As first reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune, San Diego County will pay $3.5 million to the family of Paul Silva, a mentally ill man who died in 2018 after sheriff's deputies forcibly remove him from his jail cell.
The family's lawsuit said Silva was "(t)ased between four to nine times while six other members of the Tactical Team held him down with a body shield and pressed down on his torso.” Following the incident Silva, who was 39, was taken to a hospital, placed on life support and died about a month later.
The settlement is the largest for an in-custody death in the San Diego County Jail system.
Kelly Davis, a freelance writer for the Union-Tribune, has done extensive reporting on deaths in San Diego County Jails. She co-reported the series, "Dying Behind Bars" for the paper in 2019. Davis joined Midday Edition on Tuesday to discuss the case and the implications it could have.
