The Brief

People are dying in custody at record rates across California. They’re dying in big jails and small jails, in red counties and blue counties, in rural holding cells and downtown mega-complexes. They’re dying from suicide, drug overdoses and the catch-all term natural causes.

The number of jail deaths is up even though the number of people in jail is down.

The state is aware. Reams of reports from oversight agencies have repeatedly pointed to problems in individual jails and the state board that oversees them.

Gov. Gavin Newsom pledged almost five years ago that the state would take a stronger hand to prevent deaths in the 57 jail systems run by California county sheriffs.

In every year since, more people have died in California jails than when Newsom made that pledge — hitting a high of 215 in 2022. Tulare, San Diego, Kern, Riverside and San Bernardino counties’ jails set records.

Nor was the pandemic the driving factor: California in 2022 had the smallest share of deaths due to natural causes in the past four decades. A surge in overdoses drove the trend of increasing deaths. And almost every person who died was waiting to be tried. A previous CalMatters investigation found that three-quarters of those held in county jails had not been convicted or sentenced, with many awaiting trial more than three years.

A state board was supposed to put in place measures that would keep inmates safer. Newsom committed to working through that board when he said in 2020, “I’ve got a board that’s responsibility is oversight. I want to see them step things up.” 

But in the years that followed, Newsom and the Board of State and Community Corrections were unable to slow the deaths. Until recently, the board was not even notified about deaths inside the county-run lockups, and a 2021 State Auditor’s report criticized the board for failing to enforce its own rules and standards on mental health checks and in-cell wellness checks of inmates.

The state has begun to take a somewhat stronger role.

The governor appointed a formerly incarcerated person to the Board of State and Community Corrections, and also signed a bill last year that added to it a licensed health care provider and a licensed mental or behavioral health care provider.

Following through on his 2021 budget proposal to increase the frequency of jail inspections and allow the board to perform them unannounced, Newsom directed an additional $3.1 million each year to the oversight board. The board reported that last year it conducted 31 unannounced jail inspections, a change from past practice when it would visit jails just once every two years, and told jail authorities in advance when inspectors were coming.

And a new law in July will add a staff position to review in-custody deaths, a position to be appointed by Newsom and confirmed by the Senate.

But critics say those steps have been insufficient. For instance, the original bill would have put jail death monitors in every county.

From right, Gov. Gavin Newsom, along with former Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, and Attorney General Rob Bonta, speaks in support of Prop. 1 during a press conference at the United Domestic Workers of America building in San Diego on Feb. 29, 2024.

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Kristian Carreon

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CalMatters

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CalMatters sent nine questions to the governor about jail deaths, the effectiveness of the state board, and his own 2021 pledge to strengthen jail oversight.

Newsom’s office did not answer the questions, instead sending a list of accomplishments to reflect “the Governor’s extensive record in this space.” Those mostly applied to his policies for state prisons, such as a death penalty moratorium.

When CalMatters asked him about high statewide jail deaths at a March 1 press conference in the Inland Empire, Newsom responded by saying:

“The governor,” Newsom said, “just signed legislation to actually be able to create a point person specifically responsible for overseeing what’s happening in county jails, working with (Attorney General Rob Bonta), who’s also been advancing investigations. One very close to home here in Riverside County, related to 18 in-custody deaths in 2022 with the current sheriff.”

The officials with the greatest influence over what happens in jails — the state’s elected county sheriffs — say additional state oversight is unnecessary. California State Sheriffs’ Association president Mike Boudreaux, who is also the sheriff of Tulare County, said he already answers to a state oversight board, the state Justice Department, county grand juries, federal courts, state courts and the media.

“What we see is that people criticize jails, they criticize sheriffs’ offices,” Boudreaux said. “And the reality of it is, they’ve never been inside a jail. They’ve never worked side-by-side with the sheriffs’ offices. They’ve never sat in meetings that we sit in to make sure that not only are we doing things right, we’re doing things that are for the safety and security of those inmates.”

