Aug 292018
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This is from a confidential informant, known to me. The informant has an extensive knowledge of the correctional system in Riverside County. When inmates are not being released from jail sometimes within hours of arrest, this is what is happening…
Then ask yourself why Sheriff Stan Sniff deserves re-election. Fire him.
Here’s what I got on the Blythe incident.
It is believed the attack was the result of the Sergeant who was on duty. His name was Ramos. The inmates were pissed because Ramos was by the book and didn’t let them get away with the little things. The inmates decided to hatch a plan for revenge. This is how it played out.
On the night of the attack, Inmate Louie Aguilar faked an illness to medical staff. As a result , he was sent to the hospital taking two deputies with him. This put the number of staff to about 6. Five deputies and the Sergeant. Once Aguilar was sent to the hospital the plan was set in motion. During a security check the inmates attacked the staff. The deputies working had minimal experience and that played into the inmates hands. Instead of doing visual checks due to limited staff they did what they were told by policy. This is where experience would have been beneficial.
Once the deputies completed the security check and turned around to walk out they were attacked. The first deputy was knocked unconscious and the others were attacked. The beating went on for awhile. There is audio and video surveillance from within the jail that shows what happened. It was released only to a select few. One of them being Captain Trevino who was the commander of the Blythe and Indio Jails. She was visibly and emotionally upset after watching the video. Sgt.Ramos was tased repeatedly by the inmates with a taser they acquired from the other staff members. The female was dragged into an open cell, where inmate Scott may or may not have attempted to sexually assault her. This part is unclear. The deputies fought back, but ultimately got a beating for their troubles. Sgt. Ramos received a fractured orbital socket as a result of the attack. I am uncertain what other injuries he or the others sustained.
The deputy at the hospital a deputy named Walton, he heard the commotion over the radio and raced back to the jail. He may be the one who requested allied agency assistance. He entered the jail alone and attempted to help the others. He drew his firearm and ordered the inmates to the ground. This is how the attack ended.
Like many others who have commented on this event there is limited information. The limited knowledge I have is due to working closely with the Admin from the Indio Jail. Who shares a Captain with Blythe. The interesting thing about this event was that all the staff involved received medals. They were also promoted or transferred on the next possible opportunity. Sounds like quid pro quo to me.
Here the information about the transportation escape. I’ve included a link to the story.
The escape occurred in 2009. The inmates were picked up at RPDC that morning. Among them was an inmate named Justin Kirk. His claim to fame was having a shoot out on the 10 freeway with several police agencies. Where 120 shots were fired. Miraculously he survived like the cockroach he is. Two vehicles arrived to pick up inmates with Indio Court dates. One was the standard white van and the other was a wheel chair van. Inmates were loaded up in both vehicles. During transportation the vehicles are supposed to stay together for safety and security purposes. On that fateful day the vehicles were separated. Unknown to the CD driving the van, Kirk and his homies had planned an escape. During previous court appearances, Kirk had been testing the security on the van. He discovered if he kicked the cage door it would open. Due to the fact that the van was old and loud, the noise wouldn’t be recognized. Kirk had a tactical advantage over the CD who was driving.
Kirk and the others slipped their waist chains off. Then Kirk when to the front of the bus and told the driver to keep driving or he would bust his head open with the chains and lock in his hands. Kirk took the drivers keys and gave them to the others to free themselves. When they were free they yanked the CD out of the drivers seat and handcuffed him and put him in the back of the van with the other inmates. During the commotion an observant citizen notices the bus has been hijacked. She speeds up to catch up with the other van and alerts the deputy driving about whats going on. By this time he has already exited the freeway headed toward the jail. He immediately turned around to go help ,and notified Central Control of the situation. He saw the van in the distance headed toward a residential area. by the time he arrived the inmates had escaped.
Kirk broke into a house in the neighborhood. The other three split up. They were apprehended by the Border Patrol who answered the call for assistance. There were probably 100 cops who responded. From Beaumont, Banning, CHP, Indio, Cathedral City, Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs, San Jacinto, and Border Patrol. Including their airplane. Border Patrol caught the three escapees who fled. Two were caught running down Dillon Road in their boxers. The other one was caught running down a wash toward Coachella. Kirk stayed holed up in that house for most of the day before he surrendered.
