By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
Almost a week after Asaiah Washington was found dead in his jail cell July 26, family and advocates gathered in front of the Sacramento Main Jail to call for transparency and accountability from the Sacramento Sheriff’s office.
“We want answers when it comes to incidents where people come to die,” Berry Accius, community advocate and founder of Voice of the Youth, said at the press conference. “We have serious concerns about this place [the jail], which has become a burial ground for Black men and women.”
Accius said Washington’s family and the community demand transparency and accountability from the sheriff and the county to “tell the truth of what happened.”
Spokesperson Amar Gandhi said the sheriff’s office will complete a “thorough investigation in accordance with department procedures” and state laws and “will determine the cause of death and forward its findings as prescribed by law.”
Washington, 40, and a cellmate were found unresponsive when Narcan was administered. The cellmate was revived.
The cause of Washington’s death could take months for the coroner to determine.
Thirty people have died in Sacramento sheriff’s custody since 2021. Five men have died in Sacramento jails since May, three of whom were Black, according to coroner records.
Incarcerated persons died at the downtown jail May 5, May 12 and June 8, and a fourth died June 28 at the Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center near Elk Grove.
“We the people elected Sheriff [Jim] Cooper and he owes the community answers as well as solutions,” said Meg White, with the advocacy group JUICE Sacramento. “We need independent oversight.”
Since 2020, Sacramento jails have been under what’s called a Mays Consent Decree, which requires the county to significantly expand its mental health services, revamp its medical care system, implement improved suicide prevention measures, and ensure that people with disabilities have the accommodations they need and can access jail programs and services.
The class action lawsuit that brought about the decree, called out inhumane conditions, lack of adequate staffing and issues surrounding medical care and mental health services for incarcerated individuals.
“This jail is already under federal consent decree for inhumane and unconstitutional practices. In the past, we’ve used our community powers to demand common sense solutions to this deadly and expensive problem,” White said.
In an op-ed to the Sacramento Bee, Cooper blamed jail medical staff for the spate of deaths.
“It is not a coincidence that most of the deaths at the jail have been medically related,” he wrote. “In the past, the sheriff had control of medical care in the facility, but that control was removed before I got here [was elected].”
Tonette Washington, Asaiah’s widow, was in tears as she told reporters that the sheriff’s office has not contacted her, even to send condolences.
“Nobody has contacted me, not even one person. The only call I received was from the coroner,” Washington said.
Washington had been held in the jail since June. He was normally a positive and “jolly” person, his widow said, but the day he died sounded “sluggish” on the phone a little more than an hour before he was found dead. She said she wants answers from the sheriff.
“Asaiah Washington was a loving husband, father and friend,” Tonette Washington said. “As we mourn his passing, we cannot ignore the injustice that led to this tragedy.”