SAN DIEGO, CA — A 35-year-old man in custody at San Diego Central Jail was stricken by some sort of apparent medical emergency Wednesday and died hours later in a hospital, authorities reported.

Deputies and a nurse distributing medication at the Front Street detention center at about 4:30 a.m. found the inmate slumped over a table in his cell, seemingly in “medical distress,” according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

Jailers performed CPR on the man prior to the arrival of paramedics, who took over the lifesaving efforts and transported him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 8:30 a.m., sheriff’s Lt. Juan Marquez said.

The identity of the inmate, who had been in jail for six days on suspicion of grand theft and violation of a court order, was withheld pending family notification.

A cause-of-death ruling in the case was pending.

“The San Diego Sheriff’s Office extends our sympathies to the decedent’s family and all those affected by his passing,” Marquez said. “A sheriff’s family-liaison officer will support the family as they navigate through this difficult time.”

The Sheriff’s Office, which runs the county’s jails, has been under scrutiny for years due its unusually high number of in-custody deaths. In 2022, the California State Auditor’s Office found “deficiencies with how the (county agency) provides care for and protects incarcerated individuals (that) likely contributed to in-custody deaths.”

That audit examined 185 deaths within the San Diego-area jail system from 2006 through 2020, a rate that exceeded all of California’s other large counties during the same period. Nineteen in-custody deaths occurred in the county in 2022 alone, and another six took place in 2023.

The Sheriff’s Office has committed to a $500 million effort to modernize and upgrade its jails.

In a statement released in October, the Sheriff’s Office said “significant improvements” have been made to the jail system in recent years but acknowledged that additional upgrades will require substantial county investment. The agency said improvements underway at county jail facilities include the installation of modern camera systems capable of longer video retention.

— City News Service