Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/orange-county-sheriffs-department/)
The suicide death of an inmate who was awaiting trial is raising questions about mental health care and safety checks on inmates in Orange County jail facilities. A federal judge called some of the mental health policies “problematic.”
Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders says Sheriff’s Department personnel and Global Tel Link, the county’s jail phone contractor, knew about improper recordings of attorney-client jail calls but conspired to cover it up. He also points to discrepancies in data turned over by Global Tel Link that suggest far more than 1,079 attorney-client phone calls were improperly recorded.
The vendor, Global Tel-Link, potentially jeopardized criminal cases by improperly recording phone calls between attorneys and their clients.
A hunger strike by Orange County jail inmates ended as of 10 p.m. Friday according to Sheriff’s spokesman Ray Grangoff.
Roughly 150 to 200 Orange County jail inmates are on a hunger strike to protest jailhouse conditions, according to two different estimates — one from the OC Sheriff’s Department and another from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Orange County supervisors voted without discussion and in less time than it took to read the agenda’s one sentence summary, to buy a $3.6 million surveillance plane for the Sheriff’s Department.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter two months ago called on south county cities to identify and develop additional shelter beds, and gave them until Wednesday to identify locations.
In the days leading up to Danny Pham’s death, jail staff placed him with a man who police say confessed about two months earlier to murdering a homeless man.
Complicated investigations can several take years, but a deadline is looming: the expiration of the three-year statute of limitations on state perjury charges against three Sheriff’s deputies who are accused of lying under oath about their work with informants during testimonies in 2014 and 2015.
The mid-year overruns could end up eating into millions of dollars in county discretionary money that could pay for other services, according to budget documents.