Guard Slayings of Prisoners in State Are High

By DAN MORAIN and JOHN HURST

Sept. 17, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

When a guard shot an inmate to death recently at Centinela State Prison in the desert of Imperial County, it was a routine and accepted method of breaking up fights among convicts in California.

The inmate, 31-year-old holdup man Michael Saenz of Bakersfield, was the 33rd and latest prisoner to be shot to death by California guards in the last decade, according to state Department of Justice records.

The number is at least three times the combined total of such deaths in other major prison systems in the United States, a Times survey found.

Lawsuits have been filed in connection with the shooting of some California inmates, and an influential state senator has expressed concern.

“Obviously,” said Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), the Legislature’s leading expert on prison operations, “it sounds like we’re way, way high. If it is the case, we have to take a look at why. . . . Sounds like a training issue to me. Maybe we need to revisit the guidelines.”

Presley authored the law that requires county coroners to report all in-custody deaths to the state Department of Justice.

Corrections officials defend their shooting policy, maintaining that it reduces violence and saves lives in the long run.

“These are all convicted felons,” said Tip Kindel, spokesman for the Department of Corrections. “The vast majority were trying to kill someone else, and they were shot for failing to heed orders to stop. If they hadn’t been shot, they would have killed another inmate.

“The inmate always has the choice,” he added. “All they have to do is not fight, or heed the warnings.”

California state prison guards routinely shout orders and fire warning shots to break up fights, but they are allowed to shoot at inmates who ignore such warnings.

The guards are armed with 9-millimeter assault rifles that use bullets designed to disintegrate upon impact to lessen danger of ricochets.

The bullet that hit inmate Saenz in the upper right chest shattered and tore up his insides, said Ralph Smith, Imperial County coroner’s investigator.

“It caused his heart to go into his lung, and lacerated the aorta,” Smith said. “He bled out immediately. It is amazing what it will do, the impact of the bullet.” Across the country, a total of no more than 10 inmates were shot to death over the last decade in prisons operated by the federal government, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.

Those seven prison systems hold a total of 391,000 inmates; California’s prison population is 125,000.

There were no inmates shot to death by guards in Texas, New York, Michigan or federal penitentiaries.

Prison officials in other states said that fights normally are broken up by guards using non-lethal force.

In Texas prisons, officers have not shot an inmate to death within memory, said spokesman Charles Brown, who has worked in the system since 1967. “We probably have the same arsenal as California. We just don’t deploy it the same,” he said.

Texas, like most states, puts armed guards in prison towers that overlook the perimeters and exercise yards, but guns are not allowed in housing units where inmates might disarm an officer.

“We think weapons (in housing units) could do more harm than good,” Brown said. “If there’s a fistfight on the yard, or if they disobey, we would use gas.”

As in California, officials said, Texas prisons were especially violent in the 1980s, and the violence has diminished.

Between 1970 and 1985, when the number of inmates in California prisons ranged between 20,000 and 40,000, 280 inmates were killed by other prisoners. California had four such deaths in 1993 and five in 1992. Nationally, there were 72 inmate-committed homicides last year and 66 in 1992.

In some of California’s 27 prisons, significantly more inmates have been shot to death by guards than in others.

The State Prison at Corcoran has been the site of seven fatal shootings. Three inmates have been killed by guards in recent years at Pelican Bay, the maximum-security prison that opened near the Oregon border in 1989.

Judd Iverson, a San Francisco attorney who filed suit in connection with a shooting death at Pelican Bay, contends that guards should have other options besides firing at inmates who will not stop fighting.

“They could do other things,” he said, “particularly where there were no weapons and the guy getting attacked is the one killed.”

Iverson said in the suit that Jess Castillo, a 21-year-old inmate serving a second-degree murder term, was wrongfully shot to death Aug. 6, 1993.

Castillo was on his way to his cellblock when he was attacked by another inmate during a morning in which rival gang factions had already been brawling, Iverson said. During the ensuing scuffle, guards fatally wounded Castillo in the neck, although he was not the aggressor in the fight, the suit alleged.

Prison officials said that guards overlooking the yard shouted for the inmates to stop fighting, fired two warning shots and, when the warnings were ignored, fired on the inmates.

Pelican Bay is also the target of a broader suit over conditions and use of force.

In that suit, the state attorney general’s office acknowledged that officers fired 177 shots in 129 separate incidents between the time the prison opened in late 1989 and last September.

Most--152--were warning shots, but by those warning shots, 13 inmates were injured when bullets or fragments ricocheted. When the shots were aimed at inmates, 10 were wounded and three others died, the attorney general said.

At Corcoran, all seven inmates shot to death by guards since the prison opened in 1988 were killed during fights with other inmates.

“It is the last resort to protect life,” said Lt. Bob Priolo, spokesman at Corcoran. “All of our shootings went through a shooting review board, and all were found to be justifiable.”

Top state corrections officials are in full support of the prison system’s shooting policy.

“All these are tragedies,” said Craig Brown, undersecretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, which oversees prisons. “We wish none had happened. But we’re shooting to protect inmates from other inmates primarily, and sometimes to protect staff from inmates. The goal of the shooting policy is to protect people.”

“We shoot to protect, where we believe someone is in danger of suffering severe bodily injury or death,” added Brown.

He said use of guns in the higher security prisons helps deter violence, and cited statistics showing that the level of violence in prisons is down even as the prison population stands above 125,000, an all-time high.

“Every single time we have an inmate killed, it is of concern,” said David Tristan, assistant director in charge of overseeing prisons for the Department of Corrections. “It is something that we examine very carefully.”

Tristan said he “can’t recall one single time that the officer wasn’t traumatized behind the shooting. In the 1980s, two officers were charged--but not convicted--with criminal wrongdoing for firing their guns.

“We have had some officers who have gone out on disability,” Tristan said. “I don’t believe any of our staff enjoy doing it. Every single time, what they were trying to do is save a life.”

Guards also support the policy of allowing them to shoot prisoners during fights.

“If the gun is not there, homicides will increase tenfold,” said Officer Chuck Alexander, head of the officers’ union local at Pelican Bay. “The inmate can stand there and stab the guy, and know they can kill him because they know they won’t get shot. The guns are a benefit to the inmates.”

Officer Bob Rice agreed. “If all I have is a baton, do you think I am going to jump at you when you have a weapon and you’re surrounded by inmates?” asked Rice, who is a union officer at Pelican Bay. “Hero is not in my job description. If it is a staff member, that’s a different story. For an inmate, what’s he worth to me?”

Prison Slayings

California prison guards have shot to death more than three times as many inmates as their counterparts in all other major U.S. prison systems put together over the past decade, according to records and a Times survey.

CALIFORNIA PRISONS

(Current pop.: 125,000 inmates)

1985: 1

1986: 0

1987: 7

1988: 3

1989: 5

1990: 2

1991: 1

1992: 3

1993: 8

1994: 3