LA jail inmate killed after cutting in dinner line

[Christina Marie]

LA jail inmate killed after cutting in dinner line
The Associated Press
Last Updated 8:23 am PST Friday, November 18, 2005

LOS ANGELES (AP) - An inmate was stomped to death after he cut in front of two gang members in a dinner line at the Men's Central Jail, officials said.

"They took upon themselves to teach (the victim) a lesson," Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy said Thursday of the previous day's killing. "This was a brutal crime."

The attackers spent 10 to 15 minutes beating and stomping the victim's head while other inmates looked on, officials said. The men were among 30 inmates locked in a room to eat dinner while deputies searched nearby cells for weapons.
The inmates were left alone and unsupervised.

"We're going to be looking at everything from the time that those inmates entered that (room): Why were they placed in that room? Was it the right thing? Was it the wrong thing? Were those windows boarded up for a reason?" Assistant Sheriff Paul Tanaka said. "You can be assured the sheriff's investigators are going to be looking at all of this. Our goal is to not have anyone die in our custody."

The incident was the second time in two years that an inmate was killed in an unsupervised group setting. The Sheriff's Department disciplined 22 deputies after five inmates were killed in the jail from October 2003 to April 2004.

Sheriff Lee Baca pledged last year to increase security and better segregate violent inmates. He said through a spokesman Thursday that the department will begin segregating from other prisoners gang members charged with murder.

The man who was killed Wednesday was a transient from Georgia who was jailed for being a convict in possession of a gun and escaping from jails in Arizona and Nevada, Undersheriff Larry Waldie said. His name was not released pending notification of his family, he said.

Christian Perez, 18, and Heriberto Rodriguez, 24, were charged with murder in the incident, Waldie said.

Perez was behind bars for investigation of murder and Rodriguez for investigation of carjacking, he said.

Following the spate of killings in 2003 and 2004, the department assigned 96 deputies to ensure that inmates are checked hourly, Waldie said.

"We have 6,000 inmates in the jail, 4,000 of whom are gang members and 600 who are murderers," he said. "The deputies were working vigilantly to prevent violence. It doesn't take long when you are dealing with murderers for an incident to occur."



http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/13874777p-14714032c.html

[Christina Marie]

LIARS!!! They were'nt in line for dinner. They were locked in a room....that would mean they already had their trays. This is just a ploy by the Sherriffs Dept to make a statement...they are overcrowded and understaffed. They were probably right there watching.

[Christina Marie]

A little more info

Independent Review Office Investigates Beating Death At LA County Jail
Two Inmates Allegedly Beat Man To Death

POSTED: 12:22 pm PST November 18, 2005
UPDATED: 2:08 pm PST November 18, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- Authorities Friday investigated the beating death of an inmate who was placed unsupervised in a room with about 30 other inmates at Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail.

The 35-year-old-man, whose name was not immediately released, was declared dead about 5 p.m. Wednesday at the jail at 441 Bauchet St. after he was allegedly beaten to death by two fellow inmates, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy Bill Spear.

Two gang members -- one facing a murder charge -- allegedly stomped on the victim's head after he cut in front of them in the dinner line, according to the Daily Breeze newspaper.

It was the eighth killing inside the jail in the past two years.

The Office of Independent Review has already begun work on its investigation into the death.

"We had an attorney rolling out to the scene within an hour or two of its occurrence," said Stephen Connolly, OIR attorney. "He will have responsibility for tracking the various facets of the investigation as it moves through the system."

The victim was a transient from Georgia who lived at a trailer park in Walnut and was jailed for being a convict in possession of a gun and escaping from jails in Arizona and Nevada, the Daily News reported.

The inmates were unattended in a 700-square-foot room with a concrete floor, a urinal, toilet, and steel benches to eat dinner while deputies searched nearby cells for weapons, the Los Angeles Times newspaper reported.

The room had three windows that had been boarded shut and deputies could not see inside as two gang members allegedly beat and stomped the victim for about 10 to 15 minutes while other inmates looked on silently.

In its investigation, OIR will look at what deputies did, what they should have done and what they can do in the future to prevent inmate murder.

"The department, and OIR, is certainly interested in whether there are any policy or procedural changes that are necessary and appropriate in light of what has happened and the realities in the jail," Connolly said.

The two suspects, Christian Perez, 18, who was in custody for carjacking and murder, and Heriberto Rodriguez, 24, in custody for carjacking, will also be charged with murder for the killing of the inmate, Spear said.

"The reality is, resource issues and nature of the violent inmates that are now taking a bigger percentage of the cells in Central Jail, it is almost impossible to prevent this type of thing from happening," Connolly said.

The department should have "significant answers" in one to two months, Connolly said.

"We're going to be looking at everything from the time that those inmates entered that (room): Why were they placed in that room? Was it the right thing? Was it the wrong thing? Were those windows boarded up for a reason?" Assistant Sheriff Paul Tanaka told The Times.

"You can be assured the sheriff's investigators are going to be looking at all of this. Our goal is to not have anyone die in our custody," Tanaka said.

A spokesperson for Sheriff Lee Baca said the department will begin segregating gang members charged with murder from the general population.

[Christina Marie]

They are going to BEGIN segregating gang members charged with murder from gen pop:roll:

[MiChuhSuh]

They are going to BEGIN segregating gang members charged with murder from gen pop:roll:

What's wrong with that?

[Christina Marie]

They are going to BEGIN segregating gang members charged with murder from gen pop:roll:

What's wrong with that?

THEY NEVER SHOULD OF HAD THEM IN GEN POP IN THE FIRST PLACE! Take an individual who is facing certain life and prison and guess what?? They don't give a mad f*ck. And sh*t like this happens.

[Mexican:.805]

pretty sure the guy killed was BLACK, cuz a person in GEorgia carrying a gun, he gota be blak haha. cuz aint most people in GA blak? and white people dont pac guns.
and no its not Race related, everyone makes it that way. the guy just cut the wrong vatos

[Christina Marie]

pretty sure the guy killed was BLACK, because a person in GEorgia carrying a gun, he gota be blak haha. because aint most people in GA blak? and white people dont pac guns.
and no its not Race related, everyone makes it that way. the guy just cut the wrong vatos

This happened in Los Angeles County. They were'nt in line for chow. There was no line to cut, they were locked in a room with there damn trays supposedly. The LASD can't even lie right.

[Common Sense]

The two that did the stomping are just stupid. Now they definitely have no case for court. The one guy with only a carjacking charge at least had a chance to get his life back one day, now he's screwed.

It really amazes me sometime, how some people are willing to give up their liberty indefinitely and so easy. These two young men are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison only to be preyed upon like the victim they stomped. When your 18 and 24... life in prison is a long time.

What goes around comes around. Sooner or later.

[Christina Marie]

November 19, 2005

Deputies Are Focus of Jail Slaying Probe
Officials want to know why guards left inmates unsupervised at the L.A. facility. The fatal beating is believed to be linked to racial tensions.

By Stuart Pfeifer and Richard Winton, Times Staff Writers


A series of questionable decisions by sheriff's deputies in the minutes before this week's fatal beating of an inmate in the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail are now at the center of an internal affairs investigation, authorities said Friday.

The attack, in which two Latino inmates are accused of savagely beating a white inmate after they were placed together in an unsupervised holding room, appeared to have been spurred by the victim's defiance of a jail ritual in which inmates decide what races get priority for such things as television, showers and telephone use.

On Wednesday, the deputies allowed the inmates to decide the order in which they should line up for dinner. The inmates decided that Latinos should be served first, blacks second and whites third. The victim, however, stepped in front of black and Latino inmates to grab his dinner.

All 30 inmates in the line were taken to an unsupervised room to eat their meals. After the deputies left them alone, the suspected attackers beat and kicked the victim in the head for up to 15 minutes as the others watched.

Investigators plan to examine the deputies' actions in the minutes before the beating as well as explore why they left the inmate alone in the room.

Another question authorities are trying to answer is why deputies placed the victim in the company of such dangerous inmates. When the victim arrived at the jail, deputies placed him in protective custody because of a previous escape. But at some point, he was moved into the general population.

The two suspects in Wednesday's attack are gang members classified by the Sheriff's Department as Level 9 threats. One was charged with murder and the other with kidnapping and carjacking. The victim, who had been charged with unlawful firearm possession, was classified as a more moderate Level 7 risk.

The Sheriff's Department has been struggling to segregate dangerous inmates from the rest of the population. Eight inmates have been killed in the jail — the nation's largest — in the last two years. In 2004, Merrick Bobb, the independent monitor hired by the county Board of Supervisors to evaluate the Sheriff's Department, recommended in a report that deputies not house Level 7 and 9 inmates together because of the potential for violence.

