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San Diego County will pay $3.5 million to the family of a mentally ill man who died three years ago after sheriff’s deputies tried to forcefully remove him from a jail holding cell.
It is the largest settlement yet for an in-custody fatality in the San Diego County jail system. The agreement comes as the Sheriff’s Department is confronting at least a dozen other lawsuits over inmate deaths and injuries.
Paul Silva’s mother called San Diego police on Feb. 20, 2018, because her son had stopped taking medication for schizophrenia and was experiencing a psychotic episode.
Instead of taking him to a hospital, police took Silva to the Men’s Central Jail in downtown San Diego, where he remained in a holding cell for 36 hours with lights on around the clock and no access to fresh water, medical care, a bed, clean clothes or enough food, according to the family’s lawsuit.