Judge tosses wrongful death suit from parents of police recruit who died in training

The parents of San Francisco police recruit Jon-Marques Psalms claimed the lack of adequate medical supervision during a training exercise led to their son's death.SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge Thursday dismissed a wrongful death suit against the city and county of San Francisco filed by the parents of a police recruit who died last year after collapsing during a high-intensity training exercise.“This is a very sad case, a very, very sad case,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler said in a hearing over the dismissal motion. “The problem is an issue the government raised in its motion; this issue about qualified immunity knocks this case out of the pleading stage. As pleaded, it does.”However, the judge gave the plaintiffs until Sept. 17 to amend their complaint to address the deficiencies noted in the court’s order.“I do agree there are issues with the current complaint,” Milad Sadr of Brad Gage Law, representing the plaintiffs, said at the hearing. “I look forward to seeing the court’s order, and hopefully we will be able to amend sufficiently.”Representatives for either party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Christina and Marcus Psalms sued the city and county of San Francisco in March, arguing the presence of police officers and a nurse monitoring the so-called red man drill on Aug. 20, 2025, wasn’t enough to prevent the death of their son, 30-year-old Jon-Marques Psalms.After Psalms took part in the drill at the police academy — which typically involves a recruit fighting with an instructor dressed in a padded, red suit — he was lying face down on the ground, and when another recruit tried to roll him over, he collapsed back down, the parents said in their complaint. When emergency medical personnel arrived, he was unresponsive and rushed to the hospital.“Based on information and belief, exposure to strenuous high-intensity training exercises was an exogenous factor, combined with Jon’s prevailing genotype, which triggered cardiogenic hypoxemia and rhabdomyolysis as part of his mechanisms of death,” the parents claim in the suit, originally filed in San Francisco Superior Court.The supervisory officers, the parents claim, weren’t trained to ensure that the intense, physical training wouldn’t harm the recruits and they didn’t use electronic monitoring devices to keep track of the vital signs of the recruits during the exercise.The supervisors also didn’t ensure the recruits were properly hydrated, the parents say, despite the risk of exertional rhabdomyolysis — the breakdown of muscles that can result from strenuous exercise in the heat.The case was removed to federal court in May. In their amended complaint, the parents name San Francisco, as well as police officers including Captain Christopher Canning and Lieutenant Ray Cruz, as defendants. They assert claims of negligence against all defendants, state-created danger and deprivation of parent-child rights against the police defendants, Monell liability against San Francisco and battery against an unnamed officer.In an order released shortly after Thursday’s hearing, Beeler ruled the plaintiffs had not plausibly pleaded their state-created danger claim. Save for the claim the police defendants “forced” Psalms to participate in the red man drill, the judge said the plaintiffs only argue what the defendants “did not do,” including not determining a health baseline or monitoring participants’ vital signs.“Even viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the court cannot tell (and the plaintiffs do not explain) how the defendants’ conduct amounts to affirmative acts instead of omissions,” she wrote. “For deliberate indifference, the plaintiffs fail to engage with the defendants’ arguments and have not explained how their allegations show that the defendants knew that something would happen to Psalms but exposed him to that risk anyway.”The judge additionally found qualified immunity protects the police defendants from the parents’ state-created danger and familial deprivation claims, but noted new facts contained in an amended complaint may change the analysis.Further, Beeler said the plaintiffs had not plausibly pleaded an underlying constitutional violation to support their Monell claim, and the federal court lacks supplemental jurisdiction over state claims for negligence and battery.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads