A report by the Riverside County civil grand jury says errors by the Sheriff’s Department’s inmate screeners and flaws in the booking process resulted in a felon with a violent past mistakenly being placed with low-risk inmates in a vocational program at the Banning jail, where prosecutors say the man stabbed another inmate to death in September.
The report, made public on May 5, found 10 “significant deficiencies” and recommends ways to improve the accuracy of inmate identifications.
The 19-page report comes at a time when the state Attorney General’s Office is investigating the Sheriff’s Department over its inmate deaths and its uses of force. Additionally, an investigation by The New York Times and Desert Sun found that institutional lapses contributed to some of those deaths, particularly suicides.
In the Banning case, the report says, a man booked into Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside gave jailers an alias and a false date of birth. A records search returned details on a man linked to the false information who had a record of minor crimes.
The document read by jailers is called a Livescan report, which comes from Cal ID — which provides data on inmates — and provides a person’s true name along with any aliases based on fingerprints. The jailers did not pick up on the man’s true name, the grand jury report says.
As a result, he was rated as only a “medium” risk for violence in jail, and he was assigned to the vocational program at Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning, where he worked in the print shop. The jail also provides training in culinary arts, construction, welding, landscaping and being a barista.
But in reality, the grand jury report says, the man had a 35-year record of violent crimes and had served a total of 10 years in prison. He faced current charges of brandishing a weapon, making criminal threats and possession of illegal drug paraphernalia, which would have made him ineligible to participate in the vocational program had his true name been discovered.
The report does not identify the person by name. But it references a Sept. 5 homicide at the jail. On that date, according to a Sheriff’s Department news release issued at the time, Scott Shelby Lowder, 55, stabbed to death 36-year-old Steve Gonzalez of Moreno Valley.
Lowder, whose Superior Court records list about a dozen aliases, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 10.
“If classification staff had closely scrutinized the subject inmate’s Livescan report, they should have immediately discovered there were two different (criminal identification numbers) and several aliases used by the arrestee,” the report says. “Importantly, it would have revealed his true identity. The classification staff knew, or should have known, that the arrestee had a significant and violent criminal history.”
The Sheriff’s Department did not respond to a request by the Southern California News Group for comment on Thursday.
In an interview with SCNG in December, Sheriff Chad Bianco, speaking generally about jail deaths, said, “We do an industry-leading fantastic job in our corrections division and are not responsible for any of these deaths.”
But the grand jury disagreed, writing that Gonzalez’s death could have been prevented if the screeners had been more diligent.
The report says that the Sheriff’s Department admitted its errors and has made changes. But jail staff, the report says, told investigators that no changes were made and that their procedures were “adequate” as long as they were followed.
The report also says that aspects of the booking system are 30 years old. The county has approved money for upgrades, and the Sheriff’s Department is talking with vendors, the report says.
A biometric system that identifies inmates through fingerprints wasn’t working when grand jurors visited the jail, and staff said it frequently breaks down. The Sheriff’s Department does not track the number or reasons for misclassified inmates, the report adds.
The report makes several recommendations, including:
• Providing clear instructions for validating IDs through the Livescan reports
• Implementing mandatory training and recertification for those verifying eligibility for the vocational training
• Repairing and requiring the use of the biometric system
• Creating a database to track booking and classification errors to help learn the root causes of the mistakes
The law requires the Sheriff’s Department to submit a response to the grand jury by Aug. 5.
