Facing seven homicides in the first nine weeks of the year, California prison authorities announced they have restricted prisoner movements and revoked privileges such as access and telephone access to high-security facilities across the state.
In a statement on March 8, officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation cited a “surge” of violence against inmates and employees, the reason for the crackdown in 11 prisons.
CDCR officials declined the New York Times’ request for an interview. Terri Hardy, a spokesman for the department, said authorities are conducting a “full investigation” into the cause of violence.
At the current pace, there will be a total of 24 homicides in state prisons in 2025.
Authorities did not say access, phone use and other privileges are limited to the time limit for the California Correctional Institution, California Correctional Institution, Caliprai State Prison, California Prison, Los Angeles Prison, Meller River State Prison, Bailica Bay State Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison, California Prison.
The day before the department announced the “revision plan”, three inmates were killed in three different prison attacks.
Authorities said in a statement that the first homicide was discovered at 6:13 a.m. on March 7, when the Guard found Jake Kennedy dead in a cell shared by Sacramento in the California prison.
According to officials, two weeks ago, Kennedy and Yates allegedly stabbed Jonathan Rude, a car thief convicted in Butte County.
If convicted of killing Kennedy and rudeness, Yates will be convicted of killing three-person prison. The 30-year-old, who was sentenced to eight years in jail for burglary and assault in 2017, was sentenced to driverless charges in 2022 for murdering Nathan Marcus of California prison in Sacramento.
The lockdown in Sacramento has become one of the state’s most violent prisons, recording four homicides in 2024 and four this year. On March 5, some armed swords broke out in close combat between 40 prisoners, officials said. Five inmates were hospitalized for unlimited injuries.
About an hour after Kennedy’s body was found, Terrance Shaw killed Joshua Peppers of the California Prison in Lancaster, Los Angeles County, Lancaster, about an hour after the discovery of Kennedy’s body.
Chili, 39, was imprisoned for robbery. Shaw, 42, was sentenced to 14 years in 2023 for assault, assault and possession of prisoners’ weapons in Monterey County.
The third prisoner, Derman Merino, was killed at 5:47 pm in Kern Valley State Prison in Delano. CDCR officials identified Merino’s killers as Gilbert Garcia and Rodolfo Cortez. Garcia, 43, served the attack for 11 years. Cortez, 33, has been in the mid-term of his 24-year term of robbery, hijacking and assaulting police officers.
According to the appeal verdict, a member of the SDK gang is short for “Surenos Do Kill”, Merino, 37, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a man in Los Angeles in 2009.
Recent homicides continue to have a lasting problem in the California prison system: prisoners who have obeyed their lives—the prisoners who have not suffered more time and lost seem to kill the murder without punishment.
Mario Campbell, 36, was imprisoned for sexual assault, gun attacks, burglary, robbery, false imprisonment and intimidation of witnesses when he was killed in a California prison in Sacramento on January 15.
CDCR officials said in a statement that his alleged killers, Cody Taylor and David Gomez, were sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering prisoners.
Taylor stabbed a defensive prisoner to death, who was handcuffed and put on a chair in 2019, according to KQED radio.
According to CDCR officials, Gomez was a convicted rapist who received a second life murder charge in 2015. He strangled, beat and cut his roommate, and later told psychologists that killing was a “free gift” because he was already serving his life, according to Monterey County Weekly.
