State to Form Special Unit to Probe Prison Guards

In a departure from the last administration’s practice, Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer will form a team to investigate and prosecute prison guards accused of using excessive force against inmates.

For the last decade, as California prisons became the deadliest in the nation, the attorney general’s office took a hands-off approach to prisons and left oversight of brutality and shootings to local law enforcement agencies.

Lockyer, sworn into office last month, vowed Monday that under his administration, prison guards who fire at inmates to stop fights will come under heightened scrutiny.

“Wherever there are allegations of serious misconduct, this unit would have the authority to investigate and prosecute,” he said Monday.

“It represents a more comprehensive effort to address the claims of correctional officer misconduct,” Lockyer said. “In the past, it would vary from county to county.”

Now, he said, prosecutions in the 17 counties with prisons will be more uniform.

Details of the plan are being hammered out. Lockyer said he will ask the Legislature to fund the investigative team.

In taking the post previously held by Republican Dan Lungren, Democrat Lockyer promised a new approach in responding to brutality by prison guards.

Three weeks ago, his office agreed to scrutinize two dozen serious and fatal shootings of inmates at Corcoran State Prison for possible criminal prosecution.

His office agreed to investigate the cases after a special state review panel concluded last fall that five fatal and 19 serious shootings of inmates by guards at the San Joaquin Valley prison were not justified.

Lockyer stepped in to investigate the Corcoran shootings because the Kings County district attorney said he lacked the resources to conduct a thorough probe.

Lockyer said there is a likelihood of additional cases being sent to him from other prisons, thus prompting the need for a special unit.

Over the last decade, guards in California prisons have killed 39 inmates engaged in fistfights and melees, a practice unheard of in other states.

At Corcoran, guards killed seven inmates engaged in fistfights with fellow prisoners. Not one of the deceased inmates was carrying a weapon or posed an imminent threat of great bodily harm to another combatant--the state’s standard for using deadly force, a Times review found.

No guard has been prosecuted for murder, manslaughter or assault with a deadly weapon. Only a few officers statewide have been disciplined for shooting at inmates in fights.

In 1996, after The Times detailed allegations of staged fights at Corcoran, the Wilson administration initiated a Department of Corrections probe and asked then-Atty. Gen. Lungren to conduct a parallel investigation.

The Times reported last summer that Lungren’s office ended up investigating only a single case of brutality at Corcoran. Lungren’s office said that federal authorities already were engaged in a broad inquiry at Corcoran and that there was no need to overlap with federal agents.

In the wake of The Times’ report, some state lawmakers criticized officials, including Lungren, for failing to look into the shootings. Rather than pursue guards for using excessive force, Lungren’s office almost exclusively defended guards in federal civil rights lawsuits, The Times found.

Last year, the attorney general’s office did step into a controversial rape case at Corcoran.

After a former Corcoran guard gave The Times a firsthand account of the rape of a prisoner by an inmate enforcer nicknamed the “Booty Bandit,” a Kings County grand jury indicted five officers on conspiracy and other charges stemming from the attack. The indictments followed a three-month investigation by Lungren’s office into allegations of planned rapes and cover-up at Corcoran.

Meanwhile, a federal probe at Corcoran led to indictments nearly a year ago of eight officers on charges of civil rights violations in other incidents. The federal probe is ongoing, with a grand jury looking into whether the state prison guards’ union has obstructed justice.

Spokesmen for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. Monday welcomed Lockyer’s proposal.

“If it assists in officers being cleared as well as assists in weeding out those who are guilty of misconduct, I think it’s something very positive for this profession,” said Mike Jimenez, an association vice president.

But Jimenez doubts that the new unit will prompt federal authorities to limit their continuing investigations at state prisons.

“I doubt if it will have any impact over the FBI’s decisions. They seem to have their own agenda. They’ve spent an awful lot of money looking for wrongdoing.”

In announcing the new unit, Lockyer said he does not believe that his investigators will focus on the prison guards union or allegations of obstruction of justice.

The changes proposed by Lockyer also were welcomed by Cal Terhune, director of the state Department of Corrections.

“Frankly, anything that ends up in the system that provides for better accountability, I would certainly support,” Terhune said. “It is tough for some counties that don’t have the resources to conduct the kinds of investigations that might be placed in their lap.”

A series of stories by reporters Mark Arax and Mark Gladstone have documented alleged brutality by guards and questionable shootings in prisons statewide. The stories are available on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/prison