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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Warning: This story contains graphic language, and descriptions of violence and suicide. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen Lili Steele got home from work on that hot, humid evening in August 2021, she expected to find her husband, Sgt. Kevin Steele, sitting at his desk working on his book. The couple had moved to a rural area near Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks after Steele had taken a leave of absence from his job as an investigator in a high-security prison in Folsom, California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing the book, Lili said, “was his new job.” The manuscript chronicled Steele’s decade at the prison, where he had become increasingly frustrated with a system he came to see as corrupt and antithetical to his deep Christian faith. His project had an ominous working title: \u003cem>The Thin Line Blurs…How to Kill a Cop…Betrayal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the 56-year-old wasn’t at his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili called Steele’s phone and found it ringing on the kitchen counter. She started to panic; she knew her husband had been struggling. Months earlier, he’d told her that he was haunted by a “trailer of dead people.” Some were soldiers he’d served alongside in Iraq who hadn’t made it home. The rest were from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sac/\">California State Prison, Sacramento\u003c/a>, known colloquially as New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was Ronnie Price, the 65-year-old whose arms were shackled behind his back when correctional officers slammed him to the ground, fatally injuring him. There was Luis Giovanny Aguilar, the young man who’d been stabbed to death by two other incarcerated men in full view of officers. Finally, and perhaps most painfully, there was his friend, officer Valentino Rodriguez Jr., who’d died of a fentanyl overdose six days after blowing the whistle on fellow officers for alleged misconduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kevin, you didn’t kill those people, you tried to help,” Lili remembers telling her husband. “You followed the protocol, the chain of command. You told the people in charge. It’s up to them to carry the ball now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After searching the house, Lili walked from the open garage across their driveway to a red storage shed. That’s where she found her husband already dead. Steele had hanged himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recording of the 911 call, the dispatcher can be heard asking Lili if her husband had been sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No,” she sobbed. “He’s been dealing with a lot of stuff from his work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Considered in isolation, Steele’s suicide might have been chalked up to one man’s struggle, but the timing — less than a year after the death of his friend Rodriguez, who worked in the same elite unit — points at something larger. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/onourwatch\">A multiyear KQED investigation and an eight-part podcast called On Our Watch\u003c/a> found a persistent code of silence among New Folsom officers that went largely unchecked by prison leadership and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). An exclusive analysis of hundreds of internal use-of-force records, dozens of leaked documents and videos, and interviews with current and former CDCR officers revealed a culture of cover-ups that enabled the abuse of incarcerated people, officer-on-officer harassment and at least two homicides at the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017610\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017610\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An armed correctional officer looks from a window of the Short Term Restricted Housing (STRH) unit entrance at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said in an email that CDCR “maintains a zero-tolerance policy on code of silence” and that the agency “is fundamentally reforming its approach to addressing allegations of staff misconduct to enhance staff accountability and improve transparency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year and a half the agency declined KQED’s multiple requests to interview New Folsom’s outgoing warden, Jeff Lynch, and the head of the agency, Secretary Jeff Macomber, who served as the warden there from 2013 to 2016. The agency also did not respond to a request to speak with Jason Schultz, who was appointed acting warden in November. CDCR representatives have repeatedly declined to answer questions about the high rate of use of force at New Folsom. They said they could not comment on specific allegations made by Steele and Rodriguez before their deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a trove of written and recorded materials left behind by the two officers and obtained by KQED details their fear of retribution and sense of despair as they tried to expose misconduct in their institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Outlier\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Steele started off as a true believer. Hired by CDCR in 2001, he was initially assigned to San Quentin before transferring to New Folsom in 2008. Sprawled along the American River just outside Sacramento, the prison houses about 2,200 people, many of whom have mental health needs or have been convicted of the most serious crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working as a correctional officer appealed to the sense of duty and service Steele had enjoyed in his Air Force career, while also promising good benefits and opportunities for advancement. The