In 2011 California — as it thinned severely overcrowded state prisons by sending tens of thousands of recently convicted offenders to county-run jails — created an oversight board for prisons and jails. This 13-member Board of State and Community Corrections is composed mostly of people with law enforcement and probation experience. The governor appoints eight, with one each appointed by the Judicial Council of California, Speaker of the Assembly and Senate Rules Committee.

The other two current board members are the state prison system’s chief and its director of parole operations.

The board’s initial mission was to lend independent expertise to jails and prisons and act as a “data and information clearinghouse.” The board gives out $400 million each year to jails, prisons, tribes and community organizations. It also sets standards for correctional facilities, from the hourly checks performed on inmates to the time set aside for recreation.

Almost immediately after its formation, the board was confronted with the limits of its powers: It lacked authority to mandate that all California sheriffs report their data – including in-custody deaths.

That will change when the state board’s new reviewer of in-custody death starts this summer.

When asked by CalMatters why more people are dying in California jails, despite a declining jail population, Board of State and Community Corrections representative Adam A. Lwin responded, “The BSCC is not in a position to comment on this question with respect to deaths in jails.”

“Until the passage of (the new law adding a detention monitor), the BSCC did not have specific responsibilities related to deaths in custody, beyond inspecting for the local agency’s policy and procedures related to reporting on any death in custody,” Lwin wrote in response to CalMatters’ questions.

So why are so many dying in California jails?

The reasons people are dying at record rates in California jails are a matter of circumstance, although in interviews with more than 70 people involved in California jails systems, from sheriffs and prosecutors to inmates and nurses, some patterns emerged.

Natural causes have long accounted for the biggest share of jail deaths, followed by suicides.

Suicide prevention should be a higher priority for jail staff, said University of Texas School of Law professor Michele Deitch, among the nation’s foremost authorities on deaths in prisons and jails.

“The vast majority of these deaths are preventable,” she said.

The causes of a significant number of deaths for recent years are still pending – meaning that the sheriff’s office hasn’t yet identified the cause or the Justice Department hasn’t updated the cause in its data collection.

But the recent increase in deaths came from the third largest cause overall, accidental deaths including fentanyl overdoses. Overdoses accounted for 43 deaths in 2022.

Fentanyl overdoses present a far deadlier challenge now than the previous dominant drug in jails, methamphetamine. Other factors are the same ones Newsom cited a few years ago: suicide; failures in health care or psychiatric evaluations; and less commonly, violence among inmates or by jail guards.

Protesters hold signs outside the John F. Tavaglione Executive Annex building in protest of jail deaths in Riverside County, on Oct. 31, 2023.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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A row of cells in an inmate housing unit at the Tulare County Adult Pre-Trial Facility on Sept. 18, 2023.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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Sabrina Weddle protests in front of the San Diego Central Jail in San Diego on Oct. 24, 2023. Waddle’s brother, Saxon Rodriguez, died while in custody at the jail after overdosing on fentanyl in 2021.

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Adriana Heldiz

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CalMatters

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Shannon Dicus, San Bernardino County’s Sheriff and a member of the Board of State and Community Corrections, said the rise in deaths in part reflects trends that are unfolding outside of jails, including an overstretched mental health system and widespread use of potentially deadly opiates.

For his deputies, a persistent issue is people who know they are in violation of their probation terms hiding drugs in their bodies before they’re returned to jail.

“So a lot of these folks are secreting opiates in their rectum,” Dicus said. “We run dogs through. We do a number of things. We’re spending $250,000 on body scanners. And what happens is some of these people, they’ll have it in their bodies where we can’t detect it.

“They go into the jail, they get housed in their general housing assignment, and then all of a sudden I have seven fentanyl overdoses. And that’s the truth.”

Dicus said jails also find letters sent to inmates in the mail that were dipped in diluted fentanyl or methamphetamine.

But sometimes the jail-keepers themselves are responsible. During the pandemic, when jails were closed to visitors, drugs still found a way in. Jail deputies in Riverside and Fresno counties have been charged with drug smuggling, and an Alameda County civil grand jury found that a private jail contractor fired the medical director of the county’s jails for writing fake prescriptions to obtain opioids for herself.