There was no debrief or training material disseminated to the troops about this matter either. The CD suffered an injury to his shoulder as a result of this escape. And to add insult to injury both the CD and the Deputy received discipline for this incident. The Department stated they failed to follow policy, despite the fact that there was a pattern and practice by the transportation unit to violate policy. The deputy involved in this story is the same deputy who shot the inmate in the next story.
Here’s information about the Indio Jail escape. I’ve included a link below. It occurred in 2010.
Here’s a link to a youtube video. You can see the rec yard behind her. Its the round birdcage looking thing on top of the jail.
Two Ad-seg inmates escaped from the recreation yard. Which is located on top of the jail. One of the inmates was named Robert Dunson and the other was named Nicolas Corletto. Dunson currently resides on Death Row at San Quentin for his crime.
Dunson had a documented history of planning escapes. Despite this information, Dunson was allowed to stay in an outdated facility. Dunson was in the recreation yard which had a basketball hoop and backboard for the inmates. Dunson used the basketball to strategically test the upper portion of fence behind the backboard. He would throw the ball to see if there were any weak points in the fence. He was busted by an observant deputy who saw what he was doing. Dunson lost his recreation privileges for several months as a result of his behavior. Fast forward several months and Dunson and Corletto were in the recreation yard. This time they had a deputy who was not so observant. Dunson gave Corletto a boost up to the backboard, Corletto reached down and pulled Dunson up with him.. They both proceeded to kick the fence behind the backboard. After several attempts to get the fence opened they were successful. Meanwhile the deputies down in the jail hear banging and scramble to see where its coming from. After determining it must be coming from recreation, they here the unobservant deputy call out an escape in progress. It was stated to staff, by his wife he was texting her on his cell phone. Sworn staff exit the facility and arm themselves, before heading to the roof. Dunson was running toward the low point of the roof when he was ordered to stop. He refused to stop and was shot once in the back. Ending his escape attempt. Deputies detained Corletto after he was pepper balled and tased off the roof. One of the deputies who was working that night said, they heard a car speed off from the direction where Dunson was running to. No one was apprehended for assisting in the escape. This is the only time where an officer involved shooting occurred by a Deputy assigned to corrections. No one received a medal or acknowledgment for their actions. It was never debriefed or used for training purposes. The recreation yard was fortified shortly after the escape.
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So many times have personnel from the Riverside Sheriff’s Department been involved in major incidents. From shootings to assaults, to unethical or immoral behavior. These incidents are “sometimes” investigated while others go away quietly. What has the Department learned from all of these events ? That’s right, nothing ! Why, because the administration does not want any of these incidents to be known. Have we not learned anything from school, “those who do not study the past, are doomed to repeat it” This is why we study history, to learn from it. The Riverside Sheriff’s Department is not helping their personnel to learn by keeping these things quiet. We are all human, and humans do make mistakes; however, let’s not make the same mistakes. Make these incidents a briefing item. Push out stratagies or options so we don’t make the same mistakes. The Executive floor is failing this department. Instead of internally debriefing these issues, they spend more time telling propaganda at briefings how the Department is strong and full of morale. Here is an idea, come up with some solutions to make it that way, don’t just tell us it is. Chad Bianco does, why not Stanley ?
In a progressive Department, these incidents would be debriefed, but not at “Riverside Country.” The Second Floor behaves more like banjo babies that educated professionals that they claim to be. They demand for the lower classes to admit to their shortcomings, real or imaginative, and accept the consequences as they deem fit. But when it comes to the command staff and their chosen favorites, they intentionally bend the rules for their own benefit. That’s why the staff member taken hostage on the bus was given discipline while the staff members in Blythe were given medals. A majority of the misfits on the second floor did nothing in their careers, but expect only the highest standards that they themselves never achieved. It’s no wonder the rank and file (along with Sergeants and Lt.’s) have no respect for the executive staff.
