Failures by the Riverside County sheriff’s jail staff led to a detainee with a violent criminal history being allowed to work in a jail print shop, where he fatally stabbed another detainee with a screwdriver last year, a new Riverside County civil grand jury report found.
The report confirms the findings of a recent investigation by The New York Times and The Desert Sun — both about that killing and broader problems that have been plaguing the jail system for years. The report says Riverside County’s jail staff did not accurately identify the detainee and determine his risk of violence and allowed him to be unsafely housed for months before the killing. The department could not answer the jurors’ questions about how frequently this happens, saying they don’t track it, raising concerns about its ability to maintain safety in the jails for detainees and staff alike.
The grand jury further found the department’s detainee identification technology was malfunctioning, that staff made little effort to fix it and that they made misleading statements during the investigation about changes that had purportedly been made to prevent similar lethal mistakes…