Man killed within 45 min. of being placed in Alameda Co. jail cell, lawsuit states

DUBLIN, Calif. ( KRON ) – Alameda County is facing a federal civil rights lawsuit after an inmate, Yuri Brand, was slain inside Santa Rita Jail.

Attorneys claim Alameda County Sheriff Deputies – who are Santa Rita Jail’s guards – “negligently placed” Brand and a violent sex offender into the same cell.

Approximately 45 minutes later, the complaint alleges the inmate with mental health issues killed his new cellmate by choking him to death.

Brand, who had schizophrenia, was taken into custody at Santa Rita Jail on Sept. 8 for nonviolent criminal charges. “For unknown reasons,” attorneys allege Brand was not placed into mental health housing despite deputies knowing he was mentally ill and “had gone without medication for days.”

Instead, the complaint said Brand was placed with Santa Rita Jail’s general population.

Five days later, deputies placed Brand with Bryson Levy. According to the complaint, “Mr. Levy was in the midst of his own mental health crisis and had documented criminal history of violence, sexual assault, and the use of deadly weapons.”

The complaint said that within 45 minutes of being placed into Brand’s cell, Levy reportedly killed Brand using a mattress “to suffocate him to death.” Brand was then found on the cell floor “with Levy on top of him.”

“This was a tragic but foreseeable outcome of placing the two men in the cell given the lack of adequate supervision and mental health care,” the complaint stated.

The family’s “questions and concerns were further heightened” when they received an autopsy report which described Brand’s tongue as having “no contusions or bite marks” despite attorneys alleging the family “discovering Mr. Brand’s tongue had a jagged serration that ran from the tip to the throat.”

Attorneys claim sheriff deputies failed to place Brand in appropriate mental health housing “despite his known mental health condition that he had previously received treatment for at the jail,” said the family’s attorney, Adanté Pointer

And then they ignored Levy’s violent history and placed him into close quarters with someone he could victimize, all the while neglecting to properly supervise the two men… We intend to find answers to why Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies at the jail housed Mr. Brand with a violent individual in the midst of a crisis, rather than in appropriate mental health housing,” Pointer said, “and how their loved one could have been subjected to such a horrific death, and why his family has not received answers about what happened to Mr. Brand.

Adanté Porter, Attorney to Brand’s family

Levy has been charged with murder, the complaint said.

Brand’s family –  the plaintiffs –  are asking for general, special, and punitive damages. Brand is reportedly the 68th inmate to die at the Alameda County jail since 2014.

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