• Ruben Toledo died in 2017 after being allegedly denied medical care while going through alcohol withdrawal while at the Cibola County Detention Center, in Grants • Pathologist Matthew Cain found Toledo died from chronic alcohol abuse • The county is being sued for Toledo’s death
GRANTS, N.M. — An Albuquerque man who died seven days after suffering a seizure in the Cibola County Detention Center was killed by chronic alcohol abuse, according to an autopsy report. However, the report makes no mention of the seizures the man suffered, his apparent alcohol withdrawal or his hospitalization and appears to downplay the circumstances of his death.
Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, N.M. Photo by Angel Schatz/Flickr. CC-BY
Ruben Toledo, 42, died in the University of New Mexico Hospital on July 1, 2017, after being taken off of life support. He was taken to the hospital seven days earlier after going comatose in a shower after suffering multiple apparent seizures.
Office of the Medical Investigator pathologist Matthew Cain wrote, in a heavily redacted autopsy report, that based on the evidence presented to him, Toledo died from chronic alcohol abuse and he had “significant liver disease” and alcoholics are at risk for “metabolic abnormalities” and withdrawal complications.
Quijana wrote in the lawsuit that Toledo collapsed from a seizure in his cell, causing a head wound, on June 24, 2017. He died in the hospital seven days later, on July 1, 2017, after being taken off of life support.
There is no mention of that fall in the autopsy report, the seizures that caused it or that Toledo never regained consciousness after he was transported out of the jail.
Despite evidence of alcohol withdrawal in the lawsuit, it is not mentioned in the autopsy report, except as a perfunctory note in the summary and opinion that it can cause seizures and death. Neither Cain’s report nor the deputy field investigation by Tom Conklin makes mention of the seizures Toledo suffered, as noted in the wrongful death lawsuit, although it is unclear what was redacted.
“Seth advised that the decedent had been incarcerated in the Cibola County Detention Center. The decedent was found shaking on the shower floor. He became unresponsive and bystander (REDACTED).”
The lawsuit against Cibola County, filed on June 20, 2019, outlines alleged abuses and neglect at the hands of jail guards and medical staff at the jail.
Toledo was initially arrested on June 21, 2017, after being found allegedly drunk in his truck at the federal Petroglyph National Monument. U.S. Park Ranger Steven Powers arrested him on charges of DUI, possession of alcohol in a vehicle and possession of a controlled substance and booked him into the Sandoval County Detention Center, according to federal court documents.
Federal Magistrate Judge Kirtan Khalsa ordered Toledo held without bail during an initial appearance, at the request of U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecutor Nicholas Ganjei. Toledo had no attorney. The entire hearing lasted for five minutes, according to a minutes sheet.
Toledo was transferred from the Sandoval jail to Cibola. His condition quickly worsened until he suffered an alcohol-induced seizure on June 24, observed by Sgt. Lisa Burnside. Toledo could no longer speak and he had dried blood on his forehead, Quijana wrote in the lawsuit complaint.
Burnside ordered guards to take Toledo, incapable of walking, to a shower to clean up while she looked for a clean cell. Guards carried him there and placed him on the ground, Quijana wrote.
“Ruben slumped over on the ground and became unresponsive,” she wrote.
Guards didn’t call for medical staff immediately but once they did, they told the guards to call 911 and started CPR. Once he left the jail, he would never regain consciousness, Quijana wrote.
The narrative outlined in the lawsuit compares starkly with the outline Cain and Conklin noted in the autopsy report and the deputy field investigation.
In the field investigation, Conklin wrote Toledo was “found shaking on the shower floor.” What happened next is redacted.
In Cain’s summary and opinion, he used the same sentence, that Toledo was “found shaking on the shower floor.” Again, what happened next is redacted.
That compares starkly with the lawsuit allegations, that guards carried Toledo into the shower and he slumped over. Guards then lifted Toledo into a chair and eventually called for medical help, according to the lawsuit.
Neither Cain’s autopsy report not Conklin’s field investigation mention that Toledo was taken to a local hospital, and then to the University of New Mexico hospital, after he lost consciousness at the jail.
Both documents also do not mention that Toledo died after being taken off of life support.
After a federal park ranger arrested him on a charge of drunk driving on June 21, Ruben Toledo, of Albuquerque, was transferred to the Cibola County Detention Center, where he proceeded to go through alcohol withdrawals, according to court documents.
