By Brian Rokos
The Press-Enterprise
RIVERIDE COUNTY, Calif. — The Riverside County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, July 29, signed off on a response to a county grand jury report that concluded that mistakes and shortcomings in the sheriff’s booking system contributed to the slaying of an inmate by another at the Banning jail in 2024.
In the response, written by Undersheriff Donald Sharp, the Sheriff’s Department rejected some of the findings and said it had already made some recommended changes.
The department also notably agreed with the grand jury’s assertion in its May 5 report that “There is no continuous improvement process in place within the department to track and correct these types of mistakes to help prevent them from being made in the future.”
Sharp wrote that the department addressed that in mid-May by creating an electronic database to record booking and processing errors and identify their causes.
Supervisors approved the response without discussion. There were no comments from the public, although scores of people later addressed Supervisor Jose Medina’s proposal to create a committee to explore establishing an oversight board for the Sheriff’s Department.
The civil grand jury is a group of citizens empaneled by a judge to study public agencies’ inner workings and suggest improvements. Unlike a criminal grand jury, it cannot indict people suspected of committing crimes.
The grand jury’s report came as Sheriff Chad Bianco continues to be closely scrutinized over the deaths of inmates who Bianco has mostly blamed for their demise. State Attorney General Rob Bonta is investigating the department’s practices — a probe that Bianco, now a declared candidate for governor, has described as a political stunt.
The grand jury’s investigation stemmed from the stabbing death of 36-year-old Steve Gonzalez of Moreno Valley at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility.
Scott Shelby Lowder, 55, had been booked into Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside under the fake name he provided. At the time, the Sheriff’s Department acknowledged in its response, there were delays in receiving reports from Livescan, the electronic fingerprint-identification service. The department also agreed with the grand jury finding that the business office at Presley failed to update the booking system with new information from Livescan.
As a result, jailers believed that Lowder was someone else who had a record of serving 30 days in jail for making criminal threats and brandishing a firearm. They classified him as a nonviolent, “medium” risk to other inmates. In fact, Lowder had a 35-year rap sheet of violent crimes that included more than 10 years in prison. He should have been classified as a higher-risk inmate, the grand jury wrote.
Lowder was then placed in a print shop with medium-risk inmates when he was transferred to the Banning jail. Then on Sept. 5, the Sheriff’s Department said, he killed Gonzalez. Lowder was immediately reclassified to “maximum” risk, the second-highest classification, the grand jury report said.
Lowder has pleaded not guilty to murder and three other charges. A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for Oct. 9, Superior Court records show.
The sheriff’s response disagreed with the grand jury’s contentions that a profiling tool was not used sufficiently, some training was done only on-the-job and not before, and that there was subjectivity in deciding in which inmate population to place a person.
Sharp wrote that the department revised its policy on housing classifications in March. Now, if the inmate cannot be positively identified, the staff will delay placement until the inmate is identified through Livescan. Also, Sharp said, the department in May changed vague wording such as “may,” “can,” and “such as” in several policies to clarify that an action was required.
Additionally, an Integrated Biometric Information System machine that assists with identifications that wasn’t working when Lowder was booked is now functioning.
The department has also acted on recommendations to provide clearer instructions on confirming Livescan reports, revise policies in the booking and business office and upgrade the jail management system, which Sharp said should be accomplished by 2027.
“With all respect to the findings,” Sharp wrote, “the Sheriff’s Office believes there was a single error which contributed to this incident, not the cumulative findings contained within the report.”
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