sergeant’s brother, Michael, said he liked to claim that nobody “worked harder than a Steele.” If his shift started at five in the morning, he’d arrive at four. Each day on his way into New Folsom, Steele walked past the Gothic green tower of the adjoining old Folsom prison (made famous by Johnny Cash) carrying his lunch in a clear plastic bag through the checkpoint of the newer facility. Once he clocked in, “he didn’t stop moving,” said Steele’s colleague, retired correctional officer Annette Eichhorn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison leadership entrusted Steele with a lot of responsibilities, from drug testing officers to leading annual trainings. In 2015, he was promoted to prosecution coordinator in the Investigative Services Unit (ISU). Known among officers and incarcerated people as the “squad,” the specialized team serves as the police force for the prison, investigating crimes committed by prisoners and complaints against staff, including for excessive use of force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017609\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017609\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The East Gate of old Folsom Prison in Sacramento, where Johnny Cash played in 1968. New Folsom, which was initially administered by old Folsom’s warden, opened in 1986. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers can lawfully use their hands, batons and even the weight of their bodies to subdue prisoners who resist, or ignore their commands. They can deploy less lethal weapons like pepper spray and foam bullets to stop fights or break up riots. If someone’s life is in danger, officers can respond with deadly force. In general, force has to be proportional to the threat, and cannot be used after a threat has been subdued, or as retaliation or punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even among high-security prisons, where violent encounters with staff are most common, New Folsom stands out: It had the highest overall use-of-force rate of any California state prison from 2009 through 2023, \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/21/5/16/7803753?redirectedFrom=fulltext\">according to an in-depth analysis of CDCR reports published by researchers\u003c/a> at University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with KQED. CDCR has not yet posted all the data for this year, but numbers released so far show that use-of-force rates at New Folsom remain the highest in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/HT2gx/8/\" width=\"800\" height=\"580\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Folsom has been even more of an outlier when it comes to the most serious cases — those in which officers use deadly force or badly injure incarcerated people. KQED’s exclusive analysis of investigative records from 2014 through 2019 revealed that New Folsom had three times as many of these cases as any other prison in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GLkYl/9/\" width=\"800\" height=\"900\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CDCR spokesperson told KQED last year that she took issue with KQED’s analysis of general use-of-force data, but the agency did not respond to further detailed requests for clarification and questions regarding these findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Jeff Lynch appeared unaware of an unusual level of officer violence at New Folsom. Asked about it during a media tour of the facility in April 2023, he said use-of-force rates at his prison were “probably pretty similar” to other high-security facilities in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the years, Steele had raised grave concerns about officer violence to prison leadership. It was part of his job to collect the statements of prisoners who’d been injured by guards, and he’d noticed a troubling pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017606\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017606\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An officer escorts a prisoner to a cell in the Short Term Restricted Housing unit at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A cover-up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Sept. 16, 2016, Steele interviewed 65-year-old Ronnie Price as he lay handcuffed on a gurney in the hallway of the UC Davis Medical Center with visible trauma to his face that included missing teeth and a broken jaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his unfinished book, Steele wrote that he expected to find a “combative, disruptive and quarrelsome inmate,” but instead found Price “pleasant and amicable.” Steele recalled Price telling him that officers had tried to force him to move to the cell of an active gang member, which Price feared would mean trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recording of the interview acquired by KQED, Price told Steele that during the escort he passively resisted officers, who then shackled his feet together. His hands were already chained behind his back. As they walked him through the rotunda of the housing unit — an area not covered by surveillance cameras — Price said an officer stepped on the chain between his ankles, causing him to fall face-first onto the cement floor. Price told Steele that as he raised his head to spit out his bloody teeth, “Somebody grabbed my head and slammed it into the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017608\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-12017608\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1020x1275.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1228x1536.jpg 1228w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED.jpg 1374w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prison portrait of Ronnie Price, who died in 2016 as a result of injuries caused by correctional staff. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Price family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, Price died of a pulmonary embolism related to his injuries, according to the coroner’s report. Steele attended the autopsy and then contacted his bosses. “I was very specific when I advised the administration and my supervisor that I believed that staff were responsible for the death of Inmate Price,” he writes in his book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Internal documents obtained by KQED through a public records request show that officers wrote the incident up to make it look like Price posed an active threat, claiming that he’d “spun to his left, and lunged forward breaking free” of the escort and that “immediate force” was used “to overcome” resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after lengthy investigations by the FBI and CDCR, five officers and a sergeant would lose their jobs, and three of them would be convicted of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929335/former-new-folsom-officer-sentenced-to-more-than-12-years-in-federal-prison-for-inmates-death\">federal charges related to excessive force and efforts to cover up the truth about Price’s death\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is exceedingly rare for officers to be disciplined for injuring people in California prisons, but Steele believed the Price cover-up was not an isolated incident. Over the next year, he reported at least two more incidents in which officers’ version of events failed to explain the severe injuries of the men he spoke to. Joel Uribe and Ramiro Navarro, independently made strikingly similar allegations in their use-of-force interviews with Steele: During separate escorts, officers had stopped in an area not covered by surveillance cameras and badly beat them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Please don’t think I’m exaggerating,” said Uribe, 50, who’s still in prison but no longer at New Folsom. “They really wanted to have me killed.” Uribe told KQED he was targeted because staff wrongly suspected that he had helped provoke an attack on an officer. Navarro, 56, said in a phone interview from prison that officers punched and hit him with a metal tool. He told Steele the last thing he remembered before he “passed out” was an officer kicking him in the head. Both men were in restraints for the escort, according to case documents, and denied provoking the officers’ assaults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017607\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017607\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-800x1029.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1029\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-800x1029.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1020x1312.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1194x1536.jpg 1194w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1592x2048.jpg 1592w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1920x2471.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-scaled.jpg 1990w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CDCR medical form indicating Ronnie Price’s injuries. Obtained from CDCR via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But an officer claimed in his report that Uribe “spun around” and struck out with a walking cane, at which point the officer used “immediate physical force to overcome resistance, subdue an attack and effect custody.” A supervisor wrote that after Navarro “aggressively swung his head” in an attempt to headbutt them, officers used “the minimal amount of physical force needed to place Navarro in a prone position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents show that Uribe suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a face laceration; he told KQED he still has hearing loss in one of his ears. Navarro’s ribs were also broken, and doctors inserted a chest tube to drain blood from around his lung, reports show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite internal investigations and formal complaints made by Uribe and Navarro, no officers were ever disciplined. Instead, documents show that both prisoners were written up for the incidents; each said they were sent to solitary confinement for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11977062/4-foul-play-s2-new-folsom\">a dozen men who were incarcerated at New Folsom told KQED\u003c/a> that officers had used force as retaliation for causing trouble, submitting complaints or even attempting suicide, which triggers a protocol that means extra work for officers. Many of these men had filed formal grievances, but to little effect. Internal reports documenting serious use-of-force incidents at New Folsom from 2014 through 2021 show that, aside from the case involving Price, only one other incident resulted in discipline for an officer, who CDCR fired for using a prohibited chokehold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Steele, many CDCR employees chose not to speak up. Four current and former correctional officers — who asked KQED for anonymity because they feared for their job security or physical safety — said that it was well known that some officers would beat up incarcerated people. Each said they witnessed at least one of these beatings firsthand, but did not report misconduct due to fear of retaliation from their fellow officers or supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sorry that we were too fearful to do the right thing when we were there,” said one retired officer. “But to live under that kind of fear, I can’t explain to you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8-DcbCqgpc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sgt. Kevin Steele conducted use-of-force interviews