The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week voted to pay about $1 million to settle two lawsuits brought by the wife of a 58-year-old man who allegedly hung himself in a county jail in 2013.
Kurt Guenther, an Air Force veteran and aerospace engineer, was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer and a firefighter. He reportedly told deputies that he wanted to kill himself and was placed on suicide watch at the Palmdale Sheriff’s station. Staff members at the Palmdale Regional Medical Center saw Guenther before he was transferred downtown to the county’s Inmate Reception Center. The center received paperwork indicating that Guenther was at risk of suicide, but this information was reportedly not forwarded to the clinical social worker assigned to the center who evaluated him at the jail.
Guenther reportedly told the clinician that he was not thinking of suicide, but was assessed as having a “sad” mood and was transferred to the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. Three days later, radiologists alerted the jail that Guenther may have tuberculosis. Before transferring Guenther to an isolation cell, a social worker conducted a psychiatric evaluation of Guenther and determined that he was not suicidal nor did he pose a threat to other persons. About 52 hours after that evaluation, Guenther was found hanging in his cell.
Guenther’s wife, Martha, filed two lawsuits—one in Los Angeles and another in federal court—against the Sheriff’s Department and the Department of Mental Health, alleging that her husband’s civil rights had been violated. County lawyers recommended settling both cases for $999,995, citing the “risks of uncertainties of litigation,” according to Board documents.
In 2014, the Department of Justice released an assessment of the county’s jail system that found that 15 inmates had committed suicide in 30 months; some of the deaths [reportedly] could have been prevented. The agency concluded that despite continued federal prodding, the Los Angeles County jail system failed to sufficiently protect mentally ill inmates and regularly violated their civil rights. The assessment cited “widespread lapses with regard to basic supervision of prisoners at risk” and a “suicide review process that often included inaccurate information.”
