Six current or former D.C. jail detainees are suing the District, alleging they were served meals containing mice, cockroaches and rodent droppings over a three-year span.

The federal civil rights lawsuit, first reported by the Washington Post, was filed in D.C. federal court on behalf of six people who were in pretrial detention. The alleged incidents took place between 2023 and August 2026, according to WUSA9. All six are either still in custody at the D.C. jail or incarcerated at another facility.

One plaintiff, Pernell Jackson, alleges he found a dead mouse in his salad in August 2024. The complaint states Jackson had already taken several bites before he "bit something chewy and out of place," looked down and discovered the mouse, WUSA9 reported. He vomited immediately. A jail medical unit diagnosed him with gastroenteritis.

The D.C. Department of Corrections (DOC) told Jackson three times that a mouse in his food was impossible because trays are checked before service, the complaint states according to WUSA9.

Another plaintiff, Mustafa Wright, alleges he bit into a large cockroach and began "spitting up and heaving" so violently that his throat was sore afterward, according to the lawsuit as reported by WTOP. One former detainee said he was accused of deliberately placing a mouse in his own food. He did not eat for three or four days after the incident, WTOP reported.

Other plaintiffs reported finding mice, mouse tails, spiders and rodent droppings in their meals.

The complaint includes photographs taken by DOC employees showing what appears to be a rodent under a piece of bread, an insect in green beans, a rodent tail and rodent droppings in pound cake, WUSA9 reported.

Attorney Kristin McGough of the law firm Winston Taylor represents the six plaintiffs. She told WUSA9 that Jackson's case was "the hook that I thought I needed to address the food problem that I had been hearing for a better part of a decade."

McGough told WTOP that the jail's aging building and the placement of dumpsters near the kitchen give vermin easy access to the food preparation area.

The lawsuit alleges the contamination violates the Fifth Amendment's due process protections for pretrial detainees. The filing describes the incidents as "a sustained and troubling pattern of unsanitary conditions and environmental contamination within the Jail's food service systems."

Court documents indicate some DOC employees acknowledged the problems and filed internal reports, but staff ultimately dismissed the sanitation concerns, WUSA9 reported.

The plaintiffs are seeking financial damages and class action status. The suit also calls for immediate building inspections, regular exterminator treatments, airtight food storage containers and a new policy requiring daily food inspections at every stage of preparation.

A DOC spokesperson told the Washington Post that the facility "takes concerns regarding food quality seriously" and that food service operations are subject to regular oversight. The spokesperson said DOC maintains a pest management program with weekly treatments. WUSA9 reported that DOC did not respond to its request for comment.