Serious questions attend the manner in which the sheriff’s department allowed two extremely sociopathic and violent prisoners to share a single cell at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga earlier this week, resulting in the violent death of one of them.
There is a suggestion that the men’s jailers may have subjected the older of the two prisoners – 38-year-old Zacarias Joseph Ruiz – to the presence of the younger – Isaiah Mark Bailon, 26 – as a form of extrajudicial gratuitous summary punishment because of the repulsive nature of some of the older man’s crimes.
As a consequence of his most recent go-round with the law, Ruiz, whose last known actual residence was listed as being in San Bernardino, had until his death on January 20 been incarcerated since May 5, 2025 after having been arrested that day at 11201 Benton Street in Loma Linda for being in unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, trespassing on railroad property and refusing to leave property on which he was trespassing. He had pleaded not guilty to those charges but was also facing charges relating to domestic violence and issuing criminal threats charges from 2024 that he had failed to appear on. He remained in custody the entire time since May, and was listed as ineligible for bail while awaiting a mental health hearing.
Ruiz had a substantial number of criminal charges lodged against him going back more than two decades.
Since 2005, he had been charged with seven misdemeanors, which resulted in four convictions, including carrying a knife, vandalism, disturbing the peace and battery on a spouse. He was repeatedly – at least three times previous to his arrest in May of 2025 arrested and charged with trespassing but not convicted.
Ruiz was also convicted of three felonies, extending to two sexually-related offenses – unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in which the perpetrator was over the age of 21 and the victim was under the age of 16, in 2011 and lewd or lascivious acts with a child aged 14 or 15, in 2016 – as well as assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, for which he was charged in 2015 and convicted in 2016.
In September 2024 Ruiz was charged with two felonies: criminal threats to inflict injury which would result in death or great bodily injury and the infliction of corporal injury on a spouse or cohabitant compounded by a felony enhancement of the use of a deadly weapon in rendering that injury. At his arraignment on May 8, 2025, two days following his May 6 arrest, he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
The Sentinel was able to assemble an unverified life history for Bailon. Born on December 29, 1999, his schoolteacher mother and mechanic father were killed in an auto accident when he was three years old. He lived until he was 8 years old with an aunt and uncle who were reported to have neglected abused him, whereafter San Bernardino County’s child protective services and foster agencies intervened, and he was moved from one foster home to another, and did not develop any nurturing relationships or get adequate education until he was adopted as a teenager by Michael and Dorothy Bailon. Despite his adoptive parents best efforts, Isaiah Mark Bailon demonstrated a propensity for criminality and violence in his teen years, and was convicted of felonies in juvenile court, the number of which are not publicly available because of the confidentiality of juvenile criminal records.
On December 7, 2018 at 5:10 a.m., having not quite eclipsed the age of 19, Bailon used a gun to carjack a vehicle as his victim was pumping gasoline at the 7-11 at 14519 Main Street in Hesperia. He demanding the car owner surrender to him his wallet and keys.
A report of the robbery and description of the car was transmitted over the sheriff’s department dispatch system. Deputies with the sheriff’s department, which serves as the contract law enforcement agency for Hesperia, Apple Valley, Victorville and Adelanto were on the lookout for the vehicle, which was spotted near a residence in the area of Mondamon Road south of State Highway 18 in Apple Valley. When the deputies sought to make contact with the driver, whom they recognized at once as Bailon due to prior law enforcement contacts with him and his distinctive tattoos, Bailon attempted to flee. As he made a desperate and reckless high speed dash to get away, Bailon pointed his gun at the pursuing deputies, according to the sheriff’s department. After driving on the wrong side of Highway 18 and running both stop signs and traffic lights, Bailon ran into objects along the way, losing the car’s front passenger wheel, but continued to try to get away, at one point driving through the front yard of a residence. After three attempts by deputies in their vehicles to utilize pursuit intervention technique in an effort to force the car Bailon was in off the road, Bailon was maneuvered into a chain link fence in Victorville. The car was immobilized and Bailon was caught in the car, with the passenger side door pinned closed by the fence. He was taken into custody and arrested and later prosecuted for carjacking, felony reckless evasion and assault with a deadly weapon.
Prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Michael Abercherli and represented by Deputy Public Defender Jason Tucker, Bailon appearing before Judge Lisa Rogan in March 2019 agreed to a plea deal in which he agreed not to contest two felony counts of evading a peace officer with wanton disregard for public safety and acknowledged having been convicted as a minor of previous felonies. The car jacking charge and brandishing a firearm charge were dismissed as part of the plea arrangement. Judge Rogan sentenced him to six years in prison.
