The voices demanding that Sheriff Kelly Martinez do more to stop overdoses inside San Diego County jails continue to grow louder.
Family members of people who died in sheriff’s custody spoke out Tuesday before the civilian oversight board, and board members voted for the third time in two years to recommend that the Sheriff’s Department scan deputies for illegal drugs as they enter work.
“I will always wonder where the drugs came from, how they got into the jail,” Sundee Weddle, whose son, 22-year-old Saxon Rodriguez, suffered a fatal overdose in San Diego Central Jail nearly three years ago.
“I believe somebody working on the fourth floor on July 20, 2021, knows the answers to my questions,” Weddle told the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board.
Later in the meeting, the review board voted to resubmit a formal recommendation to the sheriff that all staff undergo body scans as they enter county jails as a way to help keep drugs out of the lockups.
The Sheriff’s Department has twice rejected the suggestion from the oversight board and has not acted on similar recommendations from the county grand jury and the California state auditor.
Martinez says the department has taken steps to reduce the amount of drugs in jails.
“Resources are being used creatively and efficiently to combat overdoses and drug smuggling in ways that are intentionally leveraging our resources based on best practices, guided by evidence and actionable intelligence,” the department wrote in its latest reply to the board’s suggestion.
The issue of scanning deputies on their way into working at jails has become something of a flash point as people have continued to die in custody at alarming rates.
Three people have already died in San Diego County jails so far this year, a pace that would exceed the 13 in-custody deaths recorded last year. In 2022, 20 people died in sheriff’s custody, surpassing the 18 people who died behind bars in 2021.
According to a state audit released in 2022, 185 people died in San Diego County jails between 2006 and 2020 — the highest rate of any large county in California. State officials said conditions and practices in San Diego County jails were so dangerous that legislation was needed to force improvements.
Many of those deaths result from accidental drug overdoses, records show.
At the review board meeting Tuesday night, speakers complained that the Sheriff’s Department too often withholds information and medical records related to jail deaths.
They also noted that the number of overdoses reported inside county jails has not been updated since last year.
The department is confronting a slew of civil lawsuits filed by relatives of people who have died in custody, and the county already has spent more than $60 million in recent years to pay legal settlements and jury awards.
Martinez has said her department is always working to improve practices and there is no evidence that employees are responsible for the flow of drugs into county jails.
“We have developed a strategy to plug the gaps in our security that might allow drugs to enter our facilities,” her Nov. 29 letter to the review board said. “This comprehensive strategy has reduced drugs entering our facilities to almost zero.”
Two sheriff’s deputies have been convicted of drug-related offenses in recent months.
One deputy was arrested last year for stealing drugs from a drop box inside a sheriff’s station; another was charged with possessing cocaine on jail property. Both subsequently pleaded guilty and were sentenced to two years of probation.
Recommendations from the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board are strictly advisory, meaning the sheriff is not obliged to implement anything the oversight panel proposes.
Family members of people who died in San Diego County jails urged the review board Tuesday night to take their complaints to the county Board of Supervisors.
Supervisors control the Sheriff’s Department budget but generally defer to the elected sheriff in setting policy.