The problem is the executive staff adheres to the “silence is golden” rule because they believe that protecting the image of the Department is more important that protecting their employees, hence the secrecy. They would rather keep things quiet and allow staff members to get hurt than to expose the Department’s inadequacies.
A Department is progressive when they promote innovative personnel to positions of authority, but not at RSO, the second floor promotes only the “Kool Kids” that have no business in a command position. So, what has Jerry Gutierrez done to correct these deficiencies, not a damn thing.
The executive staff believes in the draconian form of solving problems by disciplining staff members instead of coming up with new ideas. Training is a form of positive discipline, but that is a foreign concept to the village idiots on Lemon Street that are more concerned with occupying space on the second floor than coming up with new ideas that benefit the Department.
Stan Sniff and his bourgeois mercenaries has their chance, and failed miserably. It’s time for new leadership. And truth be told, maybe it was a good thing that Stan Sniff never deployed as a company commander in the Army because if he did, how many of our brave men and women would have paid dearly for his incompetence as a leader in a combat theater.
The deputy from the Blythe incident that responded from the hospital was not Walton. Walton was a patrol deputy at the time. Yes he did hear what was going on in the jail and responded to help and did draw his gun. The deputy that came from the hospital was actually a CD. The deputy had to stay at the hospital because the inmate at the hospital still needed to be guarded. The female CD that was involved unfortunately had been riding this major mess up and has recently been promoted. In the end the problem was more than experience. With the Los staff numbers at Blythe they never should have been going in housing units to do the checks. That was a failure on second floor.
As far as the Bus take over and the CD that was handcuffed. Multiple department members had mentioned to admin about the inmates not being truly secured and how the cages in the bus were missing parts and could be taken down. Admin did not fix the issue. That CD is lucky to be alive. After the incident the department did discipline the CD for the most ridiculous reason possible and obviously did not admit fault for the cages being poorly constructed. The CD remained loyal to the department and did not try and go after the department for something he should have. In return the department made a horrible accusation about him and as a result has turned what was once an outstanding department member into now an unhappy department member for what they did to him. Meanwhile other completely useless and inexperienced CD’s have been promoted past this man even though his knowledge and experience is obviously greater.
Sorry for the long comment just wanted to clear some stuff up from what I have learned during my several years at the department.
The largest failure in leadership in this department is the lack of sharing information. Go see how LASD deals with critical incidents… there is a detailed briefing about each and every incident that is then used….wait for it…. for TRAINING. To make deputies BETTER.
They don’t hide behind “its a PERS, don’t talk about it” when things go wrong (or even right.)
Hopefully the new Sheriff figures this out.
Justin Kirk was involved in the I-10 shooting with GTF. He tried to kill cops and yet was allowed to be transported across county by an unarmed CD. Think about that and ask yourself is RSO being run like a modern law enforcement agency in one of the most heavily populated areas of the United States or is it being ran like some backwoods Hazzard County Sheriffs Department and Boss Hawg is Stan Sniff. Btw for those wondering, the Indio escape happened. I was assigned to Thermal at the time and was there. COMPLETE CLUSTERFUCK.
There have been other incidents as well that the Department has kept under wraps. Years ago the bomb squad was on a call-out and disposing of what I believe to be hazardous materials, but during the process the substances came into contact and exploded and several staff members got injured. LASO bomb squad wanted to do a write up and training on the incident for officer safety purposes, but of course the second floor said no. So protecting the Department’s image is more important that saving the lives of deputies. We can only hope that everyone on the second floor gets thrown out on their ear, including egg plant. My desert brother is right, Stan Sniff and his command staff act more like BANJO BABIES than professional executives.
@Four Corners – Bob Epps in action.
RSO execs do the entire law enforcement/corrections profession a disservice by not disseminating these epic mistakes so that they are not made again.
The “cone of silence” Sniffcompoop and his Clowns hide under will soon be lifted. The truth ALWAYS comes out, as evident by the comments above.
VOTE FOR BIANCO – 2018!!