Allegedly denied adequate medical care, he became so weak he could not walk but, after suffering at least one seizure, a nurse directed he be put into a shower on June 24. Guards carried him there, where he slumped over, before calling for emergency medical attention. When emergency staff arrived, they began CPR and Toledo was transferred to the Cibola hospital, and then to the University of New Mexico Hospital because his condition was so bad. He was taken off of life support on July 1, 2017. He never regained consciousness after he left the jail, according to a lawsuit complaint, filed Aug. 8, 2019.
On June 20, 2017, U.S. Park Ranger Steven Powers arrested Ruben Toledo, 42, on charges of DUI, possession of alcohol in a vehicle and possession of a controlled substance.
Petroglyph National Monument, Albuquerque, NM. Photo by Mike Tungate/Flickr. CC-BY-ND
Powers wrote in an affidavit for a criminal complaint that he pulled up to Toledo’s truck, in the parking lot of the Petroglyph National Monument, because it was near closing time. Toledo appeared to be drunk and there were two open beers on the floorboard. Another unnamed person was also in the truck.
After conducting a field sobriety test, followed by a breath test, Powers arrested Toledo. The breath test came back at 0.27. During a search of the truck, Powers found marijuana, he wrote.
After taking him to a Albuquerque Police Department substation, Toledo’s blood-alcohol content came back as between 0.23 and 0.20, he wrote.
He was booked into the Sandoval County jail, Powers wrote.
Held without bail
On June 21, Toledo was also brought into court, in front of Magistrate Judge Kirtan Khalsa, for an initial appearance. Prosecutor Nicholas Ganjei, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, moved for Toledo to be held without bail. Toledo had no attorney and Khalsa ordered him held without bail. The entire hearing lasted for five minutes, according to a minutes sheet.
It is not clear if this was before or after he was transferred from the Sandoval County Detention Center to the Cibola County Detention Center.
A preliminary detention hearing was supposed to be set for the next day, June 22, but there are no more docket entries after those for June 21, which included a notice of an oral detention order issued by Khalsa and the appoint of Christopher Lucero as Toledo’s attorney.
Although the docket does not reflect when it was edited, Toledo was “terminated” as a part to the case on June 23.
Nothing else exists on the docket, even though Toledo would remain in the state’s custody until his death 10 days later at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque, after being taken off life support.
Toledo was “quickly transferred” from the Sandoval County Detention Center to the Cibola County Detention Center the day following his arrest, June 21, 2017, attorney Alyssa Quijano wrote in an amended complaint against the Cibola County Detention Center for Toledo’s wrongful death.
“When Ruben arrived at the facility, he told staff he suffered from depression and anxiety, and staff noted that he was chemically impaired,” she wrote.
Toledo said he had been drinking the day prior to being booked and his vital signs were abnormal — his blood pressure was 169/94, his pulse was 100 beats per minute and he had a glucose level of 161. Jail staff cleared him to be housed in general population, Quijano wrote.
Toledo remained in the general population for two days and he began to suffer from alcohol withdrawal, she wrote.
As in Toledo’s case, alcohol withdrawal is often be deadly. (At least three cases currently in the jail death database were from alcohol withdrawal, although this is incomplete and many autopsy reports are pending or have not been requested yet).
Toledo asked to be moved out of the general population because he feared he was in danger from other inmates attacking him and he was beginning to have hallucinations, a symptom of severe alcohol withdrawal, also known as delirium tremens, Quijano wrote.
June 23
On June 23, two days after he had been transferred to the Cibola County Detention Center, Physician’s Assistant Michelle Lucero saw him. He reported is daily alcohol use before being booked and she found his blood pressure and pulse were elevated, she wrote.
Lucero found that Toledo was a “difficult historian” with a “poor memory” and he has a “knowledge deficit.”
“Despite obvious signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, Defendant Lucero failed to provide any treatment for his withdrawal,” Quijano wrote. “Instead, Defendant Lucero ordered Mr. Toledo be given Lisinopril, a blood pressure medication, and Metformin, a medication used to treat diabetes. Ruben was sent back to his cell with no further care or monitoring ordered.”
Later that day, Toledo called the master control room, screaming, to be let out of his cell, as he had been hallucinating. When guards opened his door, he tried to get out. Guards handcuffed him and brought him to the medical unit. There, he told staff he was experiencing alcohol withdrawal and was hallucinating, she wrote.
The medical staff called nurse Michael Hildenbrant, who does not have prescribing authority and was not at the facility, said to put him on their alcohol withdrawal “protocol,” which included prescription medications. He should have been hospitalized, she wrote.
