By Paige St. John
Los Angeles Times
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — An inmate at a Northern California prison was shot and killed by corrections officers Sunday during a riot involving about 45 inmates, state officials said Wednesday.
Jonathan Velarde, 23, was killed during the fourth major state prison melee in less than a week. Four days earlier, a riot broke out at a prison near Sacramento after the slaying of a notorious inmate, Hugo Pinell, who had been tied to past prison violence. Two smaller riots occured in other prisons on Monday. Corrections officials said they believe the events were unrelated.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued a press release Wednesday announcing Velarde’s death three days earlier. According to the statement, he was shot by an officer in the act of “attacking another [prisoner] with a weapon” in the dining hall of the California Correctional Center in Susanville. The prison serves as a training base for inmates to fight wildfires.
At the time, the agency said, about 45 inmates in the medium-security unit were involved in the fight. Officers tried to stop the disturbance with pepper spray and at least four warning shots fired from rifles, the department said.
According to the Corrections Department, Velarde would have been nearing the end of a 2-year-8-month sentence for attempted robbery and possession of marijuana for sale in Los Angeles County. His death is under investigation by the state agency and will be referred to the Lassen County district attorney’s office if criminal charges are merited.
On Aug. 12, inmates rioted at California State Prison-Sacramento, adjacent to Folsom, and hours later, at another prison in Monterey County. In the Sacramento riot, prison officers fired warning shots from rifles but did not strike any inmates.
Two inmates were believed to have been involved in the lethal attack on Pinell, 71, whose multiple life terms included one for his part in the bloody attack on guards and white inmates at San Quentin State Prison in 1971 alongside prison militant George Jackson. After the Aug. 12 riot, five prisoners were hospitalized, including one with life-threatening injuries. Corrections spokeswoman Dana Simas said Thursday that the seriously hurt inmate, who is 29, is expected to live.
Riots also have occurred at the Salinas Valley State Prison, on Aug. 12; Deuel Vocational Center on Saturday; and at the California Institute for Men and at the Sierra Conservation Center on Monday. Seven inmates sustained injuries in the Salinas Valley melee but there were no serious injuries reported in the other outbreaks, Simas said. Both she and deparment spokesman Jeffrey Callison said they believed the incidents were unrelated.