{"id":152850,"date":"2026-01-28T05:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/152850\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T05:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T05:23:11","slug":"cause-of-death-pending-for-man-who-died-in-police-custody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/152850\/","title":{"rendered":"Cause of death pending for man who died in police custody"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"El<\/a>An El Cajon Police cruiser. (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Authorities Tuesday publicly identified a 52-year-old East Coast resident who passed out while being detained by El Cajon police<\/a> and died of unknown causes in a hospital 13 days later.<\/p>\n

A 911 caller reported seeing a man later identified as Qui Ly of Portsmouth, Virginia, running in traffic and yelling for help in the area of Magnolia and West Chase avenues at about 6 a.m. on Jan. 4, according to the San Diego Police Department<\/a>, which investigates in-custody deaths involving personnel with the El Cajon Police Department under terms of a countywide agreement designed to prevent actual or perceived conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n

When ECPD officers arrived a short time later in the neighborhood northeast of Mount Helix, Ly \u201crefused to follow their verbal commands\u201d and instead laid himself down prone on the roadway, SDPD Lt. Lou Maggi said.<\/p>\n

At that point the personnel \u2014 Sgt. James Juns and Officers Alma Benevidez, Ian Gilliom, Malala Sapini and Brian Valadez \u2014 handcuffed Ly, \u201capplied soft restraints to his ankles\u201d and called for an ambulance, according to Maggi. While paramedics were en route, Ly lost consciousness, the lieutenant said.<\/p>\n

The officers tried in vain to revive Ly with CPR and, in case his condition was drug-related, the overdose-reversing medication naloxone, according to police. He was then hospitalized, \u201cbut his condition did not improve,\u201d Maggi said.<\/p>\n

On Jan. 17, medical staff notified the El Cajon Police Department that Ly had died. A ruling on his cause of death remains on hold pending completion of postmortem examinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cDetectives will be working with the Medical Examiner\u2019s Office to determine if the use of force played any role in (Ly\u2019s) death,\u201d Maggi said.<\/p>\n

Benevidez has been with the El Cajon Police Department for three years, Gilliom for 1 1\/2 years, Juns for 24 years, Sapini for 2 1\/2 years and Valadez for four years.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An El Cajon Police cruiser. (Photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) Authorities Tuesday publicly identified a 52-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[18217,15713,15642,75291,74,76,75,9862],"class_list":["post-152850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-el-cajon-police-department","tag-in-custody-death","tag-portsmouth","tag-qui-ly","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-police-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}