Inset: Brandon Yates (Iredale and Yoo, APC). Background: San Diego Central Jail (KNSD).
A 24-year-old inmate at a California jail was sexually assaulted and choked to death by his cellmate as the victim pressed a panic button and pleaded and screamed for deputies to help for an hour, a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the victim’s parents alleges.
Brandon Yates, 24, was found face down on his cell floor, naked with his hands and feet bound behind his back on Jan. 16, 2024, just 24 hours after he was booked into San Diego Central Jail for burglary when he was found sleeping in someone’s backyard shed, court documents said.
“We didn’t expect to be on this journey,” said Andrea Carrier, Yates’ mother, told local CBS affiliate KFMB. “We didn’t want to be on this journey. We’re fighting for Brandon. We’re his voice to fight for change. We’ve read cases. This is not an isolated incident. This has been happening for way too long. Policies either need to be made or enforced. Legislation needs to be changed. Something needs to happen.”
Dan Yates, his father, told local NBC affiliate KNSD that he believes there’s a culture problem in the local jail system.
“The San Diego County jail system doesn’t seem to value human life,” he said. “The sheriff’s department is aware of the existing problems but consistently ignores them.”
The lawsuit names San Diego County, San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez, and three deputies.
In a statement, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment, citing the litigation and the active criminal prosecution for murder against Yates’ cellmate Alvin Ruis, 36.
The lawsuit said Ruis has a history of violent behavior and was classified as a “bypass inmate,” meaning he should not have been housed with other inmates.
Ruis was in the lockup at the time after his arrest for assaulting his wife and children on two separate occasions and had told his family he had intentions of killing other people, according to court documents.
While custody, Ruis had threatened multiple cellmates and had assaulted a deputy, the documents said — and Ruis had allegedly decided that Yates was the devil.
In the roughly 60 minutes after Yates had been placed unmonitored in Ruis’ cell, Yates was heard screaming for help. Yates pushed the panic button multiple times for the deputies in the control tower to save his life. “They are going to kill me,” court documents said Yates told the deputies.
“The control tower deputies either ignored the desperate calls or put the intercom on ‘bypass’ meaning they turned the sound off from Brandon’s cell,” even though other inmates heard Ruis threatening Yates and Yates screaming for help.
“No one came as Yates was being tortured, stripped naked, bound, sexually assaulted, and murdered,” the lawsuit said.
At one point when Yates was unconscious, Ruis had a conversation with God in which God was telling him, “You can take your time. You can do whatever you want,” the documents said.
“At one point, God told Ruis he could eat Brandon’s face if that is what he wanted to do,” the lawsuit said.
Ruis told investigators the killing was “one hundred percent” premeditated, and he staged Yates’ body to prove that his death was not a suicide, the documents said. Ruis timed his torture because he knew that the deputies only did rounds once every hour at 60-minute intervals, the lawsuit added.
“Ruis told the investigators that he had seen the devil and the antichrist a thousand times,” court documents said. “Ruis stated that he spoke with Travis Barker telepathically,” referring to the Blink-182 drummer.
Ruis also told the investigators that “Kim Kardashian illuminati were taking his blood” and that “the CIA was coming through the vents,” court documents said.
Yates was a surfer who excelled academically, according to court documents. He began suffering from extreme anxiety and other mental health issues after graduating from high school, and apparently started using heroin and methamphetamine.
“When his addiction took control over him, Brandon would become homeless, struggling with his mental illness and increasing religious ideations and grandiosity,” court documents said.
But rehabilitation helped him, the lawsuit said.
“He was a loving and kind son and brother,” the documents said. “He was known for his generosity. He loved his family and his life.”
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