By Nate Gartrell
Bay Area News Group
SAN QUENTIN, Calif. — As the state prison system was preparing to hold a procession for a parole officer who was killed last week, a corrections officer’s throat was slashed here in an alleged attempted murder.
The officer suffered a cut on his throat while attempting to stop one prisoner at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center from attacking another, authorities said. He was hospitalized but survived, according to prison officials.
The incident occurred around 11 a.m. on July 18, as law enforcement agencies were preparing to transport the body of slain state parole Officer Joshua Byrd, a former corrections officer, from Oakland to Sacramento.
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Multiple people incarcerated at the Marin County prison have said that officials were in the processing of locking everyone down — securing them in their cells for a set period of time — during the time of the attack.
The entire facility has remained on lockdown since then, as officials claim they found information indicating an active threat to staff, a law enforcement source and multiple people incarcerated there told this news organization.
Byrd was shot and killed on July 17, allegedly by Bryan Keith Hall, a 48-year-old parolee. Hall allegedly killed Byrd after showing up a day late to an appointment with another parole agent in East Oakland and was seen running from the area holding a gun, before allegedly committing a robbery on an AC Transit bus.
Hall was arrested about four miles from the shooting scene, near 90th Avenue and International Boulevard, according to Oakland police. Authorities later found a gun with the orange vest in a dumpster near where a doorbell camera had spotted him running down the street, court records show.
At around 1:15 p.m. the following day, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation began a procession whereby Byrd’s body was transported to his native Sacramento. Numerous prison staffers from throughout Northern California participated or watched along the way to show support for Byrd, who became a parole agent last October after working for a decade as a correctional officer at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
A few hours earlier, one incarcerated man pulled a weapon and attacked another prisoner. A corrections officer intervened, pulling his baton and striking the attacker, but dropped his baton in the process. His throat was slashed as he attempted to retrieve the baton, authorities said.
The suspect, who is being investigated on suspicion of attempted murder, was placed in administrative segregation, authorities said. Two people inside the prison say a series of cell searches and an indefinite lockdown followed.
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