Judge lets claims against San Diego County proceed in deputy custody death

SAN DIEGO (CN) — A federal judge will allow wrongful death claims against San Diego County to proceed after a man experiencing a mental health episode was arrested and died while in the care of deputies.

U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia, a Barack Obama appointee, denied a motion to dismiss a handful of claims brought by the man’s mother against San Diego County and its employees.

Fredrika Nabbie says that her son, Abdul Kamara, 29, died while in police custody after several San Diego sheriff’s deputies put their body weight on him and then placed him in a full-body restraint, known as a WRAP restraint. In her complaint filed on behalf of her son in January last year, Nabbie says the officials at the detention facility failed to provide Kamara with the necessary medical care, which resulted in his death.

San Diego County moved to dismiss Nabbie’s Monell claim, which allows lawsuits against local governments when a death or injury is caused via policy, training or standard practice. The county argued the Monell claim was invalid because it did provide medical care for Kamara when paramedics responded, as indicated in the complaint.

“This argument is unpersuasive,” Battaglia wrote on Tuesday. “Plaintiffs do not allege defendants never provide arrestees and detainees medical care. Rather, the allegation is that defendants have a policy and practice of arresting and jailing individuals in need of medical attention instead of addressing their medical needs first. Accordingly, the mere fact that defendants eventually summoned medical assistance does not negate plaintiffs’ allegation that the county’s policy of delaying necessary care in favor of arrest was the moving force behind the alleged constitutional violations.”

The plaintiff also sufficiently claimed the county failed to properly train its deputies on the use of restraint practices, Battaglia wrote.

Kamara originally called paramedics to take him to a hospital out of concern for his mental and physical well-being a few hours before his death, just after midnight on March 3, 2024, his mother says in the complaint. However, he fled from the emergency room after his arrival. Hospital staff called authorities to help locate him.

Deputies found Kamara at a gas station about a mile away, crawling on the ground at a gas station and making nonsensical statements with his hospital wristband still attached. Instead of returning Kamara to the hospital for a medical hold, as they had been instructed to do, deputies arrested him for being under the influence and took him to the Vista Detention Center, where he died, his mother says.

Kamara suffered a brain injury at some point, but no staff at the detention center provided aid to him, the complaint says. Kamara lay on the ground in the WRAP restraint for 20 minutes until paramedics arrived to provide CPR.

San Diego County also moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s Bane Act claims, but Battaglia also denied that motion.

Battaglia said the family adequately claimed that the deputies who located Kamara in the gas station acted with reckless disregard to his rights and safety because they knew he needed medical care and did not pose a threat to the officers or public. They also successfully claimed the deputies used their body weight compression and the restraining device that restricted Kamara’s ability to breathe, constituting deadly force, he wrote.

In the complaint, the plaintiff lists numerous other examples of inmates and arrestees who have died in the county’s custody going back to 2009.

Grace Jun, representing Kamara’s family, says it’s part of a pattern and practice in the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to deny necessary medical care to arrestees who need it.

“The family of Abdul Kamara is immensely gratified by the federal court’s thorough and well-reasoned order rejecting the county of San Diego’s attempt to dismiss this case,” Jun said in a statement to Courthouse News. “It has been two years since Abdul’s death and the video of the deputies’ interaction with Abdul still has not been publicly released. Abdul Kamara’s family is committed to ensuring transparency and enforcing accountability for Abdul’s death.”

Jun said she hopes the case prompts change at the county.

“Abdul’s mother, Fredrika Nabbie, and his stepfather, Gibrilla Turay, had struggled to bring Abdul to the perceived safety of the United States. A vicious civil war in their birth country of Sierra Leone had threatened their lives,” the plaintiff writes in the complaint. “Eventually, the family fled the war and legally immigrated to the United States. They brought Abdul to the United States with confidence and faith in security and the rule of law in their adopted country. But now, their eldest son is dead at the hands of state actors in San Diego County whose job was to help him.”

The county did not respond to requests for comment.