Six months ago, 19-year-old Lorenzo Herrera was strangled inside his cell in the Fresno County Jail, a killing that remains unsolved today.
The Reedley man had no criminal record when he was arrested in January this year on burglary and gun charges. Yet he was housed with the county’s most hardened, violent criminals, according to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Thursday by his parents, Carlos and Anna Herrera.
He was found dead in his cell on March 24 around lunchtime.
In their wrongful death lawsuit, the Herreras contend in U.S. District Court in Fresno that the Sheriff’s Office is to blame for their son’s death because the jail is understaffed with correctional officers, making it a dangerous place, not just for inmates but for guards, too.