Monterey county jail killed my husband, Juan Carlos Chavez on Wednesday, April 20, 2022. He turned himself on Monday April 18, 2022 for an old warrant to get it cleared up. He turned himself in to Watsonville PD (Santa Cruz County). We thought the ticket was a traffic violation in Placer County. For some reason Monterey County picked him up at Watsonville PD, claiming the warrant was theirs. He had no cases, tickets or problems in Monterey County, at all.

*** Apparently, Monterey County Probation, claims he had a warrant for probation violation. Karlos used to be on probation in Monterey, however, his probation was transferred to Tehama County, months prior, where he had been reporting every month to his probation officer. They would've cleared up any warrants before transferring his case. Now Monterey county claims he was never on probation in Tehama County. They had revoked his transfer & i guess never told anyone. They had all his contact info & never contacted him. And Tehama County probation was very confused when I told them. He said "They requested a transfer. We accepted it. That's it."

That's what Monterey County claims his warrant was for. Even if that's the case, a probation violation, is no more than 10 days in Jail. 

The jail said when he got to holding, he tried to hang himself with his shoes laces but they don't allow you to have shoelaces in holding.

On Friday, I picked up his things and in the sealed bag with his wallet and his belt, his shoelaces were in there and they're written on the intake form, as well. That was all written down and taken before he was placed in a holding cell  Then, I  waited 20 minutes for them to bring me the bag with his clothes and in that bag, there's some crusty nasty shoelace that didn't belong to him. I've never seen it before.  Neither that shoelace or the pair of shoelaces that actually belonged to him, were stretched, knotted or look like 190 lb man tried to hang himself with them.

Then yesterday the coroner said they ruled his death a suicide. They claimed that he was in a suicide cell at the jail and he stuffed toilet paper up his nose and into his mouth and he suffocated himself to death. That is impossible, due to our gag reflexes They told me that on Wednesday when they found him there was toilet paper in his mouth. They didn't say anything about his nose and said they did CPR also, however, the coroner wouldn't have found toilet paper in his airways if they had taken it out to do CPR on Wednesday. The only way that this could have happened is if somebody held him down and held their hand over his mouth, with it in his mouth and killed him.

A person can not shove anything down their own throat. We have a gag reflex. You'd throw it up. Your body will react whether you like it or not. Our bodies will always try to survive. He would have coughed, struggled, and removed the toilet paper.... Unless he was restrained, in which case, someone did this to him. 

 This jail has a history of these deaths and lawsuits. This was not only due to negligence, this was murder. 

My husband was a beautiful, amazing man. We had a good life and we're so happy. He had 6 children, a huge family and many people who loved him. 

The people responsible for this need to be held accountable. The jail needs to investigate and find the who killed my husband and they need to have consequences. The Sheriffs office should not protect murderers, just because they work for them. They should be dealt with the same way that anyone else is. A murderer is a murderer. 

I already spoke to the jail nurse who told me some very disturbing things she was the one who got called into his room that morning. She went into detail about how that whole night went in that morning. I talked to her for about 30 minutes then she called the next day to check on me again and talk to me for another half an hour... And she found me online I got a hold of me. She worked there four days and she quit because of this. Two days later, an article came out in the voices of Monterey Bay that had interviewed her. When I read it the story was completely different than the one she told me. Suddenly she had nothing but nice things to say about the jail cops..... Needless to say, kind of seems like someone had intervened and made her keep her change her story. when I tried to ask her a question her response was I don't remember anything. All I remember is what I told the reporter"

Police Safety Officers are not exempt because they have a badge. They are public servants, paid by the people to protect the people.  If they are unable or unwilling to honor the oath that they took, then they are unworthy of the privilege, trust and respect that, that badge is supposed to represent.  

And if that's the case, are any of us truly safe?