Quijano wrote, “When this medication was prescribed, Ruben’s vitals were still abnormal, with a blood pressure of 179/100 and a pulse of 120 beats per minute. Until this point, Ruben had not been monitored for his withdrawal. In light of his severe symptoms of withdrawal, Ruben should have been hospitalized. Instead, Ruben was sent to segregation.”
Hildenbrant prescribed Librium (Chlordiazepoxide) and clonidine. However, his condition had so deteriorated that the Librium “amounted to no care at all,” Quijano wrote.
While in segregation, Toledo was to be periodically monitored by jail guards, but not by medical staff. He continued to act strangely, including weeping in his cell, chanting and wrapping himself in toilet paper.
“Despite this, Ruben received no medical attention in response to his erratic behavior,” Quijano said.
Later that evening, presumably June 23, medical assistant Rayleen Ray went to his cell to give him his medication. He was lying on the ground. He refused to take his medication and eventually agreed, but only if he could take it standing up, she wrote.
Toledo’s condition was so bad that he could not stand up on his own and guards had to help him to his feet. He was still not provided any medical care, she wrote.
A few hours later, Ray went to check on Ruben and looked at him through the food port. She told the segregation guard to alert if if things were not “looking good,” Quijano wrote.
June 24
The next morning, Toledo had an alcohol-induced seizure. Sgt. Lisa Burnside was called to Toledo’s cell and looked at him through the food port. He was on the floor, seizing, Quijano wrote.
Officers entered the cell and once he stopped, Burnside asked if he was OK. Toledo looked at her but he could not speak. She saw dried blood on his forehead an indication that he suffered a head injury while in his cell, likely from a seizure, she wrote.
“Rather than call 911, Defendant Burnside directed officers to take Ruben to the shower to clean up,” Quijano wrote.
Burnside went to find Toledo a new, clean cell, she wrote.
“Ruben needed a hospital, not a new cell,” Quijano wrote.
Toledo was so weak that he could not walk on his own. Guards carried him to the shower, Quijano, wrote.
“When officers got him to the shower, Ruben was unable to stand on his own, so he was placed on the ground,” she wrote. “Ruben slumped over on the ground and became unresponsive.”
The guards did not call for medical staff, 911 or other emergency medical services. Instead, they tried to lift Toledo into a chair, before “eventually” calling for medical staff.
“When they arrived, medical staff directed officers to call 911 and begin CPR,” Quijano wrote.
Once he left the jail, he would never regain consciousness, she wrote.
Toledo was transported to the Cibola General Hospital. When he arrived, he was unresponsive. Blood work showed his sodium levels were “critically high” and his carbon dioxide levels were “critically low,” she wrote.
“Medical staff also noted Ruben suffered significant bruising,” Quijano wrote.
He was also extremely dehydrated. His condition was so severe that they were not able to treat him and he was transferred to the University of New Mexico Hospital, she wrote.
Toledo remained on life support until July 1, 2017. Soon after he was taken off, he was pronounced dead. The county closed the jail three weeks later, she wrote.
Deprivation of civil rights
Quijano sued Lucero, Burnside and Hildenbrant for violation of Toledo’s due process rights through inadequate medical care and wrote that if Toledo received the medical attention he needed as he experienced alcohol withdrawal, he would have survived.
“Defendants knew they were incapable of providing adequate medical care at CCDC,” Quijano wrote. “Defendants failed to obtain medical care until Ruben was slumped over and unresponsive. Ruben never regained consciousness after this.”
Cibola County, Lucero, Burnside and Hildenbrant are also being sued for negligent maintenance of a medical facility and negligent provision of medical care.
“Defendants routinely provided substandard care, or no care at all, to inmates in their facility,” Quijano wrote. “Upon information and belief, Defendants do not transport inmates to the emergency room to avoid costs of treatment.”
Quijano also lodged one count of a custom and policy of violating constitutional rights against warden Adrianna Jaramillo, alleging that during her tenure and that of her predecessors, the jail provided inadequate medical care to inmates.
Office of the Medical Investigator pathologist Matthew Cain wrote, in a heavily redacted autopsy report, that based on the evidence presented to him, Toledo died from chronic alcohol abuse and he had “significant liver disease” and alcoholics are at risk for “metabolic abnormalities” and withdrawal complications.
Despite evidence of alcohol withdrawal in the lawsuit, it is not mentioned in the autopsy report, except as a perfunctory note in the summary and opinion that it can cause seizures and death. Neither Cain’s report nor the deputy field investigation by Tom Conklin makes mention of the seizures Toledo suffered, as noted in the wrongful death lawsuit, although it is unclear what was redacted.
