The family of a Los Angeles County jail inmate who was left a quadriplegic following a physical altercation with a correctional guard has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the county and the deputy involved.
Jeffrey Fairchild, 56, died on April 21, 2025, at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach after suffering a heart attack. His death followed months of medical care stemming from an incident at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in September 2024. According to federal court-appointed monitors overseeing conduct in L.A. County jails, a sheriff’s deputy named Eric Barraza used excessive force by smashing Fairchild face-first into a metal window frame, causing him to fall to the concrete floor and breaking his neck.
In a wrongful death lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in September 2025, Fairchild’s stepmother, Denise Fairchild, and his father, Halford Fairchild, claim that Barraza used unreasonable force. The suit also names a number of unnamed deputies working in the jail that day and seeks unspecified damages.
According to Denise Fairchild, her stepson had been handcuffed and given a diabetes sugar test. When a nurse was unable to complete the procedure, Fairchild got up to return to his cell, at which point Barraza threw him against a wall, she said.
Attorneys representing the Sheriff’s Department and Barraza denied any wrongdoing in a court filing, asserting that the force used was reasonable under the circumstances and conducted in good faith without malicious intent. The law firm representing them, Lawrence, Beach, Allen & Choi, did not respond to requests for comment.
Internal Sheriff’s Department reports cited by federal monitors presented a different account, with Barraza claiming that Fairchild had charged at him and that he applied downward pressure safely to guide the inmate to the floor. However, federal monitors reviewed CCTV video of the incident and determined that Fairchild was actually walking away from the deputy, not charging. The monitors concluded the takedown was swift, violent, preventable, and out of compliance with safety standards.
Neil Gehlawat, an attorney representing the Fairchild family, argued that the county failed the inmate and that excessive force remains a prevalent problem in county prisons.
The Sheriff’s Department stated that it conducted an internal administrative investigation and took appropriate action, citing Barraza for failing to deploy de-escalation tactics and disciplining a sergeant for review failures. Federal monitors noted, however, that no deputy was ever disciplined for the actual use of force or for alleged factual misrepresentations made during the internal investigation.
At the time of the September 2024 incident, Fairchild was incarcerated after being arrested for violating his parole on a 2022 criminal threat conviction. Family members acknowledged that Fairchild had a troubled life involving arrests and convictions, but emphasized his intelligence, passion for creative writing, poetry, and jailhouse ministry.
The case highlights ongoing concerns regarding the use of force within L.A. County correctional facilities. In 2012, inmates filed a class-action lawsuit known as Rosas v. Baca—now Rosas v. Luna under current Sheriff Robert Luna—alleging widespread excessive violence. That lawsuit led to a 2015 reform agreement, though independent monitors and legal advocates argue the department still fails to adequately discipline deputies involved in unjustified force.
