For years, San Diego County jails have been triple-bunking people in cells designed for no more than two. State regulators have repeatedly told the Sheriff’s Office to stop the practice, and the department itself has acknowledged that it’s dangerous and violates state code.
A three-person cell is where Walt Mehran is accused of attacking Eric Van Tine on Dec. 2, 2023.
The men’s cellmate told sheriff investigators that Van Tine had threatened Mehran. The cellmate thought the two had settled the argument, but after Van Tine fell asleep, Mehran dragged him from his bunk and beat him unconscious.
Van Tine suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent four months in a coma. When he awoke, he was unable to feed or bathe himself and struggled to communicate.
In October, he developed a severe lung infection and ended up on life support. His family chose to withdraw care on Nov. 6.
The death raises more questions about how people are housed in San Diego jails — especially those, like Van Tine and Mehran, who struggle with serious mental illness.
That history should be a consideration, said Julia Yoo, an attorney representing Van Tine’s family. The family has filed a claim against San Diego County, the precursor to a lawsuit.
“Here, it appears they placed at least two seriously mentally ill people in a tiny triple cell with at least two of them in an acute and agitated state,” she said. “The failure to place them in a unit where they could be monitored and stabilized was reckless.”
The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions about what role a person’s mental health history plays in jail housing decisions, citing pending litigation.
Mehran, 23, has been charged with attempted murder. District Attorney spokesperson Steve Walker said that charge could be upgraded depending on findings from Van Tine’s autopsy.
‘Likely to cause conflict’
It’s not clear when the Sheriff’s Office started triple-bunking people. But the earliest red flag was raised about the practice in a 2016 report by the county’s civil grand jury, which described triple-bunking as “excessive” and “a configuration likely to cause conflict.”
An undated Sheriff’s Office document related to jail construction, obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune through a public records request, acknowledges that triple-bunking creates “an unsafe environment for both staff and inmates.”
Multiple times state regulators told the Sheriff’s Office to stop the practice.
“All items of noncompliance have been corrected with the exception of the continued use of triple bunks that are not supported by the current infrastructure of your jail facilities,” reads a 2021 inspection report from the Board of State and Community Corrections.
The department told inspectors that triple-bunking would cease with the completion of the Rock Mountain Detention Facility, which opened in July 2023.
But even as beds were added and the county’s jail population fell to historic lows, triple-bunking continued.
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Scott Frakes, the former director of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services who now consults on correctional facility design and management, said confining three people in one 75-square-foot cell should be done on an emergency basis only.
“Even when done on an emergency basis, there must be some type of vetting process to reduce the risk of predator-victim situations and to identify mental health issues,” he said via email.
In an interview with the Union-Tribune in October, Sheriff Kelly Martinez said the practice of triple-bunking had stopped. A spokesperson said in a Dec. 6 email that triple bunks were “being phased out.”
On Dec. 1, 2023, Mehran, then 22, was arrested by San Diego police for assault and vandalism. He was booked into the Central Jail the following day.
Van Tine, then 40, was arrested by San Diego police on Dec. 2 and charged with assault and making a criminal threat. He was also booked into the Central Jail.
The men and a third person were housed in a cell on the jail’s fifth floor. At just under 75 square feet — 58 square feet smaller than the average U.S. bedroom — the cell held three stacked bunks, a metal toilet/sink combination and a metal desk with a bolted-down stool.
‘Please get this person … help’
Both Mehran and Van Tine had been in the Central Jail before. On Aug. 3, 2023, Van Tine had been arrested after he stood outside the window of a Mission Beach condo, brandished a BB gun and threatened to kill a vacationing family inside.
He was granted probation in October 2023, after agreeing to attend an anger management class and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and stay away from the condo. He was also referred to the county’s behavioral health services unit.
It’s unclear from court records whether Van Tine sought out any services or what he did to get his probation revoked, but in less than two months, he was back in jail.
Originally from Arizona, Van Tine had struggled with schizophrenia, his brother, Matthew, said. He was stable when he decided to move to San Diego to start a new life for himself.
“Eric knew the area pretty well, since he had been coming there almost every year since he was 8 years old,” Matthew Van Tine said.
Matthew said the Mission Beach condo his family would rent is next door to the condo where his brother was arrested.
Members of the family Van Tine threatened sent emails to the judge in his case, urging him to require Van Tine to get treatment for his mental illness.
“Please get this person the help he is in desperate need of,” one email says.
