Wave Staff and Wire Reports
LOS ANGELES — The family of Stanley Wilson Jr., a 40-year-old ex-NFL player who died while in county custody more than three years ago, is accusing the county of withholding information on the circumstances that led up to his death.
In new court papers, the family has changed the basis of its lawsuit from excessive force to medical negligence.
The change comes as Los Angeles County seeks to be removed as a defendant in the case.
The late cornerback was arrested for trespassing in November 2022 and detained at the Twin Towers Jail. He had been deemed incompetent to stand trial and had a history of mental illness, his family’s attorney said at the time.
“From the outset, Stanley Wilson Jr.’s parents lacked critical information regarding the facts and circumstances of Stanley’s death, including video footage that was not produced until 2025,” Wilson’s family attorneys state in their court papers. “As such, they timely filed a government claim against [the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department] on March 14, 2023, based on the limited information they had when they presented the claim, including public reporting at the time.”
While the theories of liability have become sharpened through the course of litigation, the theories of liability against the county have always amounted to the county’s failure to handle and treat Wilson as an inmate experiencing mental health illness in violation of his rights, according to the Wilson family lawyers’ papers.
From the original complaint through the third amended complaint, the Wilson family has consistently said that despite months-long efforts, they had been unable to obtain video footage and information concerning the facts and circumstances of Wilson’s death, the Wilson family lawyers further write.
The family finally obtained the requested video after the entering of an order last July 9, the Wilson attorneys further state in their court papers.
The Stanford University graduate and former Detroit Lions player died on Feb. 1, 2023. The suit filed in September of that year names as defendants the county, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Department of State Hospitals.
In their court papers, county attorneys state that the case has evolved from one originally alleging excessive force in the government claim to a fourth amended complaint filed last Oct. 15 contending that Wilson was given inadequate medical care after suffering a pulmonary embolism and died as a result.
“While a complaint may elaborate upon facts disclosed in a government claim, it may not fundamentally shift allegations and premise liability on a wholly different set of operative facts, involving different conduct, different actors, different duties, and a different mechanism of injury,” the county attorneys contend in their papers. “That is precisely what occurred here.”
The family further maintains that the county negligently failed to transfer Wilson to Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk by a court-ordered deadline and that the alleged medical and custodial failures contributed to the pulmonary embolism that ultimately caused his death, according to the county lawyers’ court papers.
In their governmental claims that were forerunners to the lawsuit, the plaintiffs never put the county on notice, as they should have, that the Wilsons intended to pursue claims involving medical negligence, custodial health care, psychiatric placement decisions, medication management or unconstitutional conditions of confinement over the course of Wilson’s incarceration, according to the county attorneys’ court papers.
The plaintiffs are now also asserting an entirely new state Penal Code cause of action that was never disclosed in the claims, the county lawyers further note.
Three separate claims for damages were filed: one from the decedent’s father, former NFL running back Stanley Wilson Sr., one from his mother, D. Pulane Lucas, an educator and business owner, and one from Wilson’s estate.
After playing for Stanford, Wilson was drafted in the third round of the 2005 NFL draft by the Detroit Lions. He played cornerback for three seasons and had 86 tackles during his NFL career before experiencing a knee injury in 2007 and an Achilles injury during the 2008 preseason.
Wilson grew up in Carson and played high school football at Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance. His father, Stanley Wilson Sr., played parts of four seasons with the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL.