Bailon served more than five of his six year prison sentence.
Upon his release, Bailon showed hostility toward his foster father, Michael Bailon, which resulted in the filing, on March 3, 2025, of a legal action by Michael Bailon, Michael Bailon -v- Isaiah Bailon, in which the elder Bailon sought a restraining order against his foster son.
Isaiah Bailon’s physical abuse of his foster parents and other activity resulted in the district attorney’s office filing a petition for the revocation of his probation on May 1, 2025, a hearing for which was held on that same day, duing which probable cause was found for revoking his community supervision status.
Bailon was taken into sheriff’s custody but was subsequently released. He was residing in Barstow and later relocated to Victorville.
According to the sheriff’s department, Bailon’s propensity for violence manifest once more late last year.
“On December 31, 2025, at 10:23 am, deputies from the Hesperia Police Department responded to 15689 Bear Valley Road, in Hesperia, for reports of an unknown problem,” the department stated in a press release. “The suspect, later identified as Isaiah Bailon, entered the business and demanded the victim’s personal belongings. The suspect physically assaulted both victims until they handed over their car keys and cell phone. Bailon attempted to leave in one of the victim’s vehicle but was unsuccessful. Bailon then went back inside the business and continued to physically assault the victims with a glass vase. Both victims were transported to a local hospital for treatment.”
According to the sheriff’s department, “Shortly after the incident, Deputy Mark Ballinger apprehended Bailon near the business. Bailon was arrested and booked at High Desert Detention Center.”
On January 6, Bailon appeared in the Department V-10 in the Victorville Courthouse before Judge Elizabeth Ulsh to be arraigned on two counts of robbery, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, two counts of burglary and one count of carjacking. Bailon was not cooperative and Judge Ulsh entered not guilty pleas to all seven counts on his behalf.
On January 14, Bailon was brought before Judge Miriam Morton. He requested that he be permitted to represent himself. Judge Morton, stating she did not believe he was sufficiently competent to serve as his own attorney and expressed doubt as to his mental competency overall and ability to assist his appointed council in his own defense. She suspended further criminal proceeding against him and called for his evaluation by two psychiatrists before the case against him could be resumed.
Subsequently, Bailon was transferred to the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where Ruiz was also housed.
At West Valley, jailers made a decision to move Bailon out of a large dormitory setting with 12 to 15 inmates to a smaller single cell with two bunks. They placed the five foot-2inch 145 pound Bailon into a cell with the five foot-three inch 135 pound Ruiz, who had been incarcerated consistently since May.
Bailon and Ruiz were in the cell together on January 19. According to reports, the last time Ruiz was positively seen alive by staff was around 9:35 p.m. According to the sheriff’s department’s policy lockdown occurs between 9:50 and 9:55 for counts to take place and lights are dimmed around 10:00 p.m. for the night. PM for the night.
It is reported that at 11:12 p.m., deputies found Ruiz “unconscious with obvious trauma,” according to the sheriff’ department.
Both deputies and jail medical staff applied lifesaving efforts, whereafter Ruiz was transported to a nearby hospital. He was pronounced dead the on January 20.
Detectives with the sheriff’s specialized investigations division’s homicide detail were dispatched to the jail. They determined found that Ruiz had been in a physical altercation with the 12-year-younger Bailon. It is not known how long Ruiz was unconscious before he was found unresponsive. It is believed but not confirmed that he sustained trauma at various portions of his torso and head by being slammed into the concrete floor, perhaps as many as eight times after he was unconscious.
An autopsy will determine the official cause and manner of death.
Bailon has since been supplementally booked for murder.
There are multiple issues to be explored in the yet unfolding investigation into Ruiz’s death.
At issue is why Ruiz and Bailon, both of whom were known to be volatile and violent, were housed together and unsupervised for hours.
According to staff, the department has standards and regulations at West valley and its other jails which, while well-intentioned, are unrealistic in that they do not match the reality of the facility.
Jailers are supposed to make face-to-face contact with each inmate once per hour, but doing so at night while they are asleep between 10 p.m. lights out and 5:45 a.m. wake-up, would interrupt the inmates’ sleeping and sleep patterns.
West Valley, with a bed capacity of 3,347, is overseen by Captain Michael Martinez.
California requires law enforcement agencies to report all deaths in custody under California Government Code § 12525.
-Mark Gutglueck