Sheriffs have sometimes resisted outside pressure to more closely monitor their employees. In San Diego County jails, where according to Justice Department statistics 47 people died between 2021 and 2023, Sheriff Kelly Martinez and her predecessor have repeatedly refused requests from the local civilian law enforcement review board to put her deputies through scanners before they start their shifts. Two jail deputies pleaded guilty to drug-related charges last year, one for burglary of medication from a jail prescription medication drop-off box and the other for possession of cocaine on jail property.

Burned out jail medical staff

Jails could do a better job beginning at intake and reception, said Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union National Prison Project. She noted that people who have been arrested often are asked deeply personal questions about their substance use and history of self-harm, within earshot of jail deputies and other inmates.

If they don’t disclose that they have drug or alcohol dependency – perhaps fearing that will lead to more charges – Kendrick said the immediate cutoff can pose an enormous health risk.

And for people who are on psychiatric medication but don’t like the side-effects or don’t want to disclose their condition, the cessation of their medication can send their mental health into a tailspin.

The pandemic also badly dented jails’ ability to provide quality health care, critics contend.

When jails reopened to their regular capacity, Kendrick said, the arrival of new inmates and the resignations of burned-out health care workers stressed the systems beyond their breaking points. “A lot of jails have said that they’re having problems with correctional and health care staff who quit during the pandemic,” she said.

One of those was Dr. Lauren Wolchok, who worked in Los Angeles County jails from 2016 to 2021. Before and during the pandemic, she said, the number of opioid-dependent patients she saw skyrocketed. But those jails strictly restricted opioid treatment, she said, confining it to a small subset of the population that needed it.

“I was not able to offer the kind of medical care that I wanted to be able to offer and that contributed to burnout for me,” Wolchok said. “I had long struggled with the existential crisis of, am I doing more harm than good by working in this terrible setting or am I sort of fighting against the system and getting people care that they otherwise wouldn’t have?

“Especially as the quality of the care that I felt I was delivering declined, it became harder and harder for me personally to decide that I was fighting the good fight.”

Drug overdoses, insufficient medical treatment, suicides — all of those causes of jail deaths could be minimized by more stringent policies. Academics, inmates and their advocates suggest scanning jail workers for drugs, providing a ready supply of the opioid-blocking naloxone nasal spray, ensuring inmates go through intake in a more private area, performing more frequent checks of inmates, and instituting local oversight boards.

Those decisions fall to one person: The county sheriff.

An overdose? Or a heart attack?

Some of California’s deadliest jails are in Riverside County, where 45 people have died since Jan. 1, 2021. One of them was Richard Matus.

Matus knew he wasn’t feeling well days before he died.

In journals he kept during his incarceration, which his family provided to CalMatters along with his medical records, Matus complained of feeling ill and receiving no medical help in jail.

“Its hard to deal with being treated as a sick animal an feeling like im just waiting to die,” he wrote in one entry. “Iv put in medical slips to see a doctor because I felt sick, very dizzy, bad head ack, felt like I was running fever and completely lost my sense of smell witch was really weird. They never followed up I believe it was twice I put in medical slips an no response so I gave up.”

Matus, whose family said he hadn’t used drugs besides marijuana before his incarceration, was found dead in his cell on Aug. 10, 2022, of a fentanyl overdose.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department coroner’s death record for Richard Matus Jr.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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In a lawsuit filed in March 2023, Matus’ family alleges that Matus was lucid and communicative on the phone with his mother, Lisa, hours before his death. They allege that his “dire need for emergency medical intervention went unnoticed by the (jail’s) custody staff.”

An autopsy conducted eight hours after Matus’ death found something else. His left anterior descending artery, which provides half the heart’s blood supply and is known colloquially as “the widowmaker,” was 80% to 90% blocked. A medical form filled out by Matus on Sept. 26, 2021, indicated that a doctor told him his cholesterol and blood pressure were far above normal.

“Every time he complained to that (jail medical) office, they gave him cholesterol pills and told him to lose weight,” Matus’ mother, Lisa, told CalMatters. “They never sent him to the hospital, even though his blood pressure and cholesterol was (above normal). The whole time, he needed medical care and they just ignored him.”

That contention became part of the family’s lawsuit.

