When someone with mental illness dies at Twin Towers jail in Los Angeles

If your loved one died at Twin Towers Correctional Facility, or died after being held in one of Los Angeles County's mental health units, we are very sorry. A Twin Towers jail death often comes after weeks or months of warning signs: a person who was in crisis when they were booked, who was on suicide watch, or whose family called the jail asking for help.

This guide is about that part of the jail system: Twin Towers, the high- and moderate-observation mental health housing, and the Inmate Reception Center where people are first screened. It covers the county's records, the 2015 federal settlement, who can be held responsible, and your deadlines. For the full county jail system, see our guide to deaths in Los Angeles County jails. For the older jail across the street, see deaths at Men's Central Jail.

Deaths at Twin Towers: what the records show

Facility	Twin Towers Correctional Facility (TTCF), the main mental health housing for the Los Angeles County jails, including the Correctional Treatment Center
Operated by	Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Medical and mental health care by the county's Correctional Health Services, part of the Department of Health Services.
Location	450 Bauchet St., Los Angeles, CA 90012
Population	2,367 average daily against 2,432 rated beds (LASD, fourth quarter 2025)
Deaths in custody	2023: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2025: 6 · 2026: 3 through Sept. 21 (LASD, place of death)
Oversight	2015 U.S. Department of Justice mental health and suicide-prevention settlement (court monitor); Rosas use-of-force settlement; Sybil Brand Commission; Office of Inspector General; Civilian Oversight Commission

According to the Sheriff's Department's in-custody death disclosures, 4 people died at Twin Towers in 2023, 7 in 2024 and 6 in 2025. For 2026, the department's current list, checked Oct. 11, 2026, shows 3 deaths at Twin Towers through Sept. 21, its latest entry: one from heart disease in January, one suicide by hanging in April, and one in September with the cause still pending. The list does not name the people who died.

These numbers count only deaths inside the building. When someone becomes ill at Twin Towers and dies at Los Angeles General Medical Center, the hospital is listed instead. In 2025, 21 jail deaths were listed there, so the true Twin Towers number is likely higher.

The mental health population is large. On May 12, 2026, the department's mental health count showed 5,393 of 11,693 people in the jails, or 46%, with a mental illness. That included 1,454 people in high-observation housing and 3,096 in moderate-observation housing across the system.

What the mental health units are, and where things go wrong

People with the most serious symptoms are placed in High Observation Housing (HOH), mostly at Twin Towers and at the women's jail in Lynwood. People who are more stable go to Moderate Observation Housing (MOH). The Correctional Treatment Center is the jail's licensed medical and psychiatric unit. In May 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved a 16-bed jail inpatient unit at Twin Towers. Supervisor Barger's office said 40 or more acutely mentally ill people were booked on an average day.

Oversight reports point to a few repeated problems:

• Missed or late safety checks. The Attorney General's 2025 lawsuit against the county alleges that at least 11 deaths from 2018 to 2024 involved late, missed or inadequate safety checks. In October 2023, LA Public Press reported that jail clinicians said deputies in a Twin Towers dorm missed as many as three welfare checks around the time of a young man's apparent suicide because they were watching videos.
• Suicides in treatment areas. The Attorney General's complaint alleges two suicides three days apart in December 2022, both in the showers of the Correctional Treatment Center.
• Slow emergency response. The same complaint alleges that in January 2023 a man at Twin Towers died of heart disease after CPR began 18 minutes after he was found unresponsive.
• Too little time out of the cell, and restraints. The federal monitor reported in January 2026 that out-of-cell time in high-observation housing at Twin Towers and Lynwood was still far below what the settlement requires, and that just over half of high-observation patients remained chained during all of their out-of-cell time.
• Staffing. LAist reported in March 2023 that 163 of 376 budgeted jail mental health positions were unfilled.
• Basic conditions. On Oct. 26, 2025, the Sybil Brand Commission inspected Twin Towers and recorded dirty cells, broken toilets, sinks without water, no medical request forms, and an injured man who had not been treated.

Across the whole system, the department classified 8 deaths in 2025 as suicides, compared with 3 in each of the two prior years. On March 3, 2026, the Board of Supervisors ordered randomized safety checks with more supervisor oversight, a review of suicide-prevention procedures and stronger death reviews, with a report back in 120 days. The Attorney General's lawsuit remained unresolved as of October 2026, as far as we could find.

The Inmate Reception Center and the intake crisis

Most people enter the jails through the Inmate Reception Center (IRC), next to Twin Towers, where they are screened for medical and mental health needs. In 2022 the ACLU went to federal court in Rutherford v. Luna, describing people with serious mental illness chained to chairs for days, people sleeping on concrete floors, and people without medication. On Sept. 16, 2022, Judge Dean Pregerson issued a temporary restraining order. A preliminary injunction followed that barred holding people at the IRC for more than 24 hours and chaining anyone to the clinic's "front bench" for more than four hours. The case settled in June 2023. According to the county's DOJ Compliance Office, as of July 2, 2025 the county had met the IRC time limits for six months in a row.

