East County News Service

Update May 15:  The deceased has been identified as Callen Lines.

May 14, 2025 (Santee) – A 31-year-old woman died in a hospital on May 12, one day after she was arrested for vehicle theft and resisting arrest.

According to Lt. Juan Marquez with the San Diego County Sheriff’s department, sergeants at the Las Colinas and Reentry Facility in Santee found the woman unresponsive in her cell at 7:25 p.m. on May 12 while performing routine supervisor checks.

The sergeants began CPR, activated 9-1-1and requested help from the facility’s medical staff.

Emergency medical personnel from American Medical Response (AMR) Ambulance #5 and the Santee Fire Department assumed lifesaving measures upon their arrival. AMR Ambulance transported the woman to a local hospital. Despite their efforts, the woman was pronounced deceased at the hospital at about 8:15 p.m.

By Miriam Raftery

September 21, 2024 (San Diego) – San Diego County’s Sheriff’s department has been under scrutiny for years over its high rate of jail deaths. Despite numerous reforms implemented by Sheriff Kelly Martinez that have reduced the overall number of prisoner deaths, yet another shocking death has sparked a lawsuit against the County—this time, a diabetic man who pleaded for insulin, as did fellow inmates on his behalf. His empty insulin pump beeped for nearly 24 hours before the man was found dead in his jail cell.

Keith Galen Bach, 62, of Chula Vista died in San Diego’s Central Jail a year ago, on Sept. 28. He was arrested Sept. 25 on charges of vandalism and making criminal threats. He was hospitalized briefly due to diabetic-related illness before being jailed; at the time of his arrest he had informed staff he would run out of insulin the next day, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

By Miriam Raftery

July 21, 2021 (San Diego) —  Why does San Diego County have the highest rate of jail deaths of any other major California county?  Local legislators hope to find out.  On July 1st, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee approved a measure to ask California’s State Auditor to provide independently developed and verified information on inmate deaths in the custody of the San Diego Sheriff’s department.

The request for the audit was introduced by Assemblymember Akilah Weber (D-San Diego) along with other members of the San Diego delegation including Assemblymembers Tasha Boerner-Horvath, Brian Maienschein, Christopher Ward, Lorena Gonzalez, Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins, and Senator Ben Hueso.

“The approval of this audit request may provide answers to the many families who have lost loved ones while in the custody of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office,” said Assemblymember Weber. "A jail sentence should not be a de facto death sentence. We can use this opportunity to uncover the disparities of the department protocol so that we can implement better procedures for protecting the safety of incarcerated individuals.”