Contending the killing was unforeseeable, attorneys representing Los Angeles County want a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the estate and brother of a 32-year-old woman who allegedly died at the hands of another inmate at the Los Angeles County women’s jail in Lynwood in late 2021.
The complaint by the estate of the late Destiny Ortega and her sibling, Steven Stevens, was filed in Compton Superior Court in October 2022 and amended two months later, now alleging wrongful death, negligence, civil rights violations and failure to summon immediate medical care. A deputy found the mortally wounded Ortega about 3:15 a.m. Dec. 29, 2021, on the floor of her cell at the Century Regional Detention Facility a day after Pomona police arrested her on suspicion of a parole violation, sheriff’s officials said previously.
According to the amended suit, Ortega was assigned to the same cell as Shannon Brown, an inmate who deputies should have isolated because they allegedly knew or should have known Brown was mentally ill and a potential danger to others. Instead, deputies acted “purposely or with reckless disregard” for Ortega’s safety by putting Brown and Ortega in the same cell while knowing that Brown could be a danger to another inmate, according to the revised suit.
Ortega suffered a “violent, prolonged and painful death,” according to the amended complaint. But in court papers filed Monday urging that Judge Fumiko Wasserman toss out the lawsuit during a hearing scheduled July 25, lawyers for the county say jail personnel could not have anticipated Brown’s attack on Ortega.
“Moreover, the undisputed evidence shows that county employees timely and adequately performed safety checks and not only summoned, but rendered immediate medical care to Ortega once Brown’s attack was discovered,” the county lawyers state in their court papers.
Brown was brought to the Lynwood facility on Dec. 28, 2021, after she had been arraigned on charges stemming from her arrest five days earlier by Los Angeles police on an assault with a deadly weapon charge, according to county lawyers, who further state in their pleadings that the jail employee who conducted Brown’s security classification found her to be calm and not showing signs of aggressive behavior.
“If jail staff had observed Brown exhibit any behavior that suggested she would pose a danger to another inmate, jail staff would not have housed her with another inmate,” the county attorneys further state in their pleadings.
Prior to a deputy finding Ortega lying on the cell floor face down and in a pool of blood, the jail staff did not observe or hear anything unusual and no other inmates reported hearing any disturbance, the county attorneys further state in their court papers.
The plaintiffs’ amended suit contends the sheriff’s department has a history of allowing inmates suffering from mental illness or who have gang histories to mix with others in the general population, in part due to a lack of training. The alleged failure of the deputies to comply with their training “caused them to endanger (Ortega’s) well-being,” ultimately causing Ortega’s death, the revised complaint states.