“Due to the great delays in securing adequate emergency medical attention for Richard Matus, Jr., and the failures on behalf of the (jail’s) custody staff in performing the required safety and welfare checks,” Matus’ family wrote in the lawsuit, “Mr. Matus did not respond to medical intervention and died.”

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office responded to the lawsuit by denying all liability and said that Matus’ death was his own doing.

The family of Richard Matus Jr. stands outside the John F. Tavaglione Executive Annex with memorial photos of Richard, who died in-custody of the Riverside Sheriff’s Department in Riverside County.

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Jules Hotz

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CalMatters

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“If Plaintiffs sustained any injury or damages,” they wrote, “such injury or damages were solely caused or contributed to by the wrongful conduct of other entities or persons other than the answer Defendants.”

Some sheriffs have changed their practices to avoid in-custody deaths. Others say they’re looking for solutions. But Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has instead taken an adversarial approach.

Criticism of his policy and practices, Bianco told the Riverside Press-Enterprise, are a “political publicity stunt of the far left.” He did not answer questions from CalMatters.

After an inmate died in 2022, the Riverside Press-Enterprise posted an interview with Bianco. In the comments under the story, someone who identified himself as Bianco interacted with commenters, referring to the demands of people whose family members had died in his jails.

“Did they demand their family members not commit suicide or consume drugs while they were in custody?” he wrote. “Did they ever demand that their family members not commit crimes in the first place? Did their parents ever demand that they take responsibility for their own actions?”

The ACLU sent a letter in September 2021 demanding that the state investigate Riverside County jails. In 2022, another 19 people died, including Matus. After the ACLU wrote again demanding an inquiry by the state’s jail oversight board in early 2023, Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation.

The Justice Department refused to answer any questions about its investigation. Bianco did.

“This announcement comes as a shock but at the same time should have been expected from our California DOJ and the attorney general who cares more about politics than he does about transparency and the truth,” Bianco said in a video the day the investigation was announced.

“This investigation is based on nothing but false and misleading statements and straight out lies from activists, including their attorneys. This will prove to be a complete waste of time and resources.”

‘All we’re doing is making recommendations to sheriffs’

The attorney general has two open investigations into jails, one in Riverside County and one in Santa Clara County. But the organization charged with overseeing day-to-day operations of California’s jails is the Board of State and Community Corrections.

The board can wield significant power.

When it repeatedly found the Los Angeles juvenile hall were unsuitable for housing last year, it shut down the system and directed the county probation department to find new housing for about 300 young people.

But that was an exception.

A Feb. 9, 2023 board meeting turned contentious when it came to the Riverside County jail system, the 15th-largest in the U.S.

Avalon Edwards, a policy associate of Riverside-based social justice organization Starting Over Inc., said the board was not enforcing its own standards of inmate care.

“If (Riverside County) can kill 20 people in 13 months and fail to provide any information to the families impacted, fail to report those deaths to the DOJ within the 10-day mandated reporting period, continue to lie to the public about the cause of death for all these people,” he said, “what are those minimum standards accomplishing?”

Edwards urged the board to withhold funding from noncompliant departments or, if they wouldn’t, he asked every board member to resign.

Critics argue that the board lacks the ability to effectively regulate jails.

“It is not set up with the kind of enforcement power, or teeth, to be able to meaningfully hold accountable agencies that are failing to comply with standards,” recently recalled San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin told CalMatters. “So that’s one problem. And I don’t say that as a criticism of the organization or the people there so much as of the structure.

“I mean, it doesn’t have the ability to actually impose remedies even when it is aware of violations,” he said.

Two independent state oversight agencies also have found fault with the board and the jail system. The Legislative Analyst’s Office found in 2021 that the board’s effectiveness is hard to judge because it’s unclear what the board’s mission is. It said this “undermines the Legislature’s ability to assess whether the program is operating effectively and is consistent with Legislative priorities.”

The State Auditor’s Office, meanwhile, zeroed in on San Diego County jails in February 2022. It found that the San Diego Sheriff’s Department failed to prevent deaths in its jails and that its practices “likely contributed to in‑custody deaths.” The auditor’s office also found fault with the state corrections board, saying its jail regulations are inconsistent and its answers to the audit were “deficient or misleading.”