"You had two deviations from good corrections practice: first to mix a keep-away with the general population and second to mix individuals with a high security level with those [who pose] a lesser risk," Bobb said. "This is not the first time they've mixed inmates of different security levels and had problems."

In the wake of the latest killing, authorities said they planned to review the way they classify and group inmates. Jail managers are also developing a plan that would attempt to segregate all gang members accused of murder from the rest of the population.

Assistant Sheriff Paul Tanaka said Friday that the department would no longer hold inmates in the room where the man was killed. Three windows through which deputies could have seen into the room were boarded shut.

"Hindsight always being 20-20 it appears [using the room] is definitely not a good practice," Tanaka said. "That is a place we will not be putting inmates in the future."

Jody Kent, jails project coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Los Angeles, said she had been seeking such a policy for months.

"Too bad somebody had to die in order for them to implement something as basic as not holding inmates in an area that physically cannot be supervised," she said.

The racial tension behind Wednesday's attack was nothing new to those familiar with the county's jail system.

"Race is the predominate issue in everything going on in these jail modules," said Michael Gennaco, head of the county Office of Independent Review. "Inmates who cross over and hang out with other races are internally disciplined with beatings."

Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy, who is overseeing the criminal investigation into the beating death, said it appeared that the killing was prompted by the victim's decision not to keep to his racial station.

"Very likely he wasn't familiar with the pecking order, and that could have led to his death," Peavy said. "It's very sad."

On Friday, Supervisor Mike Antonovich asked his fellow board members to approve a motion calling for Sheriff Lee Baca to report behind closed doors on staffing levels in the jail and recruitment efforts, and what corrective action will be taken after the latest jail killing.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jails19nov19,0,2774369.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[tysuave]

pretty sure the guy killed was BLACK, because a person in GEorgia carrying a gun, he gota be blak haha. because aint most people in GA blak? and white people dont pac guns.
and no its not Race related, everyone makes it that way. the guy just cut the wrong vatos

first of all the dude that was killed was white and seacond blacks whould never let two mexicans beat a black dude down like that,thats how riots start.

[Christina Marie]

Inmates will no longer be held in LA jail section where one died

Saturday, November 19, 2005

(11-19) 21:05 PST Los Angeles (AP) --


Inmates at the Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail will no longer be housed in a room with boarded-up windows where one prisoner was stomped to death by two other inmates last week, authorities said.


"Hindsight always being 20-20, it appears (using the room) is definitely not a good practice," Assistant Sheriff Paul Tanaka said Friday. "That is a place we will not be putting inmates in the future."


Authorities said nearly 30 inmates looked on while two attackers spent 10 to 15 minutes beating and stomping the victim to death.


Undersheriff Larry Waldie said Christian Perez, 18, and Heriberto Rodriguez, 24, were charged with murder. The name of the man killed has not been released. Waldie said he was a transient from Georgia who was jailed for being a convict in possession of a gun and escaping from jails in Arizona and Nevada.


Capt. Ray Peavy, who is heading up an investigation, said the man may have been killed for violating an unspoken rule among inmates not to mingle with people of other races. He was white and authorities say his attackers are Latino.


"Very likely he wasn't familiar with the pecking order, and that could have led to his death," Peavy said. "It's very sad."


Authorities have said the man was attacked after he got in line for dinner with Latino inmates.


The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that jailers allowed the inmates themselves to decide in which order they should be served dinner and that the prisoners concluded Latinos would go first, followed by blacks and then whites.


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/11/19/state/n210503S79.DTL

[Christina Marie]

This is just ludacrist. They DONT leave inmates unattended, w/o ANY supervision for no amount of time like that. They are soooooo BSing. The deputies probably had taken bets or some shit.

[MiChuhSuh]

Or just didn't care. Ya, I see what you meant earlier. They should have left the lifer seperate, they got nothing to lose. Which is why death row would scare the crap out of me...

But anyways they need to have a serious look at the competence of their security.

['X']

This is just ludacrist. They DONT leave inmates unattended, w/o ANY supervision for no amount of time like that. They are soooooo BSing. The deputies probably had taken bets or some shit.

Actually "inmates" are left in alot of situations where nonone is supervising them. Thats why this article doesn't surprise me at all. It is so easy for anyone to get got in the county. I was there last year(unfortunatly ) and I witnessed for myself situations that would probably surprise alot of you who never been there.

['X']

[quote="End Violence NOW"] Which is why death row would scare the crap out of me...[ /quote]









[quote="End Violence NOW"] But anyways they need to have a serious look at the competence of their security. [ /quote]


Everybody knows about the "security" in the county....This has been going on for years....I tripped off how so many people was celebrating to get out of the county to go to the pen...

[Christina Marie]

This is just ludacrist. They DONT leave inmates unattended, w/o ANY supervision for no amount of time like that. They are soooooo BSing. The deputies probably had taken bets or some shit.

Actually "inmates" are left in alot of situations where nonone is supervising them. Thats why this article doesn't surprise me at all. It is so easy for anyone to get got in the county. I was there last year(unfortunatly ) and I witnessed for myself situations that would probably surprise alot of you who never been there.

For a half an hour??? I cannot recall one time that I was left unattended for that long...much less 10 mins. Why do you think they call twin towers the fish bowl???

[Christina Marie]

But I HAVE watched the deputies set people up....create situations in which inmates were put in situations intentionally.

[MiChuhSuh]

Which is why death row would scare the crap out of me...

Hey what's wrong with that?

[Christina Marie]

OPINION ARTICLE

Article Launched: 11/21/2005 12:00:00 AM

Manage the jail
Two more inmates killed in uncontrolled setting.

Who is in control of L.A. county jail? Not the Sheriff's Department, it appears.

This week two inmates beat another inmate to death while a group of 30 were left unsupervised in a tiny, windowless room. It was the eighth killing of an inmate by fellow inmates in the past two years.

Guards had reportedly left the inmates alone, and the two alleged killers took revenge for the perceived slight of cutting them off in a dinner line.

Though county jail may house some violent, despicable criminals, they deserve protection while they await trial and sentencing. One inmate was denied that, and paid with his life. The two accused of murder are gang members; one was already a murder suspect and the other is connected to kidnapping and carjacking. It is unclear whether the victim was a gang member or not.

Sheriff Lee Baca has pledged to increase security and separate murder suspects from less violent inmates. That's the least that needs to be done.

County jail is too overcrowded, too understaffed and too violent. The County Board of Supervisors must marshal the resources necessary to help Baca combat all three problems.

http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_3236990

[MARTINEZ]

pretty sure the guy killed was BLACK, because a person in GEorgia carrying a gun, he gota be blak haha. because aint most people in GA blak? and white people dont pac guns.
and no its not Race related, everyone makes it that way. the guy just cut the wrong vatos

Dude that was killed was white.

[Christina Marie]

December 8, 2005 latimes.com : California Print E-mail story Most e-mailed Change text size

2 Charged in Slaying at Central Jail
L.A. County prosecutors allege that inmate Chadwick Cochran was killed Nov. 16 by gang members who thought he was an informant.

By Richard Winton and Stuart Pfeifer, Times Staff Writers


Los Angeles County prosecutors on Wednesday said two inmates could face the death penalty for torturing a fellow inmate for up to half an hour, then killing him while they were locked together in an unsupervised room at the Men's Central Jail — all over what authorities now believe was a misunderstanding.

Prosecutors believe that gang members targeted Chadwick Shane Cochran, a 35-year-old with mental problems who was placed in jail for a nonviolent offense, because they saw him being escorted by deputies and wrongly concluded that he was a jailhouse informant.

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Christian Perez, 18, and Heriberto Eddie Rodriguez, 24, were charged with Cochran's torture and murder Wednesday.

The gang members, along with Cochran and 27 other inmates, were placed by deputies in a room at the Men's Central Jail on the evening of Nov. 16. Deputies could not see into the room because the windows were covered with metal sheeting.

With no deputies around, the assailants knocked Cochran to the ground and then stomped on his head, neck and chest, prosecutors said. The beating continued as they screamed "Snitch!" When Cochran lost consciousness, they allegedly dragged him about 10 feet by his hair and revived him by splashing water on his face, officials said.

They then allegedly dragged him back, beating him with metal food trays and again stomping on him. When they thought he was dead, an inmate dragged him behind a small wall in an apparent effort to hide the body from deputies, officials said.

The other 27 inmates stood by as the beating took place and did not attempt to stop it.

"It was a very brutal killing," said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Cochran's slaying marked the eighth killing in the Los Angeles County jail system in two years. It has captured particular attention because jail officials believed he suffered from mental problems but they nonetheless placed him with violent inmates.

The jail's policy is to segregate inmates with possible mental problems from the rest of the inmate population.

The brutal details of the crime were revealed a day after county supervisors criticized Sheriff Lee Baca for not following through on recommendations a year ago to begin segregating violent inmates from nonviolent ones.

Baca aides said Tuesday that the Sheriff's Department was now working on a plan to segregate violent gang members.

Sheriff's investigators originally suspected that Cochran had been killed because he cut to the front of the line at dinner, angering the gang members.

But based an interviews and other evidence, prosecutors believe the assailants thought Cochran was an informant.

The gang members apparently based this on the fact that deputies escorted Cochran before the beating, prosecutors said.

It was unclear why deputies did this, and jail sources described it as unusual.

But both Robison and Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy, who investigated the case, stressed that Cochran was not an informant.

"This was an extremely callous act," Peavy said.

Both suspects have a history of violence, officials said. Perez is awaiting trial for a slaying he allegedly committed when he was 17. Rodriguez is a San Fernando Valley gang member who is awaiting trial on kidnapping and carjacking charges, court records and prosecutors said.

Perez and Rodriguez were both classified as violent criminals while Cochran was a less-dangerous inmate, officials said.

Merrick Bobb, the special monitor who advises county supervisors on Sheriff's Department matters and wrote recommendations last year for improving the safety of inmates, said he was alarmed at the mistakes that appear to have contributed to Cochran's death.

"I haven't investigated this myself, but what it suggests to me is a cascade of errors. If so, it's very much like the five inmate deaths that led to the 2004 report. It wasn't just one guy messing up one thing, it was a systemic failure," Bobb said.

Bobb said he was disappointed that the Sheriff's Department has not followed some recommendations, particularly a recommendation that the department stop mixing medium-level and high-risk inmates.

"It's extraordinarily dispiriting," he said.

Jody Kent, jails project coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said the most significant mistake by jail officials appears to have been their decision to leave those inmates alone in the holding room.

The sheriff's Office of Independent Review is now trying to determine why this happened.

"The bottom line is the inmate would not have been killed had there been proper supervision. We'll have to see what the investigations show," Kent said.


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jail8dec08,1,6927168.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[Christina Marie]

Officials: LA jail inmate murdered because of misunderstanding



LOS ANGELES -- Prosecutors said they believe a jail inmate was stomped to death in an unsupervised room last month because other prisoners mistakenly thought he was an informant.


A pair of gang members apparently targeted Chadwick Shane Cochran, 35, after seeing him being escorted by sheriff's deputies, according to the district attorney's office. Officials initially believed the attack occurred after Cochran cut in front of the gang members in a dinner line.

Christian Perez, 18, and Heriberto Eddie Rodriguez, 24, were charged Wednesday with Cochran's torture and murder. They could face the death penalty if found guilty.

Cochran, who had mental problems, was in jail for a nonviolent offense. The attack occurred Nov. 16 in a room filled with 30 inmates who were unsupervised and could not be seen by deputies from outside.

Officials said the assailants screamed "Snitch!" while beating and stomping Cochran for up to a half-hour.

None of the other 27 inmates tried to stop the attack.

Cochran's was the eighth killing in the Los Angeles County jail system in two years. By placing Cochran in the general inmate population, the jail violated its policy of segregating inmates with possible mental problems.

A 2004 report also recommended that the sheriff begin segregating violent inmates from nonviolent ones.

"I haven't investigated this myself, but what it suggests to me is a cascade of errors," said Merrick Bobb, the special monitor who advises county supervisors on Sheriff's Department matters. "If so, it's very much like the five inmate deaths that led to the 2004 report. It wasn't just one guy messing up one thing, it was a systemic failure."

Sheriff Lee Baca said Tuesday that the Sheriff's Department was working on a plan to segregate violent gang members.

Perez is awaiting trial on a murder charge. Rodriguez is a San Fernando Valley gang member who is awaiting trial on kidnapping and carjacking charges, according to court records and prosecutors.

http://www.deserttelevision.com/Global/story.asp?S=4217708___