The violence in the Men’s Central Jail does not stop. In disturbing images obtained by the Los Angeles Times. A group of at least 11 prisoners can be seen heading towards a table where the individual who would be the target of a ruthless attack was on June 8, 2019.
The video, in the opinion of criminal lawyer Humberto Guízar, “was surely produced by someone who wants to publicly denounce the violence, violation of human rights and corruption of bailiffs inside the prison that we have denounced for more than 20 years.”
In the video of what happened in the recreation room, the movement of several inmates can be seen, who surround the victim, and after removing him from his seat, the inmate is dragged several meters; they unleash the fury of their fists and kicks on the defenseless man, who lies on the floor and blood flows from the neck.
After a minute, the beating stops. The victim staggers to his feet and bleeds profusely.
“It was someone who wants what happened to be known publicly,” declared the lawyer Guízar, who is leading the case of the murder of Anthony Vargas, in June 2018.
Guízar, knowledgeable about violence in prisons, also has a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the alleged attempted kidnapping of one of his clients, by Sheriff Christopher Hernández, who was involved in the murder of Andrés Guardado, in June 2020.
During the attack on the prisoner, the attackers retreat to the wall and observe the victim. Blood runs down his back and some of the attackers return to their tasks inside the prison.
For 10 minutes the man who was beaten is dedicated to cleaning up his own blood. He cannot be seen in the video, but someone provided him with a clean LA County Jail XXX gown.
In the distance the man is watched by his attackers. And, when it seems that he has finished erasing the bloody traces, two burly men pounce on him again. They are joined by at least eight others.
14 minutes after the beating, two bailiffs appear, who, with stun guns in hand, apparently order the inmates to lie face down on the floor. They are joined by a third inmate custodian.
“Outdated model of incarceration”
Aware of the loss of the USB memory, the beating of the inmate, the lack of supervision, and the failed attempts to permanently close the Central Men’s Prison, supervisor Kathryn Barger told La Opinión that she takes her constitutional duty “very seriously.” “to house and treat inmates safely.”
“Our Board has taken a reformist approach to our justice system, but we must face the harsh reality that not all [los reos] will qualify for diversion to community programs,” he added. “Closing Central Men’s Jail without a replacement plan is a mistake and a direction I have always opposed.”
The official considered, in addition to the violence and fights, that the conditions in the Inmate Reception Center are the direct result of that political leadership and the vacuum it has created.
In September 2022, Barger filed a motion to explore models for a non-custodial mental health treatment center, but it was not approved.
“My position has been and continues to be that we must invest in a long-term, permanent solution to replace Men’s Central Jail,” he said. “Our incarceration model is outdated and must be replaced with a state-of-the-art facility staffed with quality professionals who can provide vital mental health and substance abuse treatment.”
He considered that this is the direction that would take the Board of Supervisors to a more humane environment for everyone, but mainly for those who cannot be directed to certain types of mental health care programs, in the criminal justice system.
‘Videos for training’
“When the videos are downloaded [desde las cámaras de seguridad en el interior de la cárcel], we use them for training most of the new officers who work in the jail,” Miguel Meza, spokesman for Sheriff Robert Luna, told La Opinión. “They occupy [necesitan] watch the videos because if we make a mistake, next time we have to respond faster and correct the mistakes.”
Meza declared that the videos are analyzed to find out who started a fight, how it started, who is involved and those responsible for committing acts of violence.
The informant speculated that the USB flash drive probably fell out of an officer’s pants, “perhaps when he wanted to take a coin out of his pocket.”
In a statement, Meza said that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against “the two suspects involved [en la pelea]. The victim sustained injuries that were not life-threatening and he was treated at a hospital where he recovered.”
“The rec room is monitored at regular intervals by jail staff. That assault occurred during one of those time windows. The investigation found no reason to discipline the staff, since the procedures we followed were in force at the time,” added Meza.
However, after seeing the video, he no longer responded to several calls from La Opinión to explain how the device containing the videos ended up in the hands of an inmate who cleans the jail, who was able to keep the USB for some time and then smuggle it out, if any officers made any reports of missing information.
‘Inhuman conditions’
After learning of the new revelations of violence in the Men’s Central Prison, supervisor Hilda Solís told La Opinión that she is “very committed” to the closure of said facilities, a process that began in 2019 when she led efforts to cancel the contract. billionaire to replace the dilapidated building that was built in 1963.
“Los Angeles County is subject to numerous federal consent decrees and settlement agreements, including those related to the treatment of incarcerated individuals with mental health and [que padecen] severe overcrowding in Los Angeles jails, including the Men’s Central Jail,” Solis said.
Running such prisons, he added, “is expensive and becomes more challenging as the mental health crisis grows and the conditions, which, as we have known for a long time, remain horrifying and inhumane.”
The representative of District 1 of the Board of Supervisors considered that closing the Men’s Central Jail “means restoring the dignity of our communities and loved ones who are incarcerated; people do not heal and cannot properly heal their ailments while locked up in a decrepit cell.”
Solis recently proposed a motion for the county to build a 500-bed facility so that incarcerated people with mental health issues can be placed in an environment where they are given care and a chance to recover, instead of languishing in jail.
‘They set a trap’
Luis Vargas, who was unjustly imprisoned for more than 16 years until he was acquitted of criminal charges in 2015, analyzed the video of the beating of the inmate at the Men’s Central Jail and said the attack was so sad and graphic, “but it’s exactly what happens behind bars.
