Community & Family Members Rally to Demand ‘Care Not Deaths’ at Santa Rita Jail
Honoring four lives lost in 2023
Oakland, CA– On Saturday, April 1, at 1:00 p.m., the Care First Community Coalition and families of those impacted by mental illness and incarceration, will hold a vigil and action at Santa Rita Jail to call on the sheriff and county to immediately end the criminalization of substance use and mental illness, and make significant investments in housing and community mental health services.
Stephen Lofton, Elizabeth Laurel, Charles Johnson, and Cody Vanburen are beloved community members who were incarcerated and lost their lives in just the first 2 months of 2023, under the watch of the newly elected Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez. Seven other people at Santa Rita Jail have also experienced fentanyl overdoses in February alone.
CARE NOT DEATH VIGIL & NOISE DEMO
Saturday, April 1st at 1pm
Santa Rita Jail, 5325 Broder Boulevard Dublin, CA
“We are calling on Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to take urgent action in ending the practice of detaining individuals with mental health and substance use needs,” said Joy George with Restore Oakland, Inc. “66 people have died in Santa Rita Jail since 2014 and our elected officials have poured millions of dollars into a jail that continues to kill those who are in desperate need of medical care. This ends now!”
Organized by the Care First Community Coalition, civil rights groups and families will be holding a vigil and noise demonstration to grieve lives lost and express their solidarity for people still held at Santa Rita Jail. Speakers will include Amir Sundiata Rashid of Lighthouse Mosque in Oakland; Dorsey Nunn, Executive Director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children; and Kimberly Graves, Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill. The Care First Community Coalition demands:
- Sheriff Yesenia Sanchez and all law enforcement agencies in Alameda County immediately end their deadly practice of arresting and incarcerating people with mental health and substance needs.
- Alameda County Board of Supervisors to order an investigation of deaths in Santa Rita Jail, including a review of the contract with the private medical provider in the jail, Wellpath, which has utterly failed to prevent these deaths of people on intake.
- Alameda County Board of Supervisors immediately fund $50M of life-saving community mental health services they committed to last year but have stalled to implement.
Cody Vanburen was days away from completing his time and died in the process of being transferred from state prison to Alameda County’s jail to be released. John Lindsay Poland, California Healing Justice Co-Director of the American Friends Service Committee, stated “These deaths are 100% preventable. It’s time Alameda County ends its reliance on the criminal legal system to meet the needs of residents with mental health and substance use needs. Resources must be reinvested into an upstream, community-based, life-affirming continuum of care.” The Care First Community Coalition has worked diligently with many organizations and community members to move money away from Santa Rita Jail into life-affirming resources.
“Alameda County’s increasingly uncoordinated and inadequate community-based mental health systems have resulted in deep racial inequities where severely ill and traumatized black and brown residents get funneled into a deadly jail. Enough is enough. We are rallying to demand the supervisors address these human-caused crises with urgency,” said Margot Dashiel with the East Bay Supportive Housing Collaborative.