Attorney General’s Office to Investigate 24 Shootings by Corcoran Prison Guards

Two dozen serious and fatal shootings of inmates by Corcoran State Prison guards are under scrutiny by the state attorney general’s office for possible criminal prosecution.

The state’s top law enforcement agency agreed to investigate the cases after a special state review panel concluded last fall that five fatal shootings and 19 incidents in which Corcoran inmates were wounded were not justified.

The shootings, which occurred between 1989 and 1995, were intended to were set up by correctional officers.

“We are going to independently assess the circumstances of each of them,” said Peter Siggins, chief deputy for legal affairs for new Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

The Kings County district attorney’s office, citing a lack of resources to dig into the shootings at the local prison, referred the cases to the attorney general’s office last month.

Siggins estimated that it would take as long as two months to determine whether the guards’ decisions to use deadly force to break up fights merited criminal charges.

The state undertook a review of the Corcoran shootings after stories in The Times highlighted the shootings and the failure of official watchdogs to examine them critically.

The special three-member panel of retired police officials reviewed 31 deadly and serious shootings at Corcoran over a six-year span. The panel, appointed by the director of the state Department of Corrections, found that the use of deadly force was not justified in 24 cases.

The panel is now reviewing an additional 29 nonfatal shootings at Corcoran, corrections officials said Wednesday.

Leaders of the prison guards union did not return calls for comment Wednesday. The union has vigorously defended the officers involved in the shootings, arguing that if guards overreacted it was because they were following flawed Corrections Department policy.

The attorney general’s office acknowledged that because so much time has passed since the shootings, prosecutors are unsure if they can bring charges, especially in the nonfatal cases. Because there is no statute of limitations for prosecuting murders, the fatal shootings can be more easily pursued.

Corrections officials say that prosecutors face a major challenge in analyzing the evidence. Several who have seen the prison’s tapes of the shootings say that the grainy, rapid movements on some of the videos make it difficult to discern what happened.

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 during fistfights. Not one of the deceased inmates carried a weapon or posed imminent great bodily harm to another combatant--the standard for using deadly force, a Times review found. In some instances, the wrong inmate--the one being attacked--was shot and killed.

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.

After The Times’ stories, some state legislators criticized then-Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren for failing to delve into the prison shootings. Instead, the attorney general’s office often defended guards in federal civil rights lawsuits stemming from the shootings. Over the years, the state Corrections Department has failed to change its shooting practices but is now overhauling its policy on deadly force. The new policy forbids guards to fire shots to break up fistfights or melees.

One of the cases caught on videotape and being reviewed by Lockyer’s office is the shooting death of William Martinez, who was the first inmate slain at Corcoran’s Security Housing Unit in April 1989. He was shot during a fight with a rival gang member.

Videotape from prison cameras shows that Martinez was getting the best of his rival and had delivered several blows and a single kick before walking away. The fight appeared to be over and Martinez stood a few feet from his rival when the fatal shot struck him in the back.

At the time, a state shooting review panel--made up of four Corcoran supervisors--exonerated the officer.

The other fatal cases under review by the attorney general’s office are the deaths of inmates William Randoll Jr. in 1989, Andres Romero in 1990, Michael Mullins in 1993 and Henry Noriega in 1993.

The most infamous shooting death at Corcoran--the killing of inmate Preston Tate, which touched off an FBI investigation--is not one of the cases being reviewed by Lockyer’s office.

The shooting of Tate has led to the federal indictments of eight officers at the prison. The trial is scheduled for later this year.

Hilary McLean, Lockyer’s press secretary, said the state steered clear of the Tate matter because of the upcoming trial.

The Corrections Department is paying for the legal costs of the eight officers.

The department originally referred the questionable shootings to the Kings County district attorney for review. But last month local prosecutors passed on the cases to the attorney general’s office, saying that they did not have the resources to conduct a proper criminal review.

“There was a mutual agreement based on resources in Kings County that it was better for the cases to be investigated here,” McLean said.

Corrections Director Cal Terhune said he was confident that Lockyer’s office would find any criminal wrongdoing if it existed.

“I think they are serious about taking a look at them. I have the feeling if there’s anything that needs to be dealt with, they will do it,” Terhune said.

Previous stories on abuses of inmates in California’s prison system are available on The Times’ Web site at: https://www.latimes.com/prison