New Policy Cuts Shootings at Prisons to Zero

Not a single inmate in California has been fatally shot or wounded by guards since the Department of Corrections began overhauling its shooting practices three months ago, according to official statistics and interviews.

State Corrections Director Cal Terhune said guards at maximum-security prisons statewide are responding to his call to end the controversial practice of shooting inmates engaged in nonlethal fistfights and melees.

Over the last three months, only one brawl--a near-riot involving about 250 inmates at a prison medical facility in Corcoran--prompted the firing of rifles. All 14 bullets fired in the incident were warning shots that caused no injuries.

During the last decade, the shooting practice had resulted in the killing of 39 inmates and the wounding of more than 200.

“The incidents of deadly force have just bottomed out. They’re down to practically nothing,” said Terhune, who oversees a system that houses 160,000 inmates in 33 prisons. “The message seems to have gotten through: Unless you are absolutely sure that an inmate is about to take the life of another inmate or staff member, you don’t use deadly force.”

Terhune said he could not recall another three-month period in recent years without a fatal or serious shooting of an inmate in the state’s prison system.

The absence of any fatal shootings or woundings since Oct. 7 is encouraging, critics say, but more time is needed to determine whether the practice has truly ended. They say the state penal system is too vast and hidebound for overnight change, and individual prisons often cling stubbornly to old habits, even in the face of reform.

“Any time they are not shooting at prisoners, that’s a good thing,” said Bob Navarro, a Bay Area attorney who has opposed the Department of Corrections in a number of excessive-force lawsuits. “But I don’t think it’s been a long enough time to say that the practice and culture have changed or that the corrections department has really incorporated a new lethal force policy.

“A lot of things need to happen, such as better training, for this trend to become the norm.”

Terhune, however, said 1998 saw fewer deadly force incidents than any year in the past decade. Last year, state prison guards fired assault rifles 163 times, resulting in three deaths and six injuries. In 1997, there were 202 shooting incidents that resulted in one fatality and seven injuries.

By contrast, 1994 saw guards firing assault rifles 455 times, killing eight inmates and wounding 96.

State statistics did not break down the shootings by month.

Terhune said he believes the sharp drop in deadly force incidents, especially during the past three months, is part of a larger change. He credited a series of recent stories in The Times, which led to state legislative hearings and an overhaul of the shooting practice, with helping reform the corrections department.

“The stories caused a focusing on the issues and they certainly caused a continuing effort to bring about change,” Terhune said. “After the articles and the hearings, line officers said, ‘We feel we have a weight off our back. You don’t have to be the quickest trigger in town anymore.’ ”

Other States Use Fewer Armed Guards

California is the only state in which correctional officers have resorted to lethal force to stop fistfights and melees involving unarmed inmates. Most states limit firearms to a few guard towers that ring a prison. Batons and pepper spray are used to break up inmate fights.

Guards in California’s maximum-security prisons, however, are armed with rifles and stand in special control booths located throughout the facilities.

Using deadly force to stop inmate fights from turning deadly became a practice in the late 1980s, when the corrections department began mixing rival gang members in small recreation yards. Prison officials said they needed to see if sworn enemies could get along in a small setting before releasing them into the general population.

Critics said the prison system had another motive in mind: to encourage fights by rival inmates and brutalize gangs into submission. The integration policy resulted in thousands of fights that led to hundreds of shootings over the past decade.

In the past, the state has argued that guards frequently resorted to firing weapons because of the system’s low ratio of guards to inmates and the violent nature of California gangs. But now prison officials are finding that the mere presence of the weapons can be enough to keep a lid on violence. In addition, the state has sharply curtailed the practice of mixing rival gang members in yards.

The state’s policy on deadly force required that guards issue a verbal command to stop fighting before firing a wood or rubber block as a warning shot. If a fight continued and one inmate posed a danger of “imminent great bodily injury” to another, guards were trained to chamber a live round and fire at the aggressor’s torso.

But a Times review of the shootings at prisons statewide revealed that officers responded with deadly force even in the absence of inmate weapons or injury. Some prisons such as Corcoran gave guards the green light to use bullets to stop routine fistfights. Other wardens banned the practice.

It was this inconsistent application of deadly force and the rising number of lawsuits growing out of the shootings that alarmed Terhune, who took over as director of corrections in the summer of 1997.

Terhune said past attempts to curtail the use of deadly force, including a change in the shooting policy in 1994, had succeeded in cutting the incidents in half. But he said a disturbing number of fatal and serious shootings continued through late 1998, when he decided to implement a more complete overhaul.

He said his department is still refining the written policy. But even more important, he said, is the adoption of a new training program that will simulate yard fights to teach officers when deadly force is warranted.

“The key is the training, the training, the training,” Terhune said. “The term ‘imminent great bodily injury’ means just about anything you can think of in the absence of specific training.”

Several prison officers were recently brought to Sacramento to sit through an abridged version of the new training. Neal Clark, a control booth officer at Mule Creek State Prison, said the session cautioned guards not to overreact to inmate fights but to carefully assess three factors: the intensity of the attack, the length of the attack and any injuries sustained.

“Great bodily injury is not just a simple wound,” Clark said. “It’s not a simple action. It’s something more than that.”

The corrections department is seeking more money to double the academy training for guards to 12 weeks, a move that critics applaud. But attorney Navarro said training is only part of the solution.

He said the corrections department must start disciplining guards who use deadly force without justification. And as long as California permits the use of rifles, Navarro said, inmates will die at the hands of guards.

“No matter how well you attempt to define and explain the shooting policy, you will have situations where officers will panic in the pressure of a situation and forget or misinterpret policy and kill someone needlessly.”

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