Chino Warden, 2 Others Lose Posts

State prison officials on Friday removed the warden and two deputy wardens from their posts at the California Institution for Men in Chino after an investigation determined that mismanagement and security lapses contributed to the slaying of a guard in January.

Warden Lori DiCarlo had been on administrative leave since March, after the investigation by the state Office of the Inspector General found that the prison had improperly housed violent criminals and that corrections officials routinely violated security protocols.

The report also criticized prison managers for failing to distribute protective vests to officers. When Officer Manuel A. Gonzalez Jr., was stabbed to death, 362 stab-proof vests were sitting in a prison warehouse, including one fitted for Gonzalez.

“It’s a culmination of many things that led to this tragic murder,” said Todd Slosek, spokesman for the state Youth and Adult Correctional Agency.

“After reviewing the findings of the OIG’s report, we made the determination that there really wasn’t another decision to be made [other] than to remove the top management and put new management in there.”

Gonzalez, a father of six from Whittier, was the first on-duty prison officer killed in California in 20 years.

DiCarlo, and former Chief Deputy Wardens Carol Roddy and Greg Mellott, can continue to work at the prison as associate wardens, in accordance with state Civil Service laws. Roddy declined to comment; DiCarlo and Mellott could not be reached.

The attorney representing the Gonzalez family said he planned to sue DiCarlo, Roddy, Mellott and others in the chain of command at the state prison agency.

“It’s to be expected that people like DiCarlo are going to bear the brunt, because it’s part of the responsibility and burden of her job,” said Newport Beach attorney Mark J. Peacock. “Her failure to distribute those vests shows a deliberate indifference to the well-being of Manuel Gonzalez and the other correctional officers.”

In response to the investigation, the Youth and Adult Corrections Agency on Friday agreed to improvements, including: increasing scrutiny of prison managers; taking steps to ensure that officers follow safety protocols; doing a better job of screening incoming inmates and segregating those classified as high-risk; requiring guards to wear protective vests, and distributing those vests expeditiously when the vests arrive at an institution; and ensuring that prisons can provide adequate emergency medical care. The state investigation determined that Gonzalez violated security procedures when he let inmate Jon Christopher Blaylock, 35, out of his cell and into an open-tier area in an effort to calm racial tensions.

The officer did so because he though Blaylock had enough influence to calm other black inmates, the report stated.

Blaylock allegedly stabbed the officer when Gonzalez went to talk to him. Gonzalez, a 16-year veteran of the state Department of Corrections, was not wearing a protective vest, and earlier that day was warned by a fellow officer that such an action was dangerous, the report said.

Blaylock was serving a 75-year term for attempted murder of a peace officer. The San Bernardino County district attorney plans to seek the death penalty against him.

Chuck Alexander, the Department of Corrections vice president for the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. said he wasn’t surprised that DiCarlo, Roddy and Mellott would be held accountable for Gonzalez’s death.

Alexander said Corrections Secretary Roderick Q. Hickman should share some of the blame because the problems at the facility were common knowledge.

“There is no way short of gross incompetence that he didn’t know of the deplorable conditions” at Chino, Alexander said. “For them to lay the blame solely on the local management is hypocritical at best. It’s sending the message from the agency level that ‘if something happens, I’m going to fire you.’ ”

Alexander said he didn’t think there was much DiCarlo could do to make the facility safer.

“I do think they have some culpability,” he said. “But it’s kind of hard to fix structural deficiencies if you don’t have the monetary means to do so.”

The Office of the Inspector General is an independent state oversight agency that monitors the correctional system.