Even one member of the state corrections board feels the board’s hands are tied.

“All we’re doing is making recommendations to sheriffs,” said board member Norma Cumpian. “You’re like, hey, 20 people have died in your jails. We recommend that you, you know, report it quicker. Like, that’s not a lot.”

A Tulare County deputy sheriff stands guard at an inmate housing unit at the Tulare County Adult Pre-Trial Facility on Sept. 18, 2023.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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Cumpian, a former inmate who served nearly 20 years in prison for killing her abusive partner, said she often senses indifference or complacency from her colleagues.

As for plans to add a detention monitor, a dubious Cumpian said “I don’t know, this bill is supposed to release reports to the public. Like, what is that gonna do?”

Dicus, the San Bernardino sheriff who operates the seventh-largest jail system in the U.S., doesn’t see a problem with the way the oversight board operates. He said the oversight board is doing its job in accordance with its mission: assessing the policies and procedures of the jails it oversees while ensuring facilities are up to code.

He said the blame for in-custody deaths extends beyond the jails.

“Locally, try getting some help,” Dicus said. “Our local department of behavioral health, and this is not me throwing stones at them, but they’re 9 to 5. We live in a 24/7 environment where people are in crisis. And the crisis that we’re experiencing, the cops are there 24/7, but we need some of these other service providers to have the same level of response.”

He said the state has to rethink how it operates the social safety net at the county level, especially for mental health and substance abuse.

“It’s just typically this is the way we’ve handled everything, and we need to break out of that,” he said. “I think we need kind of a statewide revisit of what’s working and what’s not.”

Long Beach is famously surrounded by a breakwater to protect its harbor, but that massive barrier hasn’t been able to shield homes on the city’s Peninsula from hurricane-charged swells recently.

Over the last few weeks, strong waves have repeatedly stripped away sand, broken through a boardwalk bulkhead and threatened to collapse beachside homes by clawing away the sand underneath them. All of this keeps happening in a narrow stretch of homes along the Peninsula, mostly between 62nd and 69th places.

Those few blocks are vulnerable to swells coming from the south because of an opening in the breakwater and jetty that allows boat access to Alamitos Bay.

In order to protect those homes, Long Beach typically builds a sand berm to block waves. When waves rip it away, the breakwater keeps it from washing out to sea, and it instead piles up to the west near downtown (a phenomenon called littoral drift.) The city spends $1 million to $1.5 million a year on trucking that sand back to the Peninsula and rebuilding the beach.

This year, it hasn’t been enough.

El Niño’s warm waters have supercharged high tides. That, combined with hurricane-driven waves coming up from the south, has stripped so much sand away from the Peninsula’s beach that the wooden bulkhead under the coastal boardwalk has been exposed.

At high tide, breakers now slap directly against the wood, repeatedly splintering it.

The city is hoping to soon start a $11.4 million dredging project to gather enough sand to rebuild the beach and protect the boardwalk, but that can’t happen while it’s getting pounded by the surf.

There may be some relief soon. Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific runs from mid-May through November. Hurricanes later in the year are much more likely to form in the western Pacific — as opposed to the southeast — and the federal breakwater that shields Long Beach’s harbor blunts the swells that originate from the west. That’s why much of California’s western coast may still see dangerous waves through the winter, though Long Beach is usually safe.

To bolster the Peninsula’s defenses, Long Beach is now considering a $6.8 million plan to build a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup.

This aerial view of the Peninsula was included in a city report on ways to replenish its sand.

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City of Long Beach

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via Long Beach Post

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But for a long-term solution, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration — funded partly by state mitigation credits.

It’s the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. The city council, for now, has approved $30,000 to look into it further.

Not only has Gov. Gavin Newsom vocally opposed the proposed California billionaire tax, but he also wants to prevent the state from ever passing a wealth tax in the future.

On Friday he endorsed Proposition 42, a ballot measure that would cancel out Proposition 40, the proposed billionaire tax. Prop. 42 would prohibit retroactive taxes like the one-time 5% tax on assets that would apply to any billionaire who lived in California on Jan. 1, 2026, if Prop. 40 passes.

