An SF police recruit died during training. His family is demanding answers.

On the morning of Aug. 20, 2025, Christina Psalms was preparing to fly to the Bay Area for work when an officer from the San Francisco Police Department called shortly after 9 a.m. 

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Her son, San Francisco Police Academy recruit Jon-Marques Psalms, a seemingly healthy man with a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, had become dehydrated during a drill and was being taken to UCSF Medical Center, the officer told her.  

They wanted to check him for possible rhabdomyolysis, a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the rapid breakdown of muscle tissue due to severe overexertion. 

“The most I’m thinking is it’s heat exhaustion, dehydration,” Christina told SFGATE in May. “In my mind, I was just going up there to get him Gatorade and do my job and come back home the next day.”  

But when she arrived at the hospital hours later, she found her son surrounded by 10 medical workers. He had been placed on dialysis and, after going into cardiac arrest, a life-support machine that oxygenated his blood. He was fighting for his life. 

Two days later, Jon-Marques became the first known recruit to have died during academy training in San Francisco Police Department history. He was 30.  

It’s a death that his parents believe could have been prevented. In the year since his death, his parents have sued city and police officials alleging excessive force, failures to intervene, wrongful death and negligence.

‘We don’t have the full picture’

In May of 2025, Jon-Marques Psalms walked away from a Silicon Valley tech sales career to pursue a childhood dream: becoming a police officer.  
 
“Honestly, I thought there was a greater chance of him calling me one day saying he was moving out the country,” Christina Psalms recalled to SFGATE of her son’s career change. “… But he always had this need to look out for people.” 

He enrolled in the San Francisco Police Academy, joining Recruit Class 286 in May 2025 and eventually became team leader. Seemingly healthy and active, Jon-Marques was also a runner and golfer. According to his parent’s lawsuit, he had no known health condition that would have prevented him from safely participating in training. 

But just three months later, he collapsed shortly after a training exercise commonly known as a “RedMan” drill, a scenario-based defensive tactics exercise meant to simulate physical encounters officers could face in the field.  

Before the combat portion, recruits performed strenuous calisthenics designed to sharply elevate their heart rates, according to the lawsuit. 

The drill takes its name from the red suits donned by participants, which consist of thick, protective segmentations covering the head, torso, hands, legs and groin, allowing them to absorb strikes during simulated confrontations with instructors during training.  

“It’s supposed to simulate what it would actually be like in the field,” Jon Shane, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former police officer, explained to SFGATE. “That’s the rationale.” 

It was this drill where Jon-Marques’ family say something went wrong, leading to his death. 

The family’s lawsuit alleges SFPD trainers required Jon-Marques to participate without adequately screening him for underlying conditions or continuously monitoring recruits’ vital signs. It also alleges supervisors had not been adequately trained to oversee the exercise.

After his death, Jon-Marques was found to have a heart defect called congenital cardiomyopathy and channelopathy, which the family alleges additional screening by the SFPD trainers could have detected. The family’s allegations do not stop at medical monitoring. Their amended complaint alleges an unidentified officer injured Jon-Marques’ head during the drill, causing a brain bleed doctors later treated at UCSF.  

The family specifically wants to know what happened to Jon-Marques right after the drill finished. 

The lawsuit alleges that Jon-Marques’ fellow recruit Michael Russell went looking for him after the drill and a medical check-in so they could compare their performances.  

Instead, Russell said he found Jon-Marques lying face down on a mat, the lawsuit says. When Russell tried to roll him over, Jon-Marques collapsed again, and while he could state his name and location, his breathing had become erratic, it adds. 

Russell immediately called for help, according to the complaint. Police personnel tried to administer aid, but by the time emergency responders arrived, Jon-Marques was unresponsive. He was taken by ambulance to UCSF Medical Center. 

“We don’t have the full picture of everything that happened that got him to that point in the hospital,” Christina said. 

‘Can you take the hit?’

RedMan and similar drills have been linked to injuries and deaths before.  

Last year, an Associated Press investigation found variations of the exercise are used at academies nationwide under names including combat training, stress-reaction training and “Fight Day,” with recruits sometimes fighting multiple instructors or moving through a series of confrontations. 

While exercises like these are common, Shane said it was a “rare event” that these exercises result in death. According to court documents, since 2005, similar high-intensity exercises have resulted in at least a dozen deaths and hundreds of injuries, some resulting in permanent disability. Massachusetts banned RedMan drills in 2016, the AP reported.

A Denver police recruit sued after a 2023 “Fight Day” exercise left him permanently disabled and ultimately resulted in the amputation of both legs, according to a lawsuit. A court dismissed the recruit’s federal law claims in 2025, but an appeal is pending.

“The exercise is almost more geared toward, ‘Can you take the hit? ’” Shane said. “I think that’s where they lose control.”

Fragments of what happened 

His family said they still do not know how long Jon-Marques was on the ground before he was found, what instructors observed as his condition deteriorated or what information was relayed to paramedics before he reached the hospital.

As Jon-Marques underwent multiple surgeries at the hospital, the family said police officers maintained a constant presence as a revolving door of city officials — including then-interim police Chief Paul Yep, Mayor Daniel Lurie and representatives from the San Francisco Police Officers Association — visited the hospital.  

 “Everything was dealt cautiously and strategically,” Jon-Marques’ father Marcus Psalms told SFGATE.

Christina said their presence marked the absence of the people she most wanted to hear from: the academy instructors who had witnessed the training exercise.  

“Where’s your teachers?” she recalled wondering. “Why am I not having a discussion with them?” 

