The family of a mentally ill man who was fatally beaten by fellow inmates at the George Bailey Detention Facility in Otay Mesa has filed a lawsuit against the county, which alleges the sheriff’s department was aware he’d been assaulted on prior occasions yet didn’t take steps to ensure his safety.
The lawsuit filed Friday in San Diego federal court says 52-year-old Raymond Vogelman suffered from “severe mental illness,” which led him to be targeted by other inmates.
Vogelman was arrested in March of 2022 and was assaulted at least two times over the next few months, according to the lawsuit, which states Vogelman was hospitalized after each of those incidents.
On Oct. 5, 2022, Vogelman sustained ultimately fatal injuries during a fight at the jail and died at a hospital, according to the sheriff’s department.
Vogelman’s family alleges in their complaint that he should have placed him in protective custody due to the prior assaults.
The lawsuit alleges Vogelman’s placement “subjected him to a serious risk of assault and injury” and put him “in a situation where he was once again subjected to assault by fellow inmates.”
It also alleges jail staff failed to prevent Vogelman’s fatal beating because safety checks of jail cells were conducted once per hour instead of “at random or varied intervals,” as required by the California Code of Regulations. As the hourly cell checks “were known to all,” this made it “certain that assailants could perfectly time a beating from the last safety check.”
The lawsuit, which also names former San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore and then-interim Sheriff Anthony Ray as defendants, recounts the county’s “long history of the failure to protect vulnerable detainees” by listing numerous recent deaths of county jail inmates from homicides, suicides, drug overdoses, and medical issues.
The high frequency of deaths at San Diego County jails prompted a California State Auditor investigation that found deficiencies in the sheriff’s department’s policies and practices regarding inmate safety checks, mental health treatment and staff responses to emergencies.
City News Service contributed to this article.