San Diego Sheriff, who confronted a new federal law on 2024 prison death, San Diego Union-Tribune

When Jose Cervantes Conejo was taken to the hospital with signs of head trauma in March last year, a deputy of the sheriff informed the medical staff that he rolled and hit his head in Vista prison and hit his head.

However, the tests showed that the injuries were “not compatible with a simple fall”, a doctor in the Palomar Medical Center, which was found in Cervantes Conjo's diagram – a skull fracture, a broken eye socket and several brain bleeding.

The 43-year-old fell into a coma and died two weeks later.

Now his wife Maritza Benitez has submitted a federal lawLThe husband, who had to struggle with alcoholism, would have been brought to a medical facility by the Escondido police officer who arrested him and had to move back to retreat. He should at least have been placed in one of the sobering cells in the prison, where it could be checked every 30 minutesPresent The legal complaint says.

The Escondido Police Department did not immediately respond to the questions of the San Diego Union tribune, although public authorities generally comment on legal disputes that have not been pending.

The spokesman for a sheriff office refused to comment on the lawsuit, but said that the guidelines and procedures of the department are “regularly checked and revised in order to meet the legal requirements and best practice”.

Cervantes Conejo was one of nine people who died last year either in a prison of San Diego County or after the transport of prison to a hospital.

He was arrested on March 28, 2024 because he was publicly drunk, an offense under state law. A determination of this law gives the arrest officer the opportunity to bring a person to treat and evaluate a medical facility or a detox center.

“Instead of bringing Conejo for a 72-hour treatment and evaluation in a facility … … the accused transported Conejo and booked it to a Vista home,” said the complaint, which was submitted on May 5.

Since untreated alcohol withdrawal can be fatal, Cervantes Conjo was assessed during the booking process to determine whether it should be placed in the in prison with the withdrawal protocol, which includes medication and surveillance.

He was initially examined by a nurse who found that he was “disoriented, hand and body tremors in peace, blurred speech, bad balance, nausea and vomiting,” the complaint said. However, the nurse chose “none of the above” for an assessment that was particularly asked for these symptoms.

An assistant to a doctor who carried out a subsequent screening-chan-Conjo as a risk of alcohol deprivation, and ordered that he received diazepam, a medication that is often used to relieve the withdrawal symptoms together with the anti-AS-AS drug Keppra. Cervantes Conjo was not given any drug, it says in the complaint.

Instead, he was placed in a holding cell in which he was found on the floor with a bloody nose hours later and his right eye was swollen.

It was taken to the Palomar Medical Center. There, according to the complaint, a representative said that Cervantes Conjo fell from a bank. But a neurosurgeon that rated Cervantes Conjo disagreed.

“Jeffrey Tomlin, MD in the Palomar Medical Center, said that Conejo had a skull fracture in relation to the incident and the mechanism of trauma,” the lawsuit said.

The County San Diego obliges the complaint for “a long -term unconstitutional policy, custom and/or a practice that enabled its MPs and the medical staff to delay and refuse medical care”. Several previous lawsuits are then given as examples, all of which have led to a multimillion dollar settlements.

The medical guidelines of the Sheriff's Office, which were last updated in 2022, explain a specific plan for evaluating people with alcohol abuse and ensure that they are treated for retreat.

The protocol is based on recommendations from the National Commission of Correctional Health Care, which sets standards for medical care in prisons and prisons. The complaint argues that these guidelines have not been followed.

“The plaintiffs are informed and believed … that Conejo's condition in the (Vista Health Anstalt) triggered the application of the NCCHC standards, but the accused do not follow these standards.”