Two men have died in Multnomah County jail custody within seven days, prompting formal investigations and renewing scrutiny of conditions inside the county's detention facilities.
A 48-year-old man became unresponsive after a "medical event" in his cell at the Inverness Jail around 5:10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office. Deputies and Multnomah County Corrections Health staff attempted lifesaving interventions. Paramedics from Portland Fire & Rescue and American Medical Response arrived and continued care, but the man could not be revived. AMR personnel pronounced him dead.
The man had been booked into jail by the Portland Police Bureau on Sunday, Aug. 16. He had been in custody four days.
His name has not been released pending family notification. The cause and manner of death await autopsy and toxicology results from the Multnomah County Medical Examiner's Office.
The East County Major Crimes Team, which includes detectives from MCSO, Port of Portland Police, Gresham Police Department and Oregon State Police, has opened a formal death investigation, as required by protocol when someone dies in custody.
Second death in the same week
Two days earlier, on Tuesday, Aug. 18, a 71-year-old man was found unresponsive in his cell at the Multnomah County Detention Center in downtown Portland around 7:30 a.m., according to a separate MCSO statement. Deputies and corrections health staff performed lifesaving measures before Portland Fire & Rescue and AMR paramedics took over. He was declared dead at the scene. That man had been booked by Portland police on Aug. 14.
The sheriff's office said the two cases are unrelated, and that preliminary investigations indicate neither death was caused by force or suicidal acts, and that there were no indications of drug use within the jails.
Three deaths in 2026
Thursday's death is the third in-custody death at Multnomah County facilities this year. A 65-year-old man suffered a medical incident at MCDC on March 25 and died at a hospital the following day.
Audit flagged unresolved concerns
The deaths come five weeks after Multnomah County Auditor Jennifer McGuirk released a follow-up report in July finding that the sheriff's office had not implemented key recommendations from a 2022 audit of jail conditions. Among the unaddressed items: reducing the use of solitary confinement and creating an independent review process for use-of-force and discipline cases. The audit found that misconduct citations result in solitary confinement 91% of the time.
"Among the recommendations that have not been implemented, the most concerning to me is that the county jails continue to widely use solitary confinement, particularly for those with mental health conditions," McGuirk said in a July 14 news release accompanying the audit. "There are strong correlations between solitary confinement and worsened general mental health, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and mortality."
The sheriff's office responded in July that it would implement only recommendations it agrees align with the sheriff's strategic direction.
Court delays
The Oregonian reported that Thursday's death caused significant delays at the Multnomah County Courthouse, where several judges waited more than an hour past scheduled court appearances for defendants to be transported from the jail.
The Inverness Jail, at 11540 NE Inverness Drive near Portland International Airport, has a capacity of about 1,037 people. MCSO has not announced any press conference, oversight hearing or next steps beyond the ongoing investigations.