But Prop. 42, funded and placed on the ballot by billionaire and Google co-founder Sergey Brin to defeat the billionaire tax, also would go further, by banning any new taxes on personal property.

That includes pensions and 401K accounts before retirees start drawing retirement income from them. It also includes other investments, financial assets, business holdings, art collections and all other forms of personal wealth that would be affected by the billionaire tax or any future wealth tax.

Newsom’s decision to support Prop. 42 runs counter to his own Democratic Party and some labor unions. It also aligns him with some of the wealthy tech donors with whom he’s maintained longstanding relationships dating back to his days as mayor of San Francisco.

Proponents primarily argue that middle-class workers’ retirements and pension accounts should never be taxed as assets before the gains are later taxed a second time as income, even though there is no such proposal. Lawmakers have in the past proposed asset taxes but those bills went nowhere in the Legislature and any tax would require a two-thirds majority to pass. The proposed billionaire tax also exempts many kinds of retirement accounts.

“We all agree that Californians deserve to have their retirement and life savings protected from new state taxes so those savings are there when they need them,” Newsom said in a statement released by the proponents, who also include police and fire unions.

Proponents of the tax criticized his Prop. 42 endorsement as “in lock step with his billionaire backers.”

“By voting yes on Prop 42, he’s showing California his true colors,” said Debru Carthan, vice president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West in a statement. “He’d rather millions of children and families lose their healthcare than ask a couple hundred billionaires to finally pay their fair share.”

Newsom has not yet taken a position on Prop. 41, another Brin-backed, anti-billionaire measure that would nullify Prop. 40 by subjecting the tax revenues to certain state spending limits and audits, said spokesperson Izzy Gardon. The billionaire tax measure, funded by one healthcare union, would put 90% of the money it collects toward the state’s healthcare program for low-income residents, Medi-Cal.

Newsom, along with many other leading California Democrats and most Republicans, has vocally opposed the billionaire tax and tried to negotiate to keep it off the ballot. In general during his two terms as governor he has opposed state-level taxes on assets, out of concern the wealthy will leave the state and deprive the state of their income tax revenue.

But he has also sought to take advantage this year of a populist upswing and frustration toward tech billionaires ahead of his decision on whether to run for president after he leaves office. The California Democratic Party endorsed the billionaire tax and polling shows a slim majority of likely voters support it.

In response to the billionaire tax, Newsom this summer announced a proposal to impose a national tax on the wealthy, including a minimum tax rate on anyone with a net worth of more than $100 million. He also wants to undo corporate tax cuts that President Donald Trump and Congress approved in 2017, boost inheritance taxes and close loopholes the wealthy use to borrow from unrealized capital gains without paying income taxes.

Critics from the left have tried to use his Prop. 40 opposition against him. Last weekend as he rallied for the billionaire tax, Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna, another possible 2028 presidential contender, said donor relations were the “only reason” for Newsom’s opposition.

“You can’t be anti-Trump and then do the bidding of Trump donors,” Khanna said in a video with progressive former congressional candidate Saikat Chakrabarti.

Khanna pointed to Brin, who has never donated to Newsom but has had a relationship with the governor for years. Newsom and Brin attended each other’s weddings. The tech magnate has recently also turned rightward, courting Trump’s favor.

Newsom announced his endorsement of Prop. 42 on Friday along with his positions on most of the 14 ballot measures Californians are deciding on.

He endorsed most measures on the ballot, but opposes Proposition 39, the Republican-backed voter ID measure; Proposition 43, a measure to make it more difficult to pass most local taxes; and Proposition 44, a health union-backed measure to dictate how much money clinics serving low-income patients must spend on patient care.

He hasn’t yet taken a position on Proposition 45, the business-backed measure that puts time limits on the environmental review process for new developments.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Vicki Rodriguez and her family gathered at Central Library in downtown Los Angeles in September — blocks from where they lived more than half a century ago — to see their lives on Bunker Hill portrayed by a famous painter they called “Mr. Politi.”

