No proof that Taser killed cat

Orange County sheriff’s officials have found no evidence to prove that deputies used a Taser electric stun weapon on a stray cat at Theo Lacy Jail in Orange, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Last month, the department disclosed that it was investigating inmate reports that deputies had shocked a cat with a Taser and that the decomposed carcass of a cat was found on the jail grounds.

A necropsy was inconclusive as to whether the dead cat had been shot with a Taser, department spokesman John McDonald said.

“We were unable to determine if there was any connection between the dead cat and the reported Taser use,” McDonald said.

The investigation concluded that deputies might have pulled the trigger of the Taser without firing the darts through which an electric current is transmitted into targets. The test-firing makes a loud noise, one that may have spooked a nearby cat and caused it to run away, department sources said.

Results of the investigation have been turned over to Mike Gennaco, who is serving as an internal affairs consultant for acting Orange County Sheriff Jack Anderson. Gennaco is chief attorney for the Office of Independent Review of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Two newly hired deputies who had been assigned to Theo Lacy were discharged after the investigation began, but there was no indication that their termination was related to horseplay with a Taser.

Deputies Joseph E. Mirander and Duy X. Tran ended their employment with the Sheriff’s Department on April 17, county personnel records show.

News of the Taser investigation came after the release of transcripts from a grand jury investigation that found deputies at the jail allowed hand-picked prisoners to discipline inmates while deputies napped, watched television or played video games.

One of those deputies, Kevin Taylor, was watching television and exchanging cellphone text messages one night in 2006 when a mob of inmates beat to death fellow prisoner John Derek Chamberlain. The prisoners mistakenly believed Chamberlain was being held on suspicion of child molestation, according to the grand jury transcripts.

Taylor was among five sheriff’s employees suspended after the grand jury transcripts were released. Anderson launched what he said would become the largest internal-affairs review in the department’s history.

The acting sheriff told the Orange County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday that crews have begun taking down so-called “privacy walls” in the barracks at Theo Lacy jail. The walls obscured the view from guard stations and created a blind spot where inmates assaulted fellow inmates. Chamberlain’s body was found in such a blind spot obscured by one of the walls.

Anderson also told the supervisors he has begun rotating staff in the jails to give deputies new experience with different inmates, peers, supervisors and facilities in hopes of “eliminating informal barriers that inhibit staff growth and promote complacency, idleness and lackluster commitment to their duties and responsibilities.”

Anderson told the board that the deputies union had sought a court injunction to block the rotations but was unsuccessful.

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stuart.pfeifer@latimes.com

Times staff writer Christian Berthelsen contributed to this report.