The parents of a man who died by suicide after being held inside an LA County jail said Thursday that they recently obtained documents and video recordings -- that they say show deputies failed to check on their son and other inmates while the deputies were watching internet videos and eating.
Timestamps on the September 22, 2023 video recordings, produced by the LA County Sheriff's Department in response to the family's legal demands in federal court, show the video-watching and meal took place around the time 22-year-old Maxwell Aguirre attempted to hang himself inside his cell, which the deputies were supposed to be monitoring.
"They were watching YouTube, they were, 'celebrating,' they were eating Chick-fil-A," Denisse Gastelum, the family's attorney, told reporters outside U.S. District Court in Downtown LA, where a civil rights and negligence lawsuit was filed against LA County in June, 2024.
Aguirre, a US Air Force veteran who was in jail awaiting trial on a murder charge, could be seen on one of the video recordings covering the windows of his cell inside the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, then a short time later, Gastelum said Aguirre's feet could be seen thrashing before becoming still -- the moment she says he succumbed to a ligature he had made to try to hang himself.
"We as a society should not tolerate government officials, who take on a job to care and protect incarcerated persons, and with impunity (they) do not fulfil those roles," Gastelum said of the deputies and other staff who were assigned to supervise the jail unit.
Aguirre was still alive when deputies were alerted to his hanging and was taken to a hospital, where he remained on life support for a week before he died, according to records, the lawsuit, and the family.
Gastelum said some of the other records produced by the Sheriff's Department include a report from a sergeant that appears to confirm the deputies in question skipped mandated cell and inmate welfare checks during the same time period.
The family said Aguirre had attempted to take his own life with medication in the weeks prior to the hanging and had asked the jail staff for mental health treatment, so they said the staff was on notice that Aguirre was in distress.
"His death was completely preventable," said Aguirre's father Omar of the alleged failure to monitor his son's wellbeing.
"My son never even made it to court, he died in jail, and nobody cared," Omar Aguirre said.
The LA County Sheriff's Department did not respond directly to the allegations in the lawsuit, but sent NBCLA a lengthy statement that described the Department's challenges in managing a jail population that includes many inmates in need of mental health care.
"The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department goes to great lengths to maintain this immensely complex system and our primary goal is to ensure the safety of justice involved individuals within its custody, including those who are going through mental health crisis," the statement said.
Aguirre was one of the 45 in-custody deaths inside the LA County jail system in 2023, and 38 so far this year.
The Sheriff's Department said in the statement it was working to reduce in-custody deaths, which the California Attorney General's Office said was a major factor in its decision to file a lawsuit against the County over poor conditions in jails.
Aguirre's mother Yvette said the revelations in the documents and video recordings have made her more determined to pursue the family's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department. She said during the news conference Thursday that the Department misled her about her son's condition during the 7 days between the time he tried to hang himself and when he finally died in a hospital.
She said Sheriff's officials repeatedly said her son was in 'stable' condition following the incident.
"What the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department calls stable, most of us call brain dead and on life support," she said.
"It's their own actions of covering up for me, personally, why I want to be doing this," she said of the lawsuit.
The LA County District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday that Aguirre had been charged with a July, 2023 murder, but could not immediately provide more detail on the nature of the case.
Aguirre's family characterized the prosecution as a manslaughter case, and said Aguirre was planning to defend himself against the charge when the case went to court.