(The Center Square) – California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Monday that the state is suing Los Angeles County for jail conditions that Bonta said varies from poor health care to rat infestations.
Bonta said conditions have led to “suffering and yes, deaths.”
Other defendants in the suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, are the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Sheriff Robert Luna, Los Angeles County Correctional Health Services and CHS Director Dr. Timothy Belavich.
“The jails are overcrowded and under-resourced,” according to the suit. “Incarcerated persons are forced to live in filthy cells with broken and overflowing toilets, infestations of rats and roaches, and no clean water for drinking or bathing.”
The suit calls for the court, among other actions, to order the defendants to provide adequate “medical, dental and mental health care” and “habitable, humane and safe conditions of confinement.” The litigation demands the county “respect the dignity and health of incarcerated persons.”
Bonta told reporters he would have preferred “collaboration over litigation.”
“While the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Luna have made a number of reforms to patrol operations during the course of our investigation, they have remained obstinate on the issue of improving the unsafe and unconstitutional conditions at county jails,” Bonta said.
“We’re going to court because we have no other choice. We will not let Los Angeles County continue to ignore its responsibility to the health, safety, and well-being of the individuals under its care,” he told reporters during a news conference at the California Department of Justice’s offices in Los Angeles.
The lawsuit is accusing the county of having uninhabitable and overcrowded jails with inadequate plumbing, sanitation and temperature control, which the Attorney’s General Office said has contributed to multiple deaths.
