Patients Held in Patton Death

Two mental patients at Patton State Hospital were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of murder in the death of their 50-year-old roommate this week, the first slaying in more than a decade at the San Bernardino facility.

Robert Lucas was choked and stabbed in the neck with an unknown weapon Tuesday night. He was discovered by a hospital staff member.

The suspects, Jason Porter, 32, and Tom Smith, 43, were his roommates at the 1,500-patient mental health hospital for convicted or accused felons.

Porter was convicted of attempted murder in Napa County, and Smith had been convicted of intent to commit rape in Los Angeles County, hospital spokeswoman Cindy Barrett said. Porter and Smith were serving a year of parole at Patton.

They are being held at West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga.

Kirsten Macintyre, spokeswoman for the California Department of Mental Health, said her agency would investigate Lucas’ death.

Lucas was admitted to Patton in 2002 after being found not guilty by reason of insanity in an arson case in San Diego County.

He was one of four patients housed in the room. He apparently was attacked about 11 p.m. Tuesday. He was taken to St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino and died less than an hour later.

Barrett said Lucas, Porter and Smith had maintained normal behavior among Patton patients before the attack. The fourth roommate was not identified.

“They had arguments, spats, like we have all the time when you have 50 individuals living together in one unit,” Barrett said. “There were never any threats of violence among them.”

Lucas’ autopsy is scheduled for today, San Bernardino County coroner’s office spokesman Randy Emon said.

The hospital has called meetings with patients to discuss the slaying and to express concerns about potential violence to staff members, Barrett said. Staff members conduct rounds of patient rooms every 30 minutes, Barrett said.

Barrett declined to discuss the mental health histories of Porter and Smith, citing federal privacy restrictions. In general, however, Patton patients have been diagnosed with mental health problems such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, mood disorders and substance abuse, she said.

A U.S. Department of Justice report in June criticized conditions at Patton, Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk and the other state mental hospitals in Atascadero and Napa, noting a 2002 strangling death at Napa and sexual attacks and suicides at the other hospitals.

On Wednesday, a patient at Metropolitan tried to hang herself, said John Rodriguez, Department of Mental Health deputy director.

The woman was in critical condition Thursday.

The state agency is working with federal officials to adopt new policies to improve the way the state’s four major mental hospitals handle patients’ seclusion, restraint and medications, Rodriguez said.

The proposed plan for improvements does not address security, Rodriguez said.

“There are different approaches about how to room people together, but there are few people at Patton without a violent background,” Rodriguez said.

“We’ll be investigating what happened between [the roommates] in the last day or those final minutes and looking at where we go from here. But one thing we can’t say after this is that everybody will get their own room.

“There are very few single rooms available. Generally, we expect nonviolence, and we get it.”

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Times staff writers Steve Hymon and Nancy Wride contributed to this report.