{"id":201648,"date":"2025-09-05T06:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201648\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T06:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T06:51:14","slug":"sdso-deputys-response-to-woman-found-in-ditch-being-investigated-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/201648\/","title":{"rendered":"SDSO deputy\u2019s response to woman found in ditch being investigated \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is investigating one of its own deputies for her response to a welfare check on a woman found in a Lemon Grove<\/a> ditch in July.<\/p>\n

Three days later, 43-year-old Irma Perez was rescued but slipped into a coma and died soon after. Now, the Perez family is filing a formal complaint with the Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB).<\/p>\n

Perez, a mother of three, clung to life as she was pulled from a drainage ditch, barely alive. She had been in the flooded culvert next to railroad tracks along Main Street at Mount Vernon for three days. She came out covered in ants.<\/p>\n

“She’s the hero in this. She survived all those days suffering,” 911 caller Richard Quinones said.<\/p>\n

Quinones called 911 twice. The first call was when he first saw Perez in the ditch around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 29. Quinones says a sheriff’s deputy responded but did not get out of the car and quickly left.<\/p>\n

“This comes down, again, to sheriff’s neglect,” community advocate Ilka Weston said. “Sheriff’s deputies doing whatever they want, not considering their job is to be a peace officer.”<\/p>\n

The incident is drawing the ire of community advocates who usually champion the rights of jail inmates. They represented Perez’s family on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“She could have been saved if that first day would have been done correctly, but what did we didn’t get what we paid for. We didn’t get what we trusted,” advocate Yusef Miller said.<\/p>\n

Quinones said Perez disappeared after that. He found her three days later in the same place, submerged in the flooded ditch.<\/p>\n

“When I first found her, the water was up to here, so she’s barely breathing. Everything else was submerged,” Quinones said.<\/p>\n

He once again called 911. This time, deputies and medics responded and then took her to a local hospital. Family members say it wasn’t soon enough. Perez slipped into a coma and died shortly after.<\/p>\n

The sheriff’s department responded to NBC 7’s inquiry with a lengthy email statement that began with condolences for Perez’s family. The spokesperson did indicate the department received two calls about Perez being in the reeds and that the deputy that first responded is currently on administrative duties and under investigation.<\/p>\n

“A lot went through my mind seeing her laying there, fighting for her life,” said Alana Williams, the victim’s sister.<\/p>\n

Williams stood teary-eyed with her husband behind advocates. The group filed a formal complaint against the sheriff’s department at Thursday’s CLERB meeting.<\/p>\n

Perez had three children \u2014 two girls, 9 and 23, and a 19-year-old son \u2014 according to Williams, who added Perez lived in and out of homelessness after the divorce.<\/p>\n

“She was a loving person and a caring person,” Williams said. “I just want justice for her. I still want answers.”<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, the medical examiner has not yet determined Perez’s cause of death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department is investigating one of its own deputies for her response to a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":201649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,24349,3549,10860,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-201648","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-lemon-grove","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-county-sheriffs-department","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115150368584815801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}