Trial is slated to begin in a lawsuit stemming from the death of a man while in custody at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, with his relatives alleging negligence by the facility’s staff.
The trial is set to begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in downtown federal court.
The family of Gerardo Cruz-Sanchez alleges he contracted pneumonia while in custody in early 2016, which eventually left him incapacitated. Despite being in clear physical pain – the complaint asserts that he vomited blood and lost the ability to talk or eat – center staff allegedly ignored him.
He died at a hospital on Feb. 29, 2016, almost three weeks after his arrest. Cruz-Sanchez was not charged with a crime, but was arrested as a material witness in a criminal case against another person accused of smuggling migrants.
The lawsuit, filed in 2018, targets the federal government, CoreCivic, the private company that runs the center, and a correctional officer, referred to as “C.O. Landin” in court documents – who allegedly ignored both Cruz-Sanchez and his cellmate’s pleas for help.
The complaint accuses the officer of telling Cruz-Sanchez to “man up” and “stop being a chicken,” and mocked his cellmate by saying he was acting like Cruz-Sanchez’s “girlfriend or wife.”
The officer also allegedly chastised Cruz-Sanchez for coughing up blood on a common area table, yelling “Why are you making a mess! This is where everyone eats!”
According to court documents, the government contends health professionals on staff “met the standards of care” during Cruz-Sanchez’s period of detention.
Government attorneys also allege Cruz-Sanchez met with medical clinic staff on multiple occasions, but did not return to the clinic once his condition began rapidly deteriorating. He had received medical advice in which staff “repeatedly advised him to return to the clinic if his symptoms worsened.”
CoreCivic denies the allegations and claims Landin was not working in Cruz-Sanchez’s housing unit at the time cited in the family’s suit, according to court filings.
– City News Service