“Seth advised that the decedent had been incarcerated in the Cibola County Detention Center. The decedent was found shaking on the shower floor. He became unresponsive and bystander (REDACTED).”
The narrative outlined in the lawsuit compares starkly with the outline Cain and Conklin noted in the autopsy report and the deputy field investigation.
In the field investigation, Conklin wrote Toledo was “found shaking on the shower floor.” What happened next is redacted.
In Cain’s summary and opinion, he used the same sentence, that Toledo was “found shaking on the shower floor.” Again, what happened next is redacted.
That compares starkly with the lawsuit allegations, that guards carried Toledo into the shower and he slumped over. Guards then lifted Toledo into a chair and eventually called for medical help, according to the lawsuit.
Neither Cain’s autopsy report not Conklin’s field investigation mention that Toledo was taken to a local hospital, and then to the University of New Mexico hospital, after he lost consciousness at the jail.
Both documents also do not mention that Toledo died after being taken off of life support.
Cause of death: Methamphetamine overdose with hypertensive and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease as significant contributing conditions, per autopsy report
On March 28, 2014, Daniel Boscon, 46, Bernalillo Police Officer Jeff McGinnis arrested Daniel Boscon for being disorderly. Despite his pleas for medical attention for dizziness and the laceration on his head, he was brought to the Sandoval County Detention Center where he died 30 minutes after being placed in a cell, according to a lawsuit.
Boscon’s estate was represented by Leon Howard, an attorney.
McGinnis handcuffed Boscon and placed him in the back of a police car. During the drive, Boscon “begged” McGinnis to take him to the hospital and said he was dizzy and had a cut on his head, Higgins wrote.
“There was no doubt that Decedent had injured his head–Defendant McGinnis could clearly see that Decedent’s head was bleeding, and had witnessed Decedent bang his head on the partition cage in Defendant McGinnis’ car,” Higgins wrote.
McGinnis told his supervisor, Sgt. Darrell Sanchez, that Boscon was bleeding and wanted to go to the hospital. Sanchez told McGinnis to take him to the Sandoval County Detention Center and “see what happens,” she wrote.
Sandoval County Detention Center
McGinnis tried to remove Boscon from the car without waiting for jail personnel to open the sally port, “contrary to known safety protocols,” she wrote.
Three unnamed Bernalillo Police Department officers then arrived at the jail and helped McGinnis try to pull Boscon out of the car with “significant force,” Higgins wrote.
One unidentified officer tried to remove Boscon by “using all of his body weight” against him and when that didn’t work, another tried to push push him out “using a great amount of force with with his body,” she wrote.
That struggle ended with officers pulling Boscon out of the rear passenger door, “after which Decedent fell face down onto the ground,” she wrote.
As he lay on the ground, multiple Bernalillo officers held him face down and handcuffed for two minutes and shackled his legs.
He was then taken to the booking area where he struggled. McGinnis accompanied him and did not tell jail staff that Boscon had complained about dizziness or that he had injured his head.
In apparent surveillance footage, McGinnis follows Boscon into the shower area after he was led away from booking and during the booking process he can be seen using a cell phone. He refused to hand over documents related to the cell phone, including its number, citing ongoing investigations, Higgins wrote in a motion to compel.
“Decedent again requested that he be given medical attention, this time, also, to SCDC personnel,” Higgins wrote in the complaint.
Jail staff did not give him any medical attention and staff did not conduct an “adequate” screening. He was then “placed in restraints”, booked, and placed in a cell with a window in the door, she wrote.
“Decedent was discovered unconscious by SCDC personnel 30 minutes after he was placed into the cell,” Higgins wrote.
The jail’s policy is to refuse to book anyone who arrives “in the midst of medical emergencies” and if he had told jail staff that Boscon said he had been feeling dizzy and had an injured head, they would have refused to book him, she wrote.
Higgins charged negligence by the police officers an the jail staff, battery by McGinnis and the three unnamed Bernalillo Police officers and failure to train and supervise both the officers and jail staff.
According to an autopsy report written by pathology fellow Linda Szymanski and Pathologist Ross Zumwalt, Boscon died from an overdose of methamphetamine. Hypertensive and arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease were significant contributing conditions. The manner of death was an accident.
The autopsy showed one-vessel severe coronary artery disease and evidence of chronic myocardial ischemia, which is the death of heart tissue due to a lack of oxygen.
He had minor scrapes and bruises on his face and legs and blood in his chest, although this was put down to likely results of CPR.
The concentrations of methamphetamine in Boscon’s blood were “high.”
According to the toxicology report, he had an amphetamine level of 99 ng/ml and 2500 methamphetamine ng/ml in his blood, although no comparison is given for those quantities.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Human Rights Defense Center, the Sandoval County jail’s print out for “NMAC Law Enforcement cases closed” in October 2017 reported the county “paid $256,581.54 to the estate of Daniel Boscon for a “[w]rongful death claim while in jail.”
NM Homicide is launching a new project to track jail deaths in New Mexico, to write about them and to collect and disseminate as much primary-source material as possible about each death.
No one tracks all jail (in custody, in-custody adjacent, prison) deaths. Reuters conducted an investigation into jail deaths across the country, but only looked at the biggest jails in the country and in individual states. They released the datathey found.Buzzfeed has released thousands of pages of documents released to them in response to a lawsuit over those who died while being held by ICE.
Morning at Tower one, State Penitentiary, with moon at left. Steve deBurque/Flickr. CC-BY-NC
The next-closest database is Fatal Encounters, which tracks all police deaths, but not deaths that happen in custody, although there is some overlap.
The federal government is supposed to track these deaths, which should encompass those who dies in jail, in police lockups and in prison, as well as those who die in hospitals after being transferred from custody and those whose deaths could otherwise, reasonably, be considered the fault of the officials who kept them confined. They won’t give out specifics, according to the Huffington post.
New Mexico has multiple county jails that tend to quickly get inmates out of their facilities when it becomes apparent the person in their custody is at death’s door, deaths that otherwise might not be considered “in” a jail setting.
Jail deaths get tricky, as does how to count them. Suicides count. Many “natural” deaths should count as well as lack of medical attention can exacerbate or cause death, including from cirrhosis.
This dataset includes people who died behind bars and those who died after being taken from jail to health care facilities. It consists of both official “in-custody” death records and inmate deaths that did not meet that specific definition. The number of inmate deaths in this data is likely an undercount.
Our database (like Fatal Encounters, a Google Sheet) includes those who died behind prison and jail bars as well as those who died after being taken from a detention facility to a health care facility. This also means suicides and those who died in police lock-ups as well as deaths from cirrhosis and other illnesses caused by long-term drug and alcohol use.
We comb through lawsuits and media reports and file records requests to find these deaths but many fall through the cracks and we need your help to track them all. Many of the names on the spreadsheet are missing, as Reuters was not able to obtain them. We are filing records requests to find those missing names.
Many other deaths are just plain missing, as are many deaths in privately run prisons, jails and lockups.
Some jail deaths that NM Homicide writes about settled upward of five years ago. We hope that by writing about jail deaths that have not otherwise been covered, we can help create a record, along with the database tracking the deaths. It is our goal to create encyclopedic or Wikipedia-esque entries on each case. This helps identify patterns, like how often qualified immunity shields medical providers. It is also within the structure of NM Homicide.
This database is a collaboration. The point is not to supplant or compete with local coverage (although many parts of New Mexico are news deserts). The purpose is to supplement and help local coverage. Creating a database helps everyone understand what is going on in their communities and to help fellow journalists cover it better.
The current plan for tracking jail deaths is three fold.
1. We want to track and cover all jail deaths in New Mexico. To cover them, we need more writers. Contact us if you’re interested.
2. We want to create collate primary-source documentation on all jail deaths. That means in addition to writing about them, we also want to provide everyone with the documents. Autopsy reports, incident reports, lawsuits, the works. The database should provide as much information, and documentation, as possible.
3. We want to expand the database, including all that primary documentation, to the rest of the country. To that end, we have created a separate form for inputting jail deaths from outside of New Mexico. See that form here.
Before making an entry, please cross reference it with the Reuters database, which we have uploaded to Google Drive, and the Huffington Post database. Unfortunately, Reuters is the only group that has actually released the spreadsheets of their data, although we will be reaching out to other groups.
How we’re doing it
We’re filing public records requests.
We’re crawling CourtListener.com for federal wrongful death lawsuits.
We’re looking through media reports and searching newspaper and TV websites.
We’re looking through state court records to find cases.
Suffering from alcohol withdrawals, guards and nurses allegedly refused Ruben Toledo medical care until be started seizing in his cell. Despite losing the ability to communicate, guards carried him to the shower before calling for medical help. He died days later at a hospital.
On March 28, 2014, Daniel Boscon, 46, Bernalillo Police Officer Jeff McGinnis arrested Daniel Boscon for being disorderly. Despite his pleas for medical attention for dizziness and the laceration on his head, he was brought to the Sandoval County Detention Center where he died 30 minutes after being placed in a cell, according to a lawsuit.
