The family of an El Paso man brutally killed by other inmates last year has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit claiming his violent death occurred due to “lax customs and practices” within the El Paso County Jail system.
The lifeless body of 57-year-old Jesus Torres went unnoticed by detention officers for 12 hours inside his cell in what the lawsuit claims was a pattern of a lack of proper supervision and protection on the part of jail staff.
The lawsuit was filed against El Paso County on Monday, Nov. 18, in U.S. federal court in El Paso, close to the first anniversary of the homicide at the El Paso County Jail Annex on Nov. 27, 2023.
El Paso County is the only defendant named in the lawsuit, which requests a jury trial and does not list a specific monetary amount sought by the plaintiffs. The El Paso County Attorney’s Office said it does not comment on pending litigation as a matter of policy.
“It makes no sense at all that Jesus’ murder was fully visible to jailers through a camera feed, and nobody ever came to help,” Dallas attorney Dean Malone, who is representing Torres’ two sons and daughter, said in a statement. “It is even more bizarre that Jesus’ lifeless body laid in the cell for hours before being discovered.