The family of a California man who died in a jail cell has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was left mostly unattended for three days before anyone noticed.
Maurice Monk, a 54-year-old security guard who suffered from mental illness, was originally arrested in June 2021 after refusing to wear a mask on a public bus, KTVU reported. After his arrest, he was taken to a psychiatric hospital where he received two months of treatment, the station reported.
In October, Monk missed a court date related to the mask incident and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. He was taken into custody on Oct. 11 and booked at the Santa Rita Jail. He was only being held on $2,500 bail, but his family said they couldn't afford it.
Just over a month later, on Nov. 15, Monk was found dead in his jail cell -- but the lawsuit alleges that he died at least three days earlier.
The suit claims that jail and medical staff ignored Monk despite seeing him lying face down in bed, unresponsive, in the same position, for three days before he was declared dead, NBC News reported.
The lawsuit cites more than 150 videos taken from police body cameras, some of which was published by KTVU. The video shows Monk lying facedown and half naked on his bunk with a puddle of urine by his bed and stacks of uneaten food trays and pills scattered near the door. When staff members visited the cell, Monk never responded to their commands, the video shows, and no one physically entered the cell to check on him.
Monk's official cause of death is listed as hypertensive cardiovascular disease, but his family believes otherwise.
"That's not what killed Maurice Monk. It was the failure of the jail's nurses and guards to ensure Maurice received his medications to treat his mental illness and chronic high blood pressure," family attorney Adanté Pointer said in a statement to NBC. "They literally did nothing more than stare at him and throw food and medications into his cell like he was an animal in a pen at the zoo. Despite the obvious crisis, not a single guard or nurse thought enough about Mr. Monk to call for help."
Representatives for the jail have not commented on the lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified monetary damages.