With the close of 2016 approaching, the pace of in-custody deaths among inmates in San Bernardino County’s jails and prisons continues at an alarming pace.
Known deaths within the walls of detention facilities within the county in 2016 had reached 13 by last week. That number did not include those at the Chino Institution for Men or the federal government’s two prisons in Adelanto
As of Monday, December 12, ten inmates had died in the custody of the San Bernardino County sheriff and three had died at the California Institution for Women in Chino since January 1, 2016.
Nine of the inmates under the sheriff’s supervision died at West Valley Detention Center and one died in custody at the sheriff’s Central Jail in San Bernardino. While sheriff’s officials maintain those deaths were medical-related or suicides, there is some information to controvert that.
Nevertheless, sheriff’s officials have boasted that ten medical related deaths among an inmate population as large as that maintained by the sheriff is “below average” and “fewer than what would normally be expected.”
The most recent death was that of a 39-year-old man, Shaun Green of Glendora, on December 11. Green had been jailed on December 6 on suspicion of assault with a firearm, terrorist threats, and being under the influence of a controlled substance after his arrest by Fontana police on December 4.
The sheriff’s department maintains that pre-existing medical conditions contributed to Greene’s death and that his death was precipitated by his having lost consciousness and slipped out of his wheelchair while eating lunch in the medical housing unit at West Valley shortly after noon Sunday. He was taken to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Fontana, where he died an hour later, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
The department said that after his arrest by Fontana PD, Green was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, the main campus of San Bernardino County’s public hospital, where he underwent examination and treatment by physicians for two days because of his medical condition. He was thereafter booked into West Valley’s medical housing unit, where he was being monitored and treated by the jail’s medical staff.
The Sentinel does not have specifics or even the names of the four inmates in the county sheriff’s custody who died between late April of this year and prior to Green’s death. It does have particulars on the first five such fatalities this year, which occurred at a rate of one every 19 days in the three month and five day period running from January 1 to April 5.
On or about January 4, 2016, Fernando Cordova, 58, experienced a medical emergency. He was transported to Kaiser Hospital in Fontana for medical treatment, where he was pronounced dead.
On or about February 7, 2016, Michael O’Brien, 40, experienced a medical emergency while in custody at West Valley. He was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton for treatment, where he was pronounced dead.
On Wednesday, February 10, 2016, Angela Zuniga, a 33-year old resident of San Bernardino, who had been remanded into custody at the West Valley Detention Center on January 11 on charges of shooting at an inhabited dwelling and being a felon in possession of a firearm, gave birth to a boy by C-section and underwent a hysterectomy at the county hospital, known as the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. Three days later, Zuninga was returned to custody at West Valley Detention Center. Her jailors assigned her to a clean-up detail. After she experienced bleeding and complained of abdominal pain, she was placed in solitary confinement. Other inmates report that she was wailing and requesting medical assistance that was not forthcoming.
On Saturday, February 27, 2016, according to the sheriff’s department, “Zuniga experienced a medical emergency and at 10:00 p.m. was transported to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. Despite lifesaving measures, Zuniga was pronounced deceased on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at 5:41 a.m.”
Investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Specialized Investigations Division, detective Troy Mooradian and sergeant Robert Warrick, conducted an investigation into Zuniga’s death. Their report has not been released, but the department has made a preliminary finding that her death was attributable to “medical” causes.
On Easter Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 6:41 a.m. deputies at the West Valley Detention Center found an inmate, Federico Juarez Guardado, 30 of San Bernardino, unresponsive in a jail cell. Guardado had been jailed on a contempt of court charge, a misdemeanor. According to the department, Guardado “was housed alone and appeared to be suffering a medical emergency. Medical staff assigned to the West Valley Detention Center and emergency medical responders from American Medical Response and Rancho Cucamonga Fire Department performed lifesaving measures. At 7:00 a.m., the inmate was pronounced deceased at the jail.”
Neither the investigation of his death by detective Brendan Motley and sergeant Greg Myler of the sheriff’s specialized investigations division nor the autopsy conducted by the Riverside County Coroner’s Office has been made public.
On April 5, 2016 at 10:15 a.m. a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy witnessed Michael Paul, 48 and a resident of Twin Peaks, jaywalking in the 23000 block of Crest Forest Drive. According to the department, “The deputy evaluated Paul, determined he was under the influence of a controlled substance and took him into custody. Paul was placed in a single man holding cell and following a brief interview, deputies determined Paul had weapons in his residence, which were in violation of a criminal restraining order.”
After deputies obtained a search warrant for Paul’s residence and found firearms and narcotics there and arrested Paul’s 37-year-old girlfriend, Emily McKernan,they returned to the Twin Peaks station and, according to the department, “At 5:39 p.m. prepared to interview Paul regarding the evidence located at his home and found he had hanged himself in the cell. Medical personnel responded and Paul was pronounced dead at the scene.”
At the time of Paul’s death, there had been a spate of sheriff’s department in-custody deaths, numbering ten over a roughly 13 month period going back to March 2015. In that span, inmates had been dying in custody at a rate of one every 38 days. Those deaths included at least one and perhaps as many as four deaths which might have been homicides, although the department maintains that only one of those – an inmate’s killing of his cellmate – was anything other than medically related or a suicide.
On Saturday, March 28, 2015 at 1:30 p.m. Gilbert Mesa, 33 of Sugarloaf, arrived at the Big Bear Station at 477 Summit Blvd. in Big Bear Lake to provide a statement regarding an assault with a deadly weapon investigation, in which he was named as the suspect. Following the interview, Mesa was arrested and booked into the Big Bear jail. According to the sheriff’s department, Mesa was the sole occupant of the cell. At 8:50 p.m. the jail deputy was conducting his observation logs when he saw Mesa hanging from the top of his bunk, with his shoelaces tied around his neck. Deputies quickly cut the shoelaces from his neck, called for medical aid and began CPR. Fire personnel responded and transported Mesa to Bear Valley Community Hospital. On Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 1:30 a.m. Mesa was transferred to Riverside Community Hospital.
On Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at 9:19 p.m. Mesa was pronounced dead. The Riverside County Coroner conducted an autopsy on Wednesday, April 1, 2015. The cause of death was determined to be anoxic encephalopathy due to hanging.
Sheriff’s homicide investigators sergeant John Gaffney and detective Eddie Bachman concluded Mesa committed suicide.
On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 deputy Gary Brandt, deputy Shannon Deasey, deputy Peter Gentry and sergeant Mike Rude responded to a report at 1:17 a.m. of a man trying to damage an emergency fuel shutoff switch at a Valero gas station at 27767 Base Line in Highland.
When deputies arrived they found 28-year-old Joseph Slater, later identified as a homeless man who frequented the area to panhandle and was described by those in the area as often wandering the area yelling at imagined people or holding conversations with himself, “behaving oddly.” When deputies detained him, Slater became combative, deputies used pepper spray on him and when he forced his way out of the patrol car, the deputies tackled him. According to the sheriff’s department “force was used to overcome his resistance.” After Slater evinced, according to the department, “symptoms of having a medical emergency,” paramedics were summoned. He was transported to a hospital, where he later died.
On April 27, 2015, Jeremiah Ajani Bell, 22 of Rialto, who had been arrested for attempted murder, was booked at West Valley Detention and placed into a cell with Rashad Paul Davis, 19 of Ontario, who had been arrested for robbery and had been in custody at West Valley since March 26, 2015. Not quite four weeks later, on Friday, May 22, 2015 at 10:02 a.m., West Valley Detention Center deputies found Davis unresponsive on the floor of the two-man cell he occupied with Bell. Davis received immediate medical attention and was transported to Kaiser Hospital in Fontana, where he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy on Davis was conducted on Tuesday, May 26, 2015, by the Riverside County Coroner’s Office. The cause of death was determined to be from blunt force injuries. Homicide detail detective Gary Hart and sergeant John Gaffney concluded that Jeremiah Ajani Bell was responsible for the death of Rashad Paul Davis.
On Saturday, September 12, 2015 at approximately 2:25 p.m. Karla Renae Jones, 23, a convicted arsonist awaiting a probation-violation hearing, was found by deputies at the West Valley Detention Center unresponsive in her single-person cell. According to the sheriff’s department “it appeared as though she had committed suicide. Jones was transported to a nearby hospital, where she was later pronounced deceased.” Jones had been in custody at West Valley Detention Center for approximately two weeks prior to the incident.
Detective Justin Long and sergeant Trevis Newport of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Detail reached the conclusion that she had committed suicide.
On Sunday, October 18, 2015, at approximately 1:34 p.m., deputies assigned to a housing unit at West Valley Detention Center found inmate Robert Lundberg, 50 of Adelanto, who was arrested four days previously and charged on October 16 with possession of a controlled substance for sale, on the floor of the housing unit just below the second tier. Medical staff from West Valley Detention Center and Rancho Cucamonga firefighters and personnel from American Medical Response also responded. Lundberg was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the sheriff’s department, “Lundberg was the only inmate assigned to his cell and was the only inmate out of his cell at the time of the incident.”
The Riverside County Coroner’s Office conducted an autopsy and determined Lundberg’s cause of death was severe head trauma.
Sheriff’s Department Specialized Investigations/Homicide Detail, detective Mark Goodwin and sergeant Jason Radeleff concluded Lundberg committed suicide.
On or about December 6, 2015, Salvador Munoz, 54, suffered a medical emergency while in custody at West Valley Detention Center. He was transported to Kaiser Hospital in Fontana for treatment, where he was pronounced dead. According to the sheriff’s department, his death was medically related.
The lion’s share of the deaths in San Bernardino County’s jails over the last 13 months occurred at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, which has a 3,291-inmate capacity and averages roughly 3,000 inmates per day. There were no fatalities at the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, which is operated by the sheriff’s department and which opened in early 2015 and since that time has housed on average 700 inmates daily. Nor were there any deaths at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore, which over the same period has housed an average of 1,020 inmates per day. Another relatively large scale prisoner holding facility run by the sheriff’s department is the Central Jail in San Bernardino, which is primarily used to house pre-sentenced county inmates and federal inmates, and averages a daily population of 930. No deaths occurred there in 2015 and one took place there in 2016. There thus appears to be a statistical anomaly attending the death rate at West Valley.
Through December 11, the sheriff’s department was experiencing one death every 34.51 days in 2016.
There have been three in-custody deaths at the 1,883-inmate California Institution for Women in Chino so far in 2016.
On April 14, 2016 Erika Rocha, 35, who had been imprisoned at the California Institution for Women in Chino and was scheduled for release in October, from a perch on the top of a toilet lunged forward, her head in a noose formed from a bed sheet tied to a heating vent. She was dead when she was discovered, and state prison investigators concluded Rocha committed suicide and died of asphyxia.
On June 1, Shaylene Graves, 27 of Fontana, was imprisoned at the California Institution for Women in Chino and was due to be released on July 13 when she was found hanging.
On November 10, Bong Sook Chavez, 56 of San Pedro, an inmate at the California Institution for Women in Chino was likewise found hanging with a sheet around her neck.
The investigation reports on the deaths of Graves and Chavez have not been released but the presumption is they committed suicide.
Officials at the Chino Institution For Men and the federal government’s detention facilities in San Bernardino County had not responded to requests for information relating to in-custody deaths in 2016 by press time.