In the 1960s, Caldecott-winning artist Leo Politi painted the historic Bunker Hill neighborhood. Thousands of people were forced by eminent domain to relocate for the modernization plan known as the Bunker Hill Redevelopment Project. Politi, who had once lived there himself, took it upon himself to sketch, then paint, some of the houses that were soon to be demolished.

“I saw these beautiful mansions being torn down,” Politi told an interviewer at KCET in 1987, “and I says, ‘I just got to start drawing them and recording them,’ so I did a lot of studies up there, and when I finished, I did the book.”

"The Veranda" by Leo Politi in "Bunker Hill, Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days". The drawing features Ruby and Julie.

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A scan from the book.

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In 1964, he published a selection of what he captured in a book, Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Reminiscences of Bygone Days. The beloved childhood home of Vicki and her family was featured in those paintings.

Watching Mr. Politi at work

Vicki, her sister Ruby Besing, and their cousin Julie Lendt remember playing outside the house they all lived in at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue and watching Politi sketch.

They didn’t know then that the friendly man with an easel and paints was a lauded artist. When they saw the finished product, they were thrilled to find that Politi called them “the last children on Bunker Hill.”

Photo taken in 1960 of 221 S. Bunker Hill Ave., where the Bruce family lived.

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Historic American Buildings Survey

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Courtesy Library of Congress

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How Politi's art ended up at the library

In 1965, after displaying some of Politi’s paintings from the book, Central Library acquired 44 of his sketches and drawings for $3,000. Though collecting art isn’t typically part of the library’s mandate, librarians deemed the pictures of the now-leveled neighborhood to be of important historical value.

Vicki and her family — who relocated to Echo Park after being forced to move — learned a few years ago that several of the artworks had been put on display in the library’s children’s section.

But the picture of their family home at 221 S. Bunker Hill Avenue wasn’t one of them. It was housed in the library’s Special Collections.

The Bruce family has had a copy of Leo Politi's book on Bunker Hill for decades.

A copy of Politi’s book signed to Vicki and Ruby’s family is a prized possession.

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Courtesy Ruby Besing

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How the Bruce family came to Bunker Hill

Though Politi refers to the house in the book as belonging to their grandmother, it actually belonged to Vicki’s parents, Byron and Vaden Bruce, who’d grown up poor in Kentucky and moved west in the mid-1940s to Los Angeles in search of a better life.

Byron’s aunt, a preacher named Statia Mobley who ran a mission on Skid Row, married the couple in May 1946. They celebrated their wedding with a dinner at Clifton’s Cafeteria, a special treat that they indulged in on their anniversary each year after.

Vaden and Byron Bruce on their wedding day at Clifton’s Cafeteria in May 1946.

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Courtesy Ruby Besing

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Byron Bruce was a musician whose sight was limited. Since he couldn’t drive, Bunker Hill was the perfect launch point from which he could walk to the many bars and clubs that dotted the downtown landscape. He was also a smart businessperson who cobbled together the money to buy a few homes around the neighborhood, sliced into apartments, which he maintained for his tenants. Vaden worked for over 30 years in the administrative office at the Sears in Boyle Heights.

Vicki, Ruby and Julie all walked down the hill each day and through the 2nd Street tunnel to Fremont Elementary School.

Leaving Bunker Hill

As they played in the streets while Politi worked to capture them, they had no idea about the yearslong battle to level their neighborhood. The Bruces never troubled their children with the unfolding drama over its purchase by eminent domain. (Those who didn’t own their home — the majority of the people evicted from Bunker Hill — were forced out without any assistance.)

When they finally had to leave in the summer of 1963, their childhood on the hill became a cherished memory.

Vicki Rodriguez, Ruby Besing and Julie Lendt pose with a sketch they’d never seen from the Leo Politi Collection at Central Library

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Lisa Napoli

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LAist

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For 30 years now, Vicki, who lives with her husband in Tujunga, has been a longtime secretary of my neighbor on the modern Bunker Hill — directly across the street from where the Bruce family once lived.

When he told me about Vicki’s roots in the neighborhood, I helped her connect with the library.

What the family found in the library's collection

Ruby Besing, librarian Ani Boyadjian, Julie Lendt and Vicki Rodriguez.