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Instead, the couple pieced together fragments of what happened from recruits who had trained alongside their son. Fellow trainees came to the hospital after learning he had been admitted, despite telling the family that they were discouraged from visiting by academy officials, Christina said.  

SFGATE reached out to SFPD for comment several times and was not given an answer as to why more information about what happened the day of Jon-Marques death was not released to the family.

‘A void that can never be filled’

Hours after Jon-Marques arrived at the hospital, his condition deteriorated. Doctors suspected gastrointestinal bleeding, and a CT scan the following morning confirmed an active brain bleed and severe swelling, according to the lawsuit. Physicians presented the family with two options: relieve pressure in his abdomen or perform emergency brain surgery in a last attempt to save his life. 

“We had nothing to lose,” Christina said of authorizing the procedure. 

Surgeons operated on his brain, but when they emerged, they told the family the bleeding was worse than they initially thought and they could not stop it. Soon after, they said Jon-Marques no longer showed brain stem activity. 

When his younger brother, Malik, reached the hospital, he was met with the devastating sight of Jon-Marques’ swollen body. 

“He didn’t even look like himself,” Christina recalled. “You wouldn’t even recognize him.” 

The next morning, doctors discussed taking Jon-Marques off life support. His family, fellow recruits and city officials gathered at the hospital before the machines keeping him alive were turned off.  

Jon-Marques died Aug. 22, 2025.  

Within the span of 48 hours, every future his family imagined for him — becoming a husband and father, standing beside his brother at his wedding — had been dashed.  

“The Christmases, the birthdays, the weekly phone calls,” Christina said. “All of that’s gone.” 

In the days that followed, the family found themselves at the center of an outpouring of public grief. Mayor Lurie described Jon-Marques’ death “especially painful,” while SFPD wrote that his “sudden passing has left a void that can never be filled” and held a procession in his honor.  

For Christina and Marcus, however, the tributes only underscored what they lacked: a clear explanation of how their son died.  

The search for that answer began with Jon-Marques’ body. 

‘We didn’t trust them’

According to the amended complaint, the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner performed an autopsy that attributed his death to complications from exertional rhabdomyolysis, a condition where muscle tissue starts to breakdown, and hyperthermia or overheating. But his parents were troubled. The autopsy report allegedly did not document the brain bleed doctors had tried to treat at UCSF. 

“Too many things were not right,” Christina said of the medical examiner’s findings. Marcus added, “We didn’t trust them.” 

By then, Christina and Marcus had already decided to seek an independent autopsy prior to cremating Jon-Marques, knowing they had “one shot” to get more answers. 

The family’s lawsuit alleges Jon-Marques must have been struck during the drill, but that allegation has not been established in court.

Attorney Brad Gage, who represents the Psalms family, told SFGATE said the independent autopsy the family ultimately commissioned also documented the brain bleed. SFGATE has not independently reviewed either of the autopsy reports. SFGATE reached out to the medical examiner for further comment about Jon-Marques’ autopsy report but has not received an answer. 

The family also sought video of the exercise. According to the lawsuit, the academy’s commanding officer told Marcus he would look for footage, but Marcus said he never received an answer. As of August, Gage said the city had not produced any.

“The video should exist,” Gage said. “They say the video does not exist, but it should. There should be something out there. We’ve asked for it and not received anything.”

‘The timing couldn’t be worse’

After Jon-Marques’ death, Cal/OSHA launched a six-month investigation into the death. The agency issued two serious, accident-related citations alleging SFPD failed to identify and correct hazards associated with rigorous physical training and adequately train supervisors overseeing those exercises. Cal/OSHA proposed $40,500 in penalties. In both citations, investigators tied the violations to Aug. 20, 2025, when Jon-Marques collapsed following training.  

SFPD appealed the citations, with the hearing scheduled for Sept. 2. In its OSHA appeal, SFPD argued that its training practices have adequate safety measures, and that “there is currently no definitive means available to any employer for identifying, evaluating, and mitigating an unreported and undiagnosed internal medical condition (sequelae of rhabdomyolysis).” Before the Sept. 2 appeal hearing, Cal/OSHA and the SFPD reached a partial settlement of the citations.  

The remaining issues on appeal will be heard by the OSHA Appeals Board at a future date. SFPD declined to comment on the matter because the OSHA case is still ongoing.  

On Aug. 20 — exactly one year after Jon-Marques collapsed — his family’s lawsuit suffered a serious legal setback when U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler dismissed the federal claims. Beeler ruled that qualified immunity protected the officers under the facts currently laid out in the case. The ruling still allows the family to amend their allegations, appeal the order, or pursue state law claims in state court. 

Receiving the decision on the anniversary of Jon-Marques’ collapse compounded the family’s grief, Gage said: “The timing couldn’t be worse.” 

The family still plans to proceed with the lawsuit. 

The city and police officials have largely declined to discuss the case outside of court across the board, deferring to the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office.  

“Recruit Officer Psalms’ death is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with his loved ones,” SF City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Jen Kwart told SFGATE. “The lawsuit is ongoing, and we don’t have comment beyond what we have said in court.” 

Between the city’s challenge to the Cal/OSHA citations and the family’s intention to proceed with their lawsuit, Christina and Marcus have entered the second year after their son’s death with the same central question they had inside the hospital: What exactly happened during the training exercise? 

Gage said the lawsuit is intended to force answers. 

“How can a law enforcement agency add to the trauma and suffering for the family by being coy with the information?” he said. “It raises questions about the code of silence and creates a lot of suspicion.” 

For Christina, the objective is simpler. 

“I don’t know how long my son was on the ground like that,” she said. “It’s my life’s mission to find out.”