Review Of McNeil In-Custody Death Finds Sheriff's Deputy Violated Procedure

Speaker 1: 00:01 San Diego County citizens law enforcement review board. Tuesday sustained a finding that a San Diego Sheriff's deputy violated procedure when he placed a T shirt over the head of Earl McNeil while detaining him. It's been more than a year since McNeal died following a struggle with police. The medical examiner at the time ruled his death, a homicide caused in part by the restraint he was put in along with two spit hoods and a tee shirt being placed over his face. KPBS reporter Matt Hoffman has been covering these developments and joins us with more. Matt, welcome AGI. What exactly did the review board conclude? Yes, so basically the Sheriff's department has a policy that says, um, in, in their use of force guidelines, this has a person's mouth and or nose should never be covered by anything. And the review boards investigators found that after McNeil was taken to the central jail for processing, that he had to spit hoods on his face. Speaker 1: 00:52 And, uh, in order to stop the spitting, a deputy pulled the, another shirt, his shirt over his face, um, which possibly could have contributed to his death. And the review board sustained that finding saying that placing that shirt over McNeil's face may have actually contributed to his death. So what was the board's recommendation? Right. So the board had four recommendations for the Sheriff's department that that's part of Claridge's oversight. They don't actually have any teeth really. They just, you know, they make these factual findings and then they have recommendations. Um, those recommendations including included developing a policy to train deputies on the use of protective equipment since that's why they say the deputy pulled that shirt over his face in the first place. Cause McNeil was saying he had HIV, he was HIV positive. The officers wanted to protect themselves. Um, the other one was how to inspect spit hoods because they were saying that the spit hooks spit hoods were ineffective, although there was some talk of there possibly being blood and some of that spit. Speaker 1: 01:41 Um, and then there was another one, um, that said, it just kinda clarified a rule that said that they should prohibit deputies from adding additional items over spit hoods that may restrict breathing. So they were very key to say restrict breathing. Uh, cause the officer did put that shirt over his head, um, which evidently may have restricted his breathing. Although the Sheriff's department disagrees. Um, the Sheriff's department did respond though, um, to those policies, they say that they believe that these recommendations have merit and they're going to try to see if they can implement them. And how common is it that the citizens review board determines that there was a misconduct by a Sheriff's deputy? It sounds like it's pretty rare that the union Tribune, um, they found after getting data from the, uh, from the review board that, um, out of 942, uh, findings, they only sustain 10 misconduct findings. Speaker 1: 02:24 So that's really not a lot, you know, and remind us of what the role of the citizens' review board is. Right. So it's like a law enforcement oversight board now. They don't necessarily have any teeth. Basically anybody can make a complaint to. It's called Claire. That's what it's short for. Anybody can make a complaint and then their job isn't to necessarily reprimand the officers, but it's to provide these policy recommendations moving forward that the Sheriff's department can or cannot adopt. And how has the Sheriff's department responded to the board's finding in terms of the finding that the officer put the shirt over his face to make may it contributed to his death or his lack of breathing? They said that they do not find enough evidence to support club's investigative finding that the tee shirt was used in a way that affected his breathing. Uh, they feel that the deputy acted reasonably given the circumstances. Um, and the struggle that ensued with McNeil, although it is worth noting too, that that deputy did retire has since retired from the department. Speaker 2: 03:12 Um, you know, but previously the district attorney in this cleared all officers and deputies of criminal liability. Right? Speaker 1: 03:18 Right. Yeah. Last September, uh, the da did a review, the district attorney, and they did clear all the officers from any criminal liability. That includes the Sheriff's deputies at the intake center at the jail and the national city police officers who were first involved in this. Speaker 2: 03:29 And remind us why Earl McNeil was arrested and what happened once he got to the County jail? Speaker 1: 03:34 Yeah. It's kind of a convoluted story, but I mean basically he showed up at the police station. They said he was kind of acting a radically, um, he was asking for help. They found on him, I believe the knife and some meth. Uh, they later did find that Methodist system. Um, they put him in a wrap. They put 'em in a spit hood. Uh, once he got to the jail, they said he was still spitting. So they put another spit hood on him. And then that's when that deputy put that shirt over him and then he was unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital and he later died, I believe it was like 16 days later after he was, uh, arrested. Is this the last of the groups that will be reviewing this case in terms of the County the County has done here? I mean national city might be doing their own review, but the family has filed a civil lawsuit against officers and deputies involved in the case. They're saying that they violated McNeil's civil rights. And the attorney said that they're in the discovery phase right now. And he said that there's still a lot of body worn camera video and surveillance camera video that they haven't seen yet. Speaker 2: 04:23 Um, did he give any indication of how this will impact the civil suit that the family has filed? Speaker 1: 04:29 Yeah, when we talk about here, we're talking about Doug Applegate who is the family's attorney. Um, he says that, you know, the board can make factual findings, which is good. Um, but you know, they don't necessarily have any teeth. Um, he says, you know, as far as, um, what the decision that doesn't really have an impact on the lawsuit. He doesn't believe, cause he says at the end of the day, the judge and the jury are the ultimate triers of fact, not the clerk. Uh, but he did say that they can do these factual findings. He thinks the process is important for the community to stay involved. Especially if they see things that they think, or if they want to change community policing, they need to go to these meetings and speak up. Speaker 2: 04:58 I have been speaking with KPBS reporter, Matt Hoffman. Matt. Thank you. Thanks, Jade. Speaker 3: 05:09 [inaudible].