The civilian board that oversees San Diego County law enforcement took the unusual step last week of issuing a press release to draw attention to a policy recommendation that Sheriff Kelly Martinez has twice refused to adopt.
Paul Parker, executive officer of the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board, or CLERB, made the announcement after the Sheriff’s Department again rejected a recommendation that deputies be screened for drugs as they enter San Diego County jails.
Parker said too many people in sheriff’s custody continue to overdose — sometimes fatally — on illegal drugs that continue to find their way into county lockups.
“CLERB continues to be disappointed that body scanning of staff is not occurring,” he said. “(We) were hopeful that, at a minimum, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department would implement random body scanning of all staff.
“In other industries, most notably commercial airline operations, personnel are randomly scanned,” he added. “As long as we continue to see overdose deaths in our jails, we will continue to push for scanning.”
Parker said he would schedule the matter for public discussion later this month, when the civilian oversight board next convenes.
Sheriff’s Department officials said the recommendation was not rejected lightly. They said they share the review board’s interest in maintaining safe and secure jails and base all decisions on best practices, safety and security.
Sheriff Kelly Martinez “carefully reviews all recommendations from CLERB for possible implementation and will continue to take all input seriously,” a department spokesperson said by email.
The review board first recommended the department scan deputies as they enter jails in 2022, months after the atate auditor issued a scathing report that found the sheriff was not doing enough to protect people in custody.
The department rejected the suggestion, saying among other things that there was no evidence that sworn officers were responsible for illegal drugs entering county jails and that it was concerned about the potential health effects to deputies of repeated exposure to scanners.
Soon after Martinez was sworn in as sheriff early last year, the review board made the policy recommendation once again.
The county grand jury then issued the same recommendation last June.
In the sheriff’s response to the second request from the review board, which was dated Nov. 29 but not released until last week, department officials said they already had taken multiple steps to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into jails.
“We have developed a strategy to plug the gaps in our security that might allow drugs to enter our facilities,” the department wrote. “This includes searches, investigations, intelligence gathering, body scanners and drug-detecting K-9s, among other measures.”
“This comprehensive strategy has reduced drugs entering our facilities to almost zero,” the department said.
However, one of two people to die in San Diego County jails so far this year was administered naloxone, indicating he may have suffered a drug overdose. No cause has yet been released, because the Jan. 5 death of Eric Wolf in the Central Jail remains under investigation.
The review board said it supports steps taken by sheriff’s officials to date to reduce drug deaths and overdoses, but more needs to be done.
“CLERB officials say they were grateful for those actions and a 35 percent reduction in the number of in-custody deaths from 2022 to 2023,” the news release said. “However, they said there were still 146 suspected overdoses in county detention facilities in 2023 and ‘our goal must be zero overdoses’.”
The 146 suspected drug overdoses in county jails last year marked a decline from each of the prior two years, when more than 200 suspected overdoses were reported in both 2021 and 2022, county data show.
In September, the Sheriff’s Department was sued by the families of two men who died in custody. They accused the department of tolerating drug sales inside county jails, and in some cases participating in them.
Sheriff’s officials rejected the allegations.
Days later, the department issued a press release describing the recent arrest of a woman accused of trying to smuggle drugs into the George Bailey Detention Facility by soaking documents in liquid methamphetamine and mailing them to the jail.
In its statement, the department also noted that it had upgraded its mail-processing system to better screen for illegal drugs.
The review board, meanwhile, which investigates all in-custody deaths, has begun citing the Sheriff’s Department for behavior the board says violate its own policies when it comes to drug fatalities inside county jails.
Twice in recent months the civilian oversight board has found deputies in violation of department rules that call for providing adequate health and safety to people in custody.
At its monthly meeting Feb. 13, the review board is scheduled to debate the recommendation that deputies be scanned for drugs whenever they enter jails for the third time over the past two years.
