By Darrell Smith
Merced Sun-Star (Merced, Calif.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Twenty-one California prisons — including two facilities near Folsom — are immediately suspending inmate visitations following spikes in drug overdoses and violent attacks on prisoners and officers, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials announced Thursday.
All men’s Level III and Level IV correctional facilities are on the CDCR’s “modified program” halting the visits, including six facilities within an hour’s drive of the state capital: Folsom State Prison; California State Prison, Sacramento (New Folsom); California Medical Facility in Vacaville; California State Prison; Solano in Vacaville; Mule Creek State Prison in Ione; and California Health Care Facility in Stockton.
State corrections officials in a statement said Thursday’s action is owed to a “recent and concerning rise in violent incidents directed towards both staff and incarcerated individuals.” The officials added that the decision follows an “increase in overdose cases and findings of contraband.”
Several inmates have died or been killed in California prisons in recent weeks, according to CDCR and previous Bee reporting.
CDCR officials are investigating the death of an inmate Tuesday at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, Lassen County. Officials said Joseph W. Reagan was fatally attacked in a prison day room. Inmate Bryan S. Cook, 49, is suspected of the killing. Responding officers found an “inmate-manufactured weapon” at the scene, the CDCR said.
An inmate at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano was killed during a June 6 attack that triggered a brawl with more than 30 other inmates who reportedly tried to stop the assailant, said CDCR officials. Kern Valley corrections officers resorted to blast grenades to quash the melee before finding Julian Mendez, 46, dead. Inmate Mario Renteria, 36, is suspected in Mendez’s death, said CDCR officials.
Three days later, on Monday, a correctional officer at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, in Lancaster, was attacked by an inmate in what officials are calling an attempted homicide. The officer received multiple puncture wounds to the back of his head and an improvised weapon found at the scene, said CDCR officials.
Inmate Cosmin Badiu, 28, faces an allegation of attempted homicide in the attack.
Officials at CDCR also continue to investigate the strangulation deaths of two women killed months apart while visiting their incarcerated partners at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione and are considering policy changes regarding the visits. Stephanie Diane Dowells was 62 when her body was found during a visit to the prison last November.
Husband David Brinson, 54, is serving a life sentence for the 1990 shooting deaths of a bar owner and three others in Los Angeles County, according to news reports.
Tania Thomas, 47, was strangled to death in July 2024 during a multi-day conjugal visit with husband Anthony Desean Curry. In April, Curry, 48, pleaded not guilty in Amador Superior Court to murdering Thomas and his case continues to move through the courts
Authorities said Thomas and Brinson’s deaths came during conjugal visits with their husbands at the Amador County -based prison. Dubbed “family visits” by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation , the stays are private and held in apartment-like facilities on prison grounds and are 30 to 40 hours in duration, said CDCR officials.
State corrections officials said the halt to visits continues while a “thorough investigation” into recent incidents is underway. Visits will resume once the investigation ends. No timetable was given.
Access to phones are also suspended, though inmates will continue to have access to medical care and legal appointments, officials said.
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