Prison Guard Testifies He Couldn’t Predict Fight

The Corcoran State Prison guard who shot and killed an inmate during a 1994 brawl says that there was no guard conspiracy to set up gladiator-style fights between prisoners.

Officer Christopher Bethea told the jury Tuesday that he had no idea there was going to be a fight on April 2, 1994.

“With all your training, can you predict with any degree of certainty when there’s going to be a fight and when there’s not?” asked Bethea’s lawyer, Michael Rains.

“No, I must have missed that class,” Bethea said, eliciting chuckles from the jury.

Shortly before 9 a.m. on April 2, 1994, two pairs of prisoners from rival ethnic groups began to fight in the maximum security lock-down’s exercise yard.

Bethea ordered the prisoners to get down, then shot at them once with a nonlethal crowd control weapon that fires wooden blocks. When that failed to stop the fight, he fired one round from a 9-millimeter rifle, striking inmate Preston Tate in the head, killing him.

Bethea said he was trying to protect Tate, who was being pummeled by two other prisoners.

The guards are accused of conspiring to violate prisoners’ civil rights by failing to protect them from brawls with other prisoners--brawls the guards allegedly knew were going to take place, yet did nothing to prevent.

The guards are accused of setting up two gladiator-style fights in 1994 for their own entertainment. Tate died as a result of one of the fights.

The defense says the eight accused guards did everything possible to prevent inmate fights.

Sgt. Truman Jennings also testified Tuesday that the guards didn’t conspire to set up any fights. He and Bethea said the inmates are solely responsible for the violence.

Defense lawyers say the guards were just following the state’s since-rescinded “integrated yard” policy, which forced inmates of different ethnic and geographic backgrounds, who are often in rival gangs, to exercise together.