DUBLIN — The 2021 death of an East Bay man at the Santa Rita Jail is being viewed under new intense scrutiny, after widely publicized body camera footage shows deputies ignored warning signs of his ailing health and later allegedly forged records to disguise the lack of check-ins.
Maurice Monk, 45, of Oakland, died face down in his single-person cell at Santa Rita Jail, where he’d spent three to four days without being checked on by jail staff, the body camera footage shows. The footage, first obtained by KTVU, shows that a deputy entered Monk’s cell the day before his death, kicking uneaten food from the door’s entryway, and leaving without further action.
Monk suffered from numerous medical maladies and schizoaffective disorder, according to court records.
In the days before his death, other deputies who passed by wondered, “is (Monk) awake? Is he alive?” but didn’t actually enter the cell to check, KTVU reported.
Now, Monk’s family has filed a federal lawsuit against the county and the company it uses to provide medical care at the jail. The suit, filed through the firm of local civil rights attorney Adante Pointer, calls Monk’s death “an unconscionable failure of the entire Santa Rita Jail staff.”
“It is an abhorrent disregard of basic morality and Constitutional requirements that should shake this deeply flawed government entity to its core,” the civil complaint says.
The Alameda County Sheriff’s office — under new leadership since last January — has declined to comment on Monk’s death, pending the outcome of the lawsuit.
The suit also alleges that deputies falsified records to make it appear that Monk was being checked up on. By the time his body was discovered, he was lying face down on a mattress, next to a puddle of urine and uneaten food on the floor. He likely died long before his body was found, as the words “Alameda County” from his jail garb were stained into his chest as his body began to decompose, KTVU reported.
Monk was in jail because he couldn’t pay the $2,500 bond necessary to be released. He had been charged with threatening a bus driver, a misdemeanor, during an argument over whether he should wear a face mask on a bus, court records show.