If your loved one died soon after booking, the intake screening notes can show what staff knew about suicide risk and medication from the first day.

The 2015 Justice Department settlement: is the county complying?

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice found that the county's jails had inadequate suicide prevention practices after 15 suicides in less than 30 months, as CBS Los Angeles reported. The county signed a settlement in 2015 with 69 provisions on mental health care and suicide prevention, overseen by a court-appointed monitor.

The monitor's twentieth report, filed Jan. 6, 2026 and covering the first half of 2025, found the county in substantial compliance with 56 provisions and partial compliance with 9. Twin Towers reached substantial compliance on having enough high- and moderate-observation housing. But the monitor wrote that it was "difficult to foresee" how the county would close the gap on out-of-cell time in high-observation housing, and that the county had suggested lowering the required hours.

Diversion: why many people were in jail at all

The county's 2020 "Care First, Jail Last" plan made 114 recommendations to treat more people in the community instead of jail, CalMatters reported. The Office of Diversion and Reentry reported in July 2026 more than 15,500 releases from jail into treatment and housing since 2015, including 2,429 in 2025. If your loved one was approved for treatment but still waiting in jail when they died, tell your lawyer.

Who can be held responsible for a death at Twin Towers?

Jail mental health care in Los Angeles is not run by a private company. Deputies and clinicians are county employees, so Los Angeles County is usually the main defendant. A claim may also name individual deputies who skipped safety checks or used force, and individual clinicians who ignored clear signs of risk.

A federal civil-rights claim (42 U.S.C. § 1983) can be brought when a person was denied needed mental health care or not protected from a known suicide risk, generally under the Fourteenth Amendment for people held before trial and the Eighth Amendment for people serving a sentence. The county itself can be liable if a policy, custom or long-running failure, such as chronic understaffing or ignored safety-check rules, helped cause the death. A state wrongful death or negligence claim can be brought alongside it.

Recent settlements and verdicts

These are reported results in Twin Towers cases brought by families or injured people. They were obtained by other law firms, not by LaCour Trial Lawyers.

"Recommended" means the county Claims Board recommended the amount; we did not confirm the Board of Supervisors' final vote. Still pending when last reported: the family of Maxwell Aguirre, a 22-year-old Air Force veteran, sued in federal court in June 2024, alleging he had been on suicide watch and died after deputies missed welfare checks. See our statewide table of jail death settlements and verdicts and our guide to how much a jail death lawsuit is worth. Every case is different. Past results, including those listed here, do not predict the outcome of any other case.

Hurt in custody, not killed?

For every death in the mental health units, many more people are harmed and survive: hurt during a cell extraction, attacked in a housing unit, left without psychiatric medication, or untreated after an injury. County inspectors found an injured man at Twin Towers in October 2025 who had not been treated. A claim for that kind of harm is due to the county within the same six months.

Our guides cover beatings by deputies in jail, denied medication in jail and deliberate indifference to medical and mental health needs. You can also ask for a free, confidential review.

Deadlines after a death in LA County mental health housing

The most important date is six months. Before your family can sue Los Angeles County on state-law claims such as wrongful death or negligence, a written government claim must be presented within six months of the death (Government Code § 911.2). If the county rejects it, you generally have six months from the written rejection to sue. Late-claim relief is narrow. Families lose state claims by waiting. See our guide to the six-month claim deadline.

The claim should describe every theory: suicide prevention, mental health care, medical care, safety checks and force. In one pending case, the county argued that a theory missing from the claim was barred. Federal civil-rights claims have no claim requirement and generally must be filed within two years.

The estate can bring a survival claim, and close family members, such as a spouse or children, and in some situations parents who depended on the person, can bring a wrongful death claim. In federal civil-rights cases, federal courts in California have allowed the estate to recover for the person's own suffering in some cases. For more on suicide cases specifically, see our guide to jail suicide and wrongful death.

What to do in the first weeks

Our guide to what to do when a loved one dies in jail walks through each step. The most important are:

1. Ask the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner for the autopsy report. Many families also arrange an independent autopsy.
2. Write down the LASD death-list date and entry number, along with every name, date and phone call you remember.
3. Gather the person's mental health history and records of any calls you made warning the jail. Keep letters, voicemails, texts and social media posts.
4. Do not sign anything from the county or anyone else without talking to a lawyer.
5. Call a lawyer well before the six-month mark. We send preservation letters right away for housing-unit video, safety-check logs, suicide-watch records, intake screening notes and medical records.

How LaCour Trial Lawyers handles these cases

LaCour Trial Lawyers is a trial firm based in Pasadena, a short drive from the downtown jails, and handles police misconduct and wrongful death in custody cases across California. A partner leads each case, our team includes Spanish-speaking lawyers, and you pay no fee unless there is a recovery. You can request a free, confidential review at any time.

Frequently asked questions

This guide is general information about California and federal law and about public records as of its date. It is not legal advice, and reading it or contacting us does not create an attorney–client relationship. Allegations in lawsuits are claims, not findings. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney advertising.