600 Leave Central Jail Early; ‘It’s No Big Deal’

Samuel Arceo was a free man, out of jail and wearing his own clothes for the first time in three weeks--but he was taking his new-found independence in stride.

“It’s no big deal,” said Arceo, who was one of 600 inmates released Wednesday from the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail to ease overcrowding in the facility. “They were going to let me out in two days anyway.”

Arceo’s casual attitude toward his release reflected the mood of many of the prisoners who straggled out of the jail near downtown Los Angeles throughout the day during the 12-hour inmate exodus conducted by Sheriff’s Department officials.

Most inmates who were freed Wednesday had only a few days left to serve. And some complained that, because of last-minute delays, they were released on the same day that their jail terms expired.

Jail officials said the inmate release, the first step in an effort to bring the facility’s population down to 6,800, was completed without incident. By mid-day, all 600 prisoners, who were released in groups of 10, had walked out to waiting relatives or to buses and taxis that regularly stop near the gate of the jail on Bauchet Street.

“It’s gone as smoothly as something like this can go,” said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Barry King of the jail’s Custody Division.

King said that inmates who complained that their early releases came on the same day that their terms ended may have been among the 200 to 300 prisoners who are normally released from jail on any given day.

“They may think they were coming out early, because of the early release program. But they were probably let go separately,” King said.

While most inmates were hardly celebrating the abrupt end to their incarceration, many said they were relieved to be out of the jail’s overcrowded cells.

“I slept on the floor all the time,” complained Rico Beltran, 19, who served three days of a five-day sentence for traffic violations.

Arceo said he spent six uncomfortable days in county jail at the start of his three-week sentence for a parole violation. He was transferred to the county’s minimum-security Wayside Honor Rancho in Castaic, which he called an “improvement” over the jail.

“At Wayside, there are nights when you can count on having a mattress and a place to sleep,” he said. “At the jail, you can’t count on anything, except people who perspire a lot.”

On Tuesday night, Arceo was transferred back to the jail, spending the remainder of his time in the facility’s “releasing area,” a first-floor group of cells. The area was packed with more than 700 people when he arrived, Arceo said.

“There were people all over the floor trying to sleep,” he said. “I was lucky. I got there early enough to find a chair. They had us jammed in there like sardines.”

Kenneth Womack, 29, of Hollywood, who was serving a brief term for failure to pay on a traffic warrant, was one of the first prisoners released early Wednesday morning.

“I slept not only on the floor, but under somebody’s bunk,” he said. “If you think that’s fun, try it. It’s just too damned overcrowded in there.”

Jail officials said that, despite the mass release, they still need to make more major shifts in the county’s jail system before changes are noticeable inside the facility.

Sheriff Sherman Block initiated the early releases in response to recent decisions by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray in a lawsuit filed against the county by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Sheriff’s officials also said that more mass releases may be necessary if there are new surges in the inmate population in the coming months.