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Lisa Napoli

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LAist

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In September, Vicki, Ruby, Julie, and Vicki’s son, Jeffrey, huddled around boxes of art as librarian Ani Boyadjian carefully opened the first. The very first piece she pulled out was one depicting their Bunker Hill Avenue home. But it wasn’t the picture Politi used in the book — it was another one that the family hadn’t known about.

Looking at paintings and sketches they didn’t know existed, these last children on Bunker Hill, now in their 60s and 70s, found themselves transported back in time to their beloved neighborhood — and flabbergasted to see how much attention Politi had paid them, even Ruby’s beloved childhood pet cat, Poncho.

“To our knowledge, there were only the two paintings in the book. And then at the library, we see there are something like 15 sketches and paintings, renderings of the house we’d never seen before,” Vicki said after the visit. “It blew me away. Seeing this artwork was a dream come true.”

There's a new film club in town. Think burlesque, with a dose of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and the vibe of a Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening — and you’ve got Sh—ty Movie Club.

Kinda.

Founder Shadie Elnashai calls his epic hangs “movie parties.” They began as get-togethers among friends in 2019, where drinking games or movie bingo are part of the experience. Since then, screenings have been held in Cairo, Tokyo and Sydney. In Los Angeles, ticketed events started in late August at venues like Clifton’s — all in celebration of films with a certain flavor.

Gems like The Apple, the over-the-top sci-fi biblical musical from 1980 where an evil music label controls the world — in the futuristic year 1994.

Or Ninja Terminator, a Hong Kong martial arts flick that its director stitched together using original footage and those from another existing film. No one at his screening, Elnashai said, was any the wiser, until he stopped the movie midway and told them.

"We actually don't use the word 'bad'. Sh—ty movie to me is awesome. It's entertaining, it's earnest, it's genuine," said Elnashai, who studied film in college. "Some people still hate it, don't get me wrong.  "

Audience members showing off their "Niu Lai"-inspired outfits.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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What a Sh—ty Movie Club screening is like

I got a taste of that joy and reverence, along with some 200 people at Clifton’s in downtown L.A., at a recent screening of the viral Chinese animated film Liu Nai.

The coming-of-age tale of a baby cow was made by a mother and son with zero film or animation experience — and it looked it. Those very bush-league qualities helped it go viral. The film went on to gross $9 million at the Chinese box office against a budget of under $200.

A hand-drawn poster advertising the film "Niu Lai", which translates to "Here Comes the Cow", is seen at a cinema in Beijing on August 21, 2026.

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PEDRO PARDO

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Getty Images

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Before the movie: Posters, jokes and a cow striptease 

I had read about the movie, but was never curious enough to try and see it, until I saw a social post for the screening.

At Sh—ty Movie Club, the film is the main course, with a full menu built around it. First comes a preshow that features a show-and-tell of homemade film posters by audience members (a nod to what happened in China), a call-out for bovine jokes, and, between gags, cow-related video clips (including a McDonald’s infomercial from Hong Kong) Elnashai compiled runs in the background. The indisputable climax belongs to the long, slow striptease by a woman dressed in a full cow costume.

“Each screening's a little different,” said Elnashai, whose day job is curating entertainment for private and corporate events, adding that he typically readies a few dozens assets — clips, jokes, gags — for each club screening. “There’s so much prep that goes into it.” 

Founder Shadie Elnashai designed a drinking game specifically for the screening of the viral Chinese cow movie "Niu Lai."

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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Talking back to the screen is encouraged 

The Chinese viral cow movie itself is screened from a bootleg probably taped inside a movie theater (the film isn't in U.S. theaters or on streamers) — with jagged angles and a Chinese QR code that ricochets across to boot. Somehow, it all feels very on point.

Audiences are encouraged to talk at the movie, to chant “rewind” for an instant replay, and to abandon themselves to the film — odd but uniquely singular in its aesthetics — in the good-natured company of so many others.

“There's no rule book,” Elnashai said of many of the films screened at the club. “Each one is completely, beautifully different. Experiencing that all together is so fun for me to watch.”