Group calls to separate a coroner from the Riverside Sheriff’s office

After her son Richard Matus died in the Riverside prison cell in 2022, Lisa Matus has become convinced that the county system for the processing of death investigations needed major overhaul.

Richard Matus, who was 29, was in prison for four years and felt sick and dizzy. He is prescribed a medicine for high blood pressure and cholesterol. When his symptoms worsened, he was not sent to the hospital. He died on the last day when Lisa Matus was talking to him, she said.

Autopsy lists its cause of death as “fentanyl and toxicity of ethanol”, but Autopsy also detects a heavy coronary artery blockage And a dumb trauma and tears.

Matus family brought a case against the Sheriff Department of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco in 2023, but Lisa Matus thinks it is essential to change the way death investigations work in Riverside County.

She is part of ‘Riverside Sheriff Coalition Coalition“Which calls for the separation of the sheriff and the Corron Cabinet, to create the Community Supervision Council, to review complaints against the department and the Inspector General to investigate them.

“When there are complaints, filed or deaths that occur, if there is a complaint, there must be a supervision of the board to review this,” she told Calmatters.

In a statement to Calmatters, Bianco said their complaints were “fictions or misleading at the best case.”

The coalition consists of persons and civil rights groups, including ACLU of Southern California, the League of United Citizens of Latin America, the League of Women’s Voters of Riverside, and a group called Strong, which promotes the reform of criminal justice.

They claim that it is essential to divide investigations into law enforcement and death in Riverside County, where the Sheriffe department operates nearly 4,000 beds in prison and saw a leap in the death of prisoners. There was 226 Death in greater than 2011 to 2022According to a report on non -profit care for criminal justice, the first California.

“We are advocating to divide the role of Coroner, the public administrator and sheriff because of the problems we saw about how they deal with the sheriff, but also because there is an inherent conflict of interest,” says Chani Biman, a member of the league of the women involved in the coalition. “You have a sheriff here who runs operations and when this death happens, it is also the one who signed in this death.”

Bianco, who runs as governor in 2026, has It is disputed that his department is responsible for deathaccusing them of using fentanyl or suicide.

A year ago, the Council of the Supervisory Authorities of Riverside Riverside County Votes not to divide officesBut the coalition calls them to review.

Bianco neglected the multiple attempts of the groups to divide the departments, saying “This anti-iconic application, the pro-crime, activist group simply cannot take no answer.”

He said the Council of Supervisory Authorities agreed that “the division of the two offices will be detrimental to the quality of service that our residents expect and will not be in the interest of the Riverside County.”

Some major cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, have offices for medical professionals who are separate from their sheriff departments. A 2022 Bill Until the assisted then Akila Weber PearsonDemocrat from San Diego and Sports Dispute Mike GipsonDemocrat from Gardena would require all cities to divide the duties of the sheriff and the corona, but he failed in the state senate.

In most counties in California, the sheriff and coronary offices combine, leaving the sheriff responsible for Supervision of unexplained or violent deaths. These obligations include autopsy to determine the cause of death, transportation of organs, check the cause of death and signing the death certificates.

Critics claim that the sheriff cannot complete this task objectively when death or after an officer -linked shooting occurs.

“Accountability is an integral part of every system and most secure for a large and powerful department that deals with issues of life and death,” the coalition said.

California Act in 2019. He authorizes Counts Yes Create Sheriff’s Surveillance Boards and general inspectors. Matus believes that if Riverside County has taken these measures, her son would be alive today.

“If the county would apply this, I know for sure that all these deaths would not be,” she said.