A man's neck was broken in an L.A. County jail. His family is suing the Sheriff's Department
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Set us as preferred A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy working as a guard at Twin Towers Correctional Facility used force against inmate Jeffrey Fairchild, allegedly smashing him face-first into a metal window frame and causing him to fall to the concrete floor, according to federal monitors overseeing conduct by deputies in L.A.County jails.The force of the impact left Fairchild a quadriplegic after the September 2024 incident, his family members said.
He was taken to a hospital and remained under close medical care until April 21, 2025, when he suffered a heart attack and died at St.Mary Medical Center in Long Beach.In the wake of Fairchild’s death, his family members filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County, Eric Barraza — the deputy who the monitors said used force against Fairchild — and a number of unnamed deputies who were working in the jail that day.
The suit, filed in U.S.District Court in Los Angeles, claims that Barraza used excessive and unreasonable force, and that Fairchild’s death from complications stemming from the incident was wrongful.
The suit, which seeks unspecified damages, was filed in September 2025, but the federal monitors recently released their report containing key details about the incident.“According to him, they had handcuffed him and given him a sugar test for diabetes,” said Fairchild’s stepmother, Denise Fairchild.“The nurse couldn’t prick him or whatever the procedure was, and he got up to go back to his cell and that’s when [Barraza] … threw him against the wall and broke his neck.”In a filing in response to the lawsuit, attorneys for the Sheriff’s Department and Barraza denied any wrongdoing, stating that the force used “was reasonable under the circumstances” and that all conduct “was in good faith and without malicious intent.”Lawrence, Beach...