“Those who dictate the rules in jails and prisons are the convicts, not the bailiffs,” Luis told La Opinión. “It is clear that they gave the victim a four, that everything was planned; that’s why they were late [los custodios] almost 15 minutes to respond… This is the sheriff system”.
Vargas’ experience was similar to that of the person assaulted by multiple inmates.
Towards the end of 1997, he was being held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles.
“I didn’t know that there were problems and tension between the Sureños gang and the Afro-Americans, but one day they put me and another comrade in a unit where there were only Afro-American gang members,” he narrated. “That’s what the sheriffs call ‘job security’ (job security), because the more problems they create, the more work they have and the more money they earn.”
Vargas, who is now an evangelical preacher, said that prison custodians and guards “unfortunately allow them to deliberately kill each other.”
He analyzed that the video revealed by the Los Angeles Times shows that it is too much of a coincidence that the boy is attacked by everyone, because it is likely that he has been imprisoned for some “prohibited” crime among the inmates: having been convicted of domestic violence, sexual abuse or It’s about a pedophile.
“These crimes are not accepted in jails or prisons; that’s why it took officers so long to respond to the violence,” he said. “It is quite a coincidence that the entire bedroom has gone down on him, that they have had time to continue exercising and wait for the victim to clean up his blood.”
Luis Vargas analyzed that, given the fact that the assaulted man himself had cleaned his own blood, it is a sign that he was sending a message to his attackers: “I am not going to say anything; let the matter die here…, okay, they already beat me, leave it at that, I’m not a rat [soplón]”.
This former inmate agreed with the criminal lawyer Humberto Guízar, in the sense that although he was an inmate of the Men’s Prison, whoever found the USB memory in the trash and kept it for some time to reveal it to the press sends the message that “There is someone who wants to expose the corruption that is in the county with the sheriffs and the savagery that they allow when someone is attacked in jail.”
“What I saw on the video is not just that they wanted to ‘regulate’ the victim, but that they wanted to kill him,” Vargas said. “Also, I remember that once, the guard of a control tower made the signal of a violin to some Southern gang members about a new prisoner; That sign was that the boy was a rapist, which was not true, because the gang members had access to his criminal report and did not fall into the trap… What the guard wanted was to beat that boy up, as seen here [en la Cárcel Central de Hombres]”.
‘We have said it for aNoyes
Humberto Guízar, a criminal lawyer who has filed numerous lawsuits against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the past 36 years, tells La Opinión that he is not surprised by the violence at the Men’s Central Jail.
“I am not surprised either that the bailiffs hit the head of an inmate against the wall, but that a woman gives birth to her child in the middle of a hallway and it falls to the ground, that shows that there must be changes very soon in prisons” Guizar said.
Indeed, in a video published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a bailiff is observed hitting the head of a handcuffed inmate against a cement wall, when leaving his cell.
The images last just 15 seconds and in them it is visible that the unidentified inmate has a deep and open wound on his head.
“The videos of violence in the men’s prison prove a lot of what we have denounced for the last 20 years and what the prisoners tell us,” said Guízar. “There is a large amount of abuse and the sheriffs do nothing when there is brutality and allow that they abuse vulnerable inmates and beat them.”
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The lawyer pointed out that, despite the fact that the prisoners call and cry out to their relatives for help when they feel threatened and are in danger, there is no one to help them.
“That’s why many leave jail dead,” he said.
Until now, The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD) has reported 25 deaths of inmates in its custody. The months with the highest mortality are May and June, with seven deaths in each of those months.
Two of the deaths were reported as suicides and one as an accident. In all other cases a final autopsy report is pending. 10 of the deaths were Hispanic men and 7 were African-American.
“In many of the deaths there is no explanation as to why they died, even though we all know that drug use in jail is incredibly effective and people are dying, even though we know it is the duty of bailiffs to protect those in jail. prisons,” said the lawyer.
Guízar assured La Opinión that, based on the cases of lawsuits that he has filed against the LASD, he can assure that the bailiffs “are allowed to transport drugs and are paid to do so, and they have even smuggled knives.”
He added that even friends of his who were incarcerated have said that those who control drug trafficking inside the prison are the convicted gang members.
Indeed, in November 2021, Jose Flores, a custody deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was charged with attempting to bring drugs into the Men’s Central Jail.
Investigators found more than 100 grams of methamphetamine inside Flores’ car. And, even though the discovery was made three years earlier inside the jail parking lot.
But it wasn’t until 2021 that charges were filed against the 43-year-old former sheriff, who pleaded no contest for attempting to smuggle an illegal substance into a jail.
In August 2022, he was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and two years of probation.
“The prisoners themselves tell me that those in charge of the prison only turn the key to the door, but they do not control what enters,” said the lawyer Guízar. “Those who control the jail are the gang members and they pay for that ‘work.’”
The Jeremy Fogleman Case
Guízar’s law firm obtained a $700,000 settlement with Los Angeles County for the case of his client Jeremy Fogleman, who he said was sexually assaulted inside the Men’s Central Jail and suffered a fractured pelvis by a kick given to him by the bailiff Jonathan Hernández.
“Jeremy, who is white, was sent to a cell where there were dangerous African-American gang members; there they sexually abused him and the sheriff Hernández, from whom we discovered that he was part of the 3000 Boys gang and then the Executioners almost killed him with a kick, ”revealed Guízar. “Some of those bailiff gang members had already been fired, but [el exalguacil Alex] Villanueva rehired them.”
Therefore, he indicated that the Board of Supervisors should press to end the violence and gangs of officers that exist in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and demand that there be changes “to clean up” the LASD and that they make visits not announced to the prisons, to verify the reality that is lived inside the penitentiaries.