Family of man mistakenly jailed then killed by inmate asks court to hold San Diego County accountable

SAN DIEGO (CN) — Attorneys representing the family of a man who was arrested on an erroneous warrant and then beaten to death in San Diego County Jail argued in federal court on Monday afternoon that the county and its jail staff should be held liable for his death.

The county and three individual defendants, Lieutenant Desan Tyson, Deputy Daniel Cheung and Crystal Reeves, all present in court, countered that the killing of Dominique McCoy was a tragic, rare incident that the could never have predicted would happen.

McCoy, 38 years old at the time, was arrested on a warrant on Dec. 23, 2021, for failing to comply with his probation due to clerical error. McCoy’s probation period had ended three months before due to prison reform legislation in 2020. A judge recognized that McCoy should not have been arrested and the court ordered his release.

However, hours before his release, McCoy, who spent almost a week in custody, was placed in a small Covid-19 quarantine cell with another inmate, John Medina, then 18. Medina, who had just been arrested for assault, got into an argument with McCoy that resulted in Medina repeatedly bashing McCoy’s head into the concrete floor.

Medina pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2024.

McCoy’s family sued San Diego County and the individual staff members in 2022. Chief among their claims is a Monell violation against the county, with the family arguing that it violated the Constitution by placing nonviolent offenders with violent ones.

While McCoy was considered a custody level two, he was housed together with Medina, who was a custody level four, in a Covid-19 quarantine intake cell. Although this is not typical, county policy allowed for mixed custody-level housing in medical units, such as the quarantine cell.

If someone accused of drunk driving and someone accused of murder were arrested at the same time, they could both be placed in the same cell under this policy, Eugene Iredale of Iredale & Yoo told U.S. District Judge Barry Moskowitz, a Bill Clinton appointee, during a hearing on dueling motions for summary judgment Monday.

“You never put a level two with a four,” he said. “That imposes an unnecessary risk that the level four will take advantage of the less sophisticated inmate. They cannot submit the lamb to the questionable depredations of the lion.”

Iredale, who represents McCoy’s family, argued the individual county defendants acted with deliberate indifference to McCoy’s well-being when they allowed the two men to be housed together.

“What could go wrong?” he asked the court. “I respectfully submit to anyone with a brain, what could go wrong? What happened to Mr. McCoy is the inevitable result of this misbegotten policy.”

Sarah Lanham, deputy county counsel, argued that its mixed housing policy is not unconstitutional and that jails across the U.S. have similar policies.

“We try to make it the safest place possible, but we can’t — it’s just not possible,” she said. “This unfortunate event is a one-off.”

Medina did not appear to pose any threat to other inmates or staff, she said. During his intake, Medina urinated in the middle of the floor, threatened to kill himself, and reported hearing voices, Lanham said.

If anything, jail staff were worried about what Medina would do to himself, she said. He was eventually cleared for entrance into the jail’s general population.

“Could this be negligence? Possibly, but plaintiff did not allege that,” Lanham said. “It’s unfortunate this happened, but it’s certainly not the basis of a constitutional claim and certainly not a Monell claim."

Moskowitz took the matter under advisement but indicated he would rule in favor of Tyson only.

“The point is, violence in jail is something that is going to happen, but it is critical that the authorities who run the jail try to structure the housing so people are not ready-made victims of predatory persons," Iredale told Courthouse News after the hearing.