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A new filing in the lawsuit over the murder of 24-year-old Brandon Yates alleges jail staff ignored clear warning signs that the man who killed him was too dangerous to be housed with others.
The amended complaint, filed Jan. 16 in federal court by Yates’ parents, lays out a detailed timeline of the weeks leading up to the killing, documenting repeated opportunities for jail staff to intervene as Alvin Ruis — a man with a history of psychosis, violence and self-harm — deteriorated.
Yates was arrested on Jan. 15, 2024, after being found sleeping in a backyard shed. He had struggled with mental illness and substance use, his parents said, but was trying to turn his life around.
Less than 24 hours after he was booked into jail, Yates was found dead in the cell he shared with Ruis.
“It never occurred to me that his life was at risk,” Yates’ mother, Andrea Carrier, told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview last year.
The amended complaint — which names the county of San Diego, Sheriff Kelly Martinez, jail medical contractor NaphCare and more than a dozen deputies and mental health clinicians as defendants — details Ruis’ escalating psychiatric crisis in the weeks before he killed Yates.
Spokespeople for the county and Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the new filing, citing active litigation.
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