Officials at the Shasta County Jail announced that an inmate died while in custody at the Redding facility on Sunday.
Jail staff were conducting routine welfare checks when they discovered an unresponsive inmate in his cell, according to the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies and medical staff gave life-saving measures, but the man died at the scene.
The man’s name is not being released pending notification of next of kin.
The sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit has taken over the investigation, with the assistance of the Redding Police Department’s Detective Division.
Shasta County Jail on June 12, 2020
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Inmate deaths at the facility were the subject of a report released in May by the Shasta County Grand Jury. That report said as of January 2025, there had been five in-custody deaths during a thirteen-month period in Shasta County.
The grand jury’s report also said that “lifestyles” including addiction and risk-taking behavior likely led to those deaths, not procedures in place at the Redding facility. “It seems likely that these in-custody deaths … had to do with the inmates’ addictive, illicit and risk-taking behaviors,” the grand jury found.
“In other words, the deaths were due to their lifestyles both in and out of jail,” said the report, which was released on May 9.
According to the grand jury, Shasta County reported 22 in-custody deaths of inmates between 2019 and 2024.
That compared to five in-custody inmate deaths in Butte County and one each in Imperial and Madera counties during the same period.
The grand jury started its investigation in 2024. The jail saw an average daily population of 398 inmates last year.
Several inmates have died of apparent fentanyl overdoses while in the jail in recent years. Law enforcement officials don’t know how fentanyl got into the jail, said sheriff’s office spokesman Tim Mapes in late 2023.
Michele Chandler covers dining, food, public safety and whatever else comes up for the Redding Record Searchlight/USA Today Network. Accepts story tips at 530-338-7753 and at mrchandler@gannett.com. Please support our entire newsroom’s commitment to public service journalism by subscribing today.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: 6th inmate death reported at Shasta County Jail since December 2023
