An inmate in the Mendocino County jail was found dead in his cell shortly after 6:00 Tuesday morning. The 64-year-old decedent, whose next of kin has not been notified, was arrested a few minutes after midnight by Ukiah police, after they received word from the Mendocino County Probation Department that the battery in the man’s GPS device had run out of power. Officers found him near the river at Ford Street and arrested him for possession of drug paraphernalia and disposing of refuse in state waters, both misdemeanors. He had also failed to register as a sex offender, a violation of parole which would have resulted in his return to prison.
Sheriff Matthew Kendall spoke with us Tuesday afternoon, saying the inmate was seen by jail nursing staff at intake, then placed in the sobering cell at around 1:00 am. “He remained in sobering and we did checks on him four times an hour,” until 6:00 am, when corrections deputies saw that he was not showing signs of life. Kendall said within one or two minutes jail medical staff began life-saving measures, which were unsuccessful. An ambulance crew and fire department personnel arrived and were likewise unable to revive him.
Jail Commander Captain Joyce Spears spoke about the intake procedure, saying staff takes a complete medical history to determine if the detainee is healthy enough to come into custody. “They said he was good to come in, so we put him in the sobering cell because he was under the influence,” she concluded. The inmate was not given Narcan at the time of intake, because his pulse and respiration did not indicate the necessity to do so. Spears said medical staff also check new inmates for possible head injuries, signs of exposure, or health problems other than being under the influence during the intake procedure. “We would have had a pretty good idea of what he was doing at the time,” she said.
Kendall said the man had been in jail frequently over the past few years, so, “Our jail medical (staff) has a lot of medical history just in house, here, on him,” he said.
Spears added that every 15 minutes, corrections deputies check on inmates to see if they are breathing and moving, and that, “Once an hour, we do an actual physical check where we go in and talk to them. And that’s when he didn’t respond, so we went in.”
Kendall remains deeply concerned about the prevalence of fentanyl in many street drugs. “A lot of people who are using methamphetamine, a lot of people who are using heroin, people who are using prescription pills not realizing they are counterfeits, are actually using fentanyl,” he cautioned. “We’ve got some serious concerns about the health and well-being of everyone in the community, but we also have some serious concerns about those incarcerated, because that incarcerated group of individuals is a lot more likely to be using substances,” he noted.
Spears maintains that, “We have a very good medical department, and a very good intake process. It’s pretty much standard across the state.” Kendall expects the autopsy results to be back in a week to ten days, but that lab results for toxicology and blood work could take as long as five weeks, in part due to lingering backlogs from covid. The pathologist will check for injuries, though Kendall is confident that the inmate did not experience any violence while he was in jail. “We’ve got cameras in the jail that show there was no violence, nothing like that,” he said. “He wasn’t assaulted by anyone. But our questions are always, was he assaulted on the street. But the nursing staff also looks for contusions, looks for abrasions, looks for things like that. And I don’t believe that we saw any on this subject.”
Spears says the last in-custody took place on May first. Kendall said it’s, “A really sad situation, and we feel terrible any time that somebody is in our custody that passes on. I mean, we’re human beings.”