Dear CalMatters reader,

After her son, Richard Matus, died in a Riverside jail cell in 2022, Lisa Matus became convinced the county’s system for handling death investigations needed an overhaul.

Richard Matus, who was 29, had been in jail four years and had been prescribed medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. In the days before his death he felt sick and dizzy, his journal entries showed. When his symptoms worsened he was not sent to the hospital. He died the last day she spoke with him, Lisa Matus said.

An autopsy listed his cause of death as “fentanyl and ethanol toxicity,” but it also found severe coronary artery blockage and blunt trauma and lacerations. 

Matus’ family sued the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and Sheriff Chad Bianco in 2023, but Lisa Matus believes it's crucial to change the way death investigations work in Riverside County.

She’s part of the “Riverside Sheriff Accountability Coalition” which is calling for separating the sheriff and coroner’s office, and creating a community oversight board to review complaints against the department and an inspector general to investigate them.

“When there’s grievances filed or deaths that occur, if there’s a complaint, there should be an oversight board to look over that,” she told CalMatters.

In a statement to CalMatters, Bianco said their complaints are "fabrications or misleading at best."

The coalition consists of individuals and civil rights groups including the ACLU of Southern California, League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters of Riverside, and a group called Starting Over Strong, which promotes criminal justice reform.

They argue that it’s crucial to separate law enforcement and death investigations in Riverside County, where the sheriff’s department operates nearly 4,000 jail beds and has seen a spike in inmate deaths. There were 226 in custody deaths between 2011 and 2022, according to a report by the criminal justice nonprofit Care First California. 

A year ago the Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted not to split those offices, but the coalition is urging them to reconsider.

Bianco condemned the repeated attempt to split the departments, saying ""This anti-law enforcement, pro-criminal, activist group simply can not take no for an answer."

He said the board's decision showed that "separating the two offices would be detrimental to the quality of service our residents expect and would not be in the best interest of the County of Riverside."

Some large counties, including Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco, have medical examiner offices that are separate from their sheriff’s departments. A 2022 bill by then-Assemblymember Akilah Weber Pierson, a San Diego Democrat, and Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Gardena Democrat, would have required all counties to split the duties of sheriff and coroner, but it failed.

In most California counties, the offices of sheriff and coroner are combined, leaving the sheriff responsible for investigating unexplained or violent deaths. Those duties include conducting autopsies to determine cause of death, transporting bodies, verifying the cause of death and signing death certificates.

Critics say the sheriff can’t perform that task objectively when a death occurs in custody or after an officer-involved shooting.

“Accountability is integral to any system, and most assuredly for a large and powerful department that deals with matters of life and death,” the coalition stated.

Bianco has disputed claims that his department is responsible for the deaths, blaming them on fentanyl use or suicide.

A 2019 California law authorizes counties to establish sheriff oversight boards and inspectors general. Matus believes that if Riverside County had taken those measures, her son would be alive today. 

“If the county would have implemented that, I know for sure that all of these deaths wouldn’t have taken place,” she said.

Students in Riverside County are getting automatic admission to their choice of 10 Cal State campuses, through a pilot program that aims to boost university enrollment, CalMatters Mikhail Zinshteyn reports.

High school seniors who earn good grades receive a notice in the mail that they’re automatically admitted as long as they maintain their grade point average, finish the mandatory courses required to attend a Cal State campus, and complete an admissions form to claim their spot.

Students can choose from campuses including Channel Islands, Chico, East Bay, Humboldt, Maritime Academy, Monterey Bay, San Francisco, Sonoma, San Bernardino and San Marcos. Officials decided to pilot the program in Riverside County because students there are already included on a state database needed to process the applications and are ethnically and economically representative of California students. 

Democratic Assemblymember Corey Jackson confronted Republican Carl DeMaio Friday over a resolution honoring labor organizer César Chávez.

DeMaio, who represents part of San Diego County, acknowledged Chávez as a civil rights leader and praised him for “supporting a secure southern border” and speaking out “against illegal immigration while affirming legal immigration.” 

Jackson approached while DeMaio was speaking and said “you should be disgusted of yourself.” DeMaio posted on X Friday that Jackson “physically lunged at me.”

Jackson posted a retort Monday:  “I will speak up and get in the way every time someone disrespects an ancestor of one of our communities. It needs to stop.”

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