 2023 death of Ryan Patrick Thuresson at the Vista Detention Facility.
“However, the evidence did indicate the decedent consumed illicit drugs while he was in the custody of the (sheriff’s office),” it found. Now Sheriff Kelly A. Martinez is challenging those findings under the legal theory that the oversight board lacks jurisdiction over her department as a whole.
She said the board can only issue misconduct or other findings against individual deputies. In a letter released ahead of the monthly meeting this past Wednesday night, Martinez said the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, or CLERB, was overstepping its legal authority by blaming the department for drug-related deaths in custody. Related Articles News | Sheriff introduces new jail safety efforts, and faces critics, in first oversight-board appearance and in-depth interview News | Oceanside treasurer candidate arrested, subject of emergency gun order News | Another major report recommends charter school oversight reforms after A3 fraud case News | In 5 years since investigation, little progress in stopping deaths in San Diego County jails News | San Diego teens’ scrutiny of nonprofit spurs district-wide audit of school foundations “The sheriff believes that the sustained findings of misconduct against the entire Sheriff’s Office, as the subject officer(s), do not fall within the San Diego County Charter, nor the authority granted to CLERB by the San Diego County Board of Supervisors,” it states.
The sheriff’s reply to the sustained findings comes as Martinez is facing increased scrutiny over the number of men and women who die in department custody. San Diego County jails had an unusually high death rate when The San Diego Union-Tribune published a six-month investigation five years ago, and the rate has risen sharply since then, the newspaper reported Sunday. In-custody deaths cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in legal fees, settlements and jury awards.
At the CLERB meeting Wednesday night, the lawyer for the civilian oversight board said the sheriff could be on firm legal footing because of imprecise language in the board’s founding documents. But attorney Ellen Gross said the review board has options other than issuing formal findings of misconduct against the Sheriff’s Office. The board could pass resolutions outlining what it deems improper actions by the department, she said.
It could send letters of concern to the sheriff, the county Board of Supervisors, the county grand jury or state and federal officials, Gross added. The board also could issue a news release, publicly declaring its thinking but stopping short of issuing formal findings that could be used in litigation against the county, she said. “Some of the allegations can be construed as systemic,” Gross told the board.
“CLERB would be remiss to not bring these concerns forward.” In the letter, which was dated July 15 but not released publicly until just before this past review board meeting, the Sheriff’s Office took issue with findings and recommendations the board issued in nine cases from 2021 to 2023. The sheriff cited seven cases in which CLERB found that the department had “failed to keep illicit drugs out of the jail system” and that “unidentified (sheriff’s) staff failed to keep drugs out of jails.
” The three-page letter was signed on Martinez’s behalf by Lt. David Perkins of the sheriff’s Division of Inspectional Services. It also disputed findings in two other cases that the department had failed to provide a safe environment for incarcerated people.
“I cite the above reasons in these findings as being inappropriate against the entire Sheriff’s Office,” Perkins wrote. In an interview, Martinez said the sheriff’s legal team adopted a similar position almost a decade ago. Her staff provided a copy of a 2015 letter challenging the review board’s authority to hold the department responsible for an excessive-force complaint against unidentified deputies.
“The report issued in this case far exceeds the authority of the CLERB as set forth above,” the 2015 reply said. It was not clear how that disagreement between the sheriff and review board was resolved. Just as in 2015, the sheriff said the review board’s charter calls for it to investigate negligence or misconduct committed by sworn officers — not the whole agency.
“I need them to direct us to specific individuals,” Martinez said. “Our entire department cannot be disciplined.” The challenge to the review board’s authority was not well received by review board members, or by the numerous speakers at the Wednesday night meeting.
“The Sheriff’s Office is cherry-picking language in order to overturn 30 years of CLERB oversight,” resident Deidre McLeod said in a statement to the board. “This is not a logical reading of the county ordinance or the intent behind it.” CLERB regularly issues policy recommendations for both the Sheriff’s Office and the Probation Department.
The suggestions are nonbinding and offered only in the spirit of improving county practices. Parker quit in March after deciding that the review board could not function as effectively as he needed, due to limitations imposed by board members, the Sheriff’s Office and the county Board of Supervisors. Before he resigned, he pushed for a variety of changes he said would better protect people in county jails, including body-scanning everyone entering jails and expanding CLERB authority to include medical staff, among others.
He also issued a number recommendations that were not implemented by the sheriff, or in some cases not responded to. “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,” Parker told the Union-Tribune last March. The review board this summer named longtime FBI agent Brett Kalina as its new executive officer.
He presided over his second meeting on Wednesday. The board on Wednesday directed staff to return next month with more specific recommendations..
