Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco is facing a lawsuit after a woman died by suicide while in custody, the latest in a string of legal issues the department is facing.
The family of 21-year-old San Jacinto resident Alicia Upton, who died on April 28, 2022, at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside, is suing Bianco and the county, as reported in the Press-Enterprise.
According to the lawsuit, filed on Dec. 31 in Riverside, Upton’s death and her risk for self-harm was evident on “surveillance video [that] recorded the entirety of the event, from the time Upton began crafting a noose from bed sheets at 8:14 p.m. until the time she tied the noose around the top part of the bunk bed in her cell at 8:18 p.m. and then asphyxiated herself,” the Press-Enterprise reports.
Bianco told the newspaper that “to say we’re responsible for a suicide is silly.”
“This is nothing more than someone wanting money,” Bianco said. “We’re still in the same place where there’s no personal accountability for anything — just sue the person with the deepest pockets.”
However, a Desert Sun investigation found that Bianco and his department refused to release the names of 12 of 13 people who died in custody in 2022, which violates the law requiring the state Department of Justice be informed within 10 days of in-custody deaths.
Bianco and his department did not respond to the Desert Sun when it requested comment on the investigation.
Last year, the Press-Enterprise reported that there were ultimately 18 in-custody deaths in 2022, a figure that Bianco pointed out includes “fentanyl overdoses, suicides, homicides, illness and old age.”
Including Upton’s family, at least four inmates’ families have filed suit against the county alleging wrongful death, and state Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into the department last year.
After Bonta’s investigation was announced, Bianco called it a “witch hunt” and a “stunt,” according to the Press-Enterprise.
“Of course I’m not happy, this is going to waste our time,” he told the paper. “Every single one of these inmate deaths was out of anyone’s control. The fact of the matter is that they just happened to be in our custody.”