Mehran had also been on probation when he was arrested.
Court records show that he was charged with assaulting his girlfriend in May 2020. He was granted probation, was re-arrested for violating an order to stay away from the victim and then struggled to comply with the order that he enroll in a domestic-violence prevention program.
His probation was revoked in August 2023, and he was arrested on a new assault charge just over three months later.
His attorney, Avery Webb, told the Union-Tribune that it was clear Mehran’s mental health had deteriorated.
Mehran was found incompetent to stand trial and spent several months at a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles. At a hearing this week, he was wearing a green jail uniform, identifying him as having a psychiatric disorder.
‘Failed to provide a safe environment’
In 2021, the family of Lyle Woodward won a $400,000 settlement in a lawsuit they filed after his death in the Central Jail.
Woodward’s history of mental illness was well-documented in jail records. But instead of being placed on the psychiatric floor, he had been put in a three-man cell. One of those men, Clinton Thinn, strangled Woodward on Dec. 3, 2016.
Thinn had attacked other people in the jail prior to being placed in a cell with Woodward. In an interview with a homicide investigator that became part of the family’s lawsuit, Deputy Curtis Stratton said he had tried to get Woodward housed on the psychiatric floor, but getting anyone assigned there was “a feat of strength.”
Woodward and Thinn ended up in the same cell, Stratton said, “because everyone else kind of corralled them, the two crazy guys together.”
Over the last five years, six incarcerated people have been killed by a bunkmate, not including Eric Van Tine. In at least five of those cases, either the victim or the alleged attacker had a previously diagnosed mental illness.
Earlier this year, John Medina pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the Dec. 29, 2021, slaying of 38-year-old Dominique McCoy. Medina, who turned 18 less than two weeks prior to McCoy’s death, was in jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and felony animal abuse.
McCoy was in custody for allegedly violating the terms of his probation, but his probationary period — stemming from two misdemeanor drug-possession counts — had ended, court records indicate. A week after his arrest, a judge ordered him released.
While processing that order, deputies placed McCoy in a cell with Medina. The cell had three bunks but only one mattress. According to court records, Medina and McCoy got into a fight over the mattress.
Medina told homicide investigators that he was hearing voices that told him to kill McCoy.
McCoy’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit, alleging that Medina’s history of violence meant he should not have been placed with McCoy.
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And earlier this year, the county’s Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board ruled that deputies “failed to provide a safe environment for McCoy.”
“Based on Medina’s documented propensity towards violence, the department failed to implement reasonable measures to prevent him from doing harm to others, shortcomings that contributed to McCoy’s death,” the oversight panel said.
This past January, 24-year-old Brandon Yates was tortured to death by a cellmate. Yates repeatedly pressed the panic button inside the cell, but no one came, according to testimony at defendant Alvin Ruis’ preliminary hearing.
Yates’ father, Dan, said his son struggled with mental illness and homelessness, despite his family’s attempts to get him help. Yates’ behavior annoyed his first pair of cellmates, who demanded he be removed, his father said. A deputy placed him in a cell with Ruis.
Court records show Ruis, who had been charged with spousal battery and cruelty to a child, was struggling with mental illness. On Dec. 28, 2023, less than three weeks before Ruis killed Yates, Ruis’ father sent an email to the court, pleading for help for his son.
“We need medical and mental (health) attention before he kills himself … or someone else,” the letter says.
‘Jail-attributable deaths’
The Sheriff’s Office did not report Van Tine’s attack or subsequent death to the media. But it acknowledged in an email this month, in response to questions from the Union-Tribune, that it should have.
“It is of public interest and it should have been reported due to the severity of the injuries sustained during Mr. Van Tine’s time in custody,” a sheriff’s spokesperson said via email.
The charges against Van Tine were dropped — meaning when he died, he was no longer in sheriff’s custody.
Because of this, the Sheriff’s Office did not report the death to the state. Once a person is released from custody, sheriff departments are not required to report the death.
The sheriff’s spokesperson said the department was not notified that Van Tine had died.
Julia Yoo, his family’s attorney, shared with the Union-Tribune an email she sent to a sheriff’s official on Nov. 8, notifying them of Van Tine’s death.
Yoo believes his death should be considered an in-custody death — or what correctional health experts call a “jail-attributable death,” meaning something that happened in the jail contributed to the death.
“Any other reading of ‘in-custody death’ is strained and tortured logic,” Yoo said.