Lawsuit filed over Tierra Amarilla jail death

Third complaint accuses Rio Arriba County of negligence for allowing drugs to get into facility

Rio Arriba County faces another lawsuit over a fatal drug overdose at the jail in Tierra Amarilla.

The wrongful death complaint, filed Nov. 14 in the state’s First Judicial District Court, says inmate Christopher Edmonds died of a fentanyl overdose in the summer.

It is the third lawsuit filed since July and the second in recent weeks accusing jail administrators and staff of negligence in allowing inmates to access deadly drugs.

The County Commission is named as the defendant in the suit, which seeks compensatory damages, legal fees and other relief.

Rio Arriba County officials did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit or efforts to root out the source of drugs entering the jail.

Edmonds was booked into the jail May 3, the lawsuit states, and was found unresponsive in his jail cell the morning of June 21. A detention center officer’s efforts to revive him were unsuccessful.

An autopsy later determined

Edmonds died from fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl.

A search of Edmonds’ body turned up two strips of Suboxone, a prescription drug used to treat opioid addiction, according to the lawsuit.

Española attorney and former state district Judge Sheri Raphaelson, who represents Edmonds’ family, said in an interview: “He was in there for over a month. He did not bring these drugs into jail with him. Those drugs were provided to him in jail, and there are only two ways they can be brought in — by other inmates or by employees.”

Raphaelson said surveillance video at the jail from the 24 hours before Edmonds’ death should be reviewed to find out where he obtained the drugs.

Two other pending lawsuits against the county were filed after the overdose deaths of Mike Vigil and Manuel Vicente Gutierrez, both in 2022. Those lawsuits also named Roadrunner Health Services as a defendant, alleging the jail’s health care contractor breached its duty to provide care.

Raphaelson said overdoses at the jail are a sign policies “aren’t being enforced or they aren’t working.”

“For years, I’ve had distraught family members tell me when their loved one gets arrested, they say, ‘Thank God. I can relax now that I know he’s safe,’ ” Raphaelson said. “And he should be, but he isn’t.”