Inmate hung a noose. Jailers too busy watching ‘explicit video’ to intervene, inspectors say



Inspectors at Men’s Central Jail, shown in 2022, documented mold, mildew and inadequate food and water last month. They also found bugs coming out of the sinks, along with “small black worms.” (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

By Keri Blakinger
Staff Writer
June 5, 2024 3 AM PT

When a pair of oversight inspectors walked up to one of the deputies’ stations inside Men’s Central Jail last month, they were already exasperated. During their visit to the high-security unit, the inspectors later wrote in their report, they’d been concerned to see a noose in one of the cells.

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The first time an inspector approached the deputies to tell them about it, he said, the eight jailers sitting in front of a television brushed him off. When he returned half an hour later with another inspector, he realized why: The deputies were busy watching a “sexually explicit” video, according to an oversight report published this month.

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“There was just continuous neglect and bad conditions,” Broder told The Times this week. “People were saying they were hungry. We saw people with giant open wounds. The trash was just everywhere — there’s so much trash. It smells. There are fires. And it seems in general there is just a genuine lack of interest in changing that situation.”

In an emailed statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it has addressed several of the issues identified in the June report. Officials did not say whether the deputies caught watching the video have been reassigned but told The Times there is now an investigation underway.

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