with incarcerated people; subjects’ faces were redacted by the agency. Edited from video footage obtained from CDCR via public records request. (Annie Fruit/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rookie\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In late 2018, correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez walked into the ISU office for his first day on the job. Steele writes in his book that the 28-year-old was “fresh-faced and eager to overachieve.” Rodriguez had stopped by Adalberto’s Mexican Food that morning to pick up breakfast burritos for the whole team — an office tradition by which new members would gain acceptance into the squad. But as the morning wore on, the offering was ignored; to Steele this was a deliberate snub, and he’d see it as an omen of what was to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017605\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017605\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"854\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED-160x200.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Valentino Rodriguez Jr. with his mother Erma Rodriguez at his graduation from CDCR’s officer academy in Galt, California, May 1, 2015. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rodriguez family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers often wait years to get tapped for the squad. Rodriguez had earned kudos as a sharp report writer and a hard worker, but he was relatively inexperienced. Some in the unit thought he’d “skipped the line,” according to officers’ later testimony in a disciplinary hearing. They began calling Rodriguez “half-patch,” suggesting he hadn’t fully earned the special black and green badge of the ISU uniform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, Steele welcomed the new guy. In his book, he describes thanking Rodriguez for the food that first day and taking an extra burrito home “so as not to waste his act of kindness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two men worked in different divisions of the squad — Steele was in Criminal Prosecution while Rodriguez had been assigned to Security and Investigations — but Steele always had a positive word for the younger officer. “You inspire me!” Steele texted him on more than one occasion. Sometimes, on the weekends, they’d carpool to law enforcement seminars where they could brush up on the latest drug interdiction tools or California’s prison gangs. And Steele became a lifeline for Rodriguez when he needed advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the coldness from Rodriguez’s closest teammates soon turned to open hostility, according to KQED’s review of text messages in Rodriguez’s phone. One officer in particular, Daniel Garland, taunted him regularly. He called him “fag,” and told him to “sukadik” on a group chat. Garland did not agree to speak to KQED for this story, but his attorney said her client’s actions did not rise to the level of harassment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez’s direct supervisor, Sgt. David Anderson, who was on some of the text threads, did not intervene (Anderson later told investigators “I should have stepped in,” according to public documents). Rodriguez complained in a text to another officer that Anderson would bad-mouth Steele and other senior officers in front of his subordinates, and then threaten to throw Rodriguez off the squad if he said anything. Rodriguez told his fiancée, Mimy, that his supervisor once put his hands around Rodriguez’s neck and told him he could “make it look like an accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anderson, who was promoted to lieutenant in 2022, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He told investigators that he treated Rodriguez the same as everyone else, and did not believe the young officer had been offended by what he characterized as “banter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1005px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1005\" height=\"670\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED.jpg 1005w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1005px) 100vw, 1005px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rodriguez in the office at his family’s business early in his career, dressed for work at San Quentin State Prison. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rodriguez family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CDCR has a “zero tolerance” policy for discriminatory language and harassment. But in reviewing 80 cases of officer discrimination going back to 2015, KQED found that misconduct rarely led to firing, even in instances that involved unwanted touching or threatening a subordinate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the violence and chaos of a maximum security prison, where trust is essential for officers’ safety, Rodriguez didn’t feel his team had his back. He complained to a friend over text that his colleagues refused to help him with an arrest, and that they disparaged him in front of prisoners; he said that the only person he trusted was Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele was only partially aware of what was going on with Rodriguez, but he later told investigators that he noticed his friend would duck into the bathroom nearly every day before his shift. When Steele asked if he was OK, Rodriguez confided that his stress was so intense he often had to vomit before he went into the ISU. Steele recalled Rodriguez saying, “They just never stop teasing me. They don’t ever stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, Rodriguez continued to seek his colleagues’ approval — texting the group about his efforts to lose weight or a big drug bust he pulled off. Rodriguez’s father, Valentino Rodriguez Sr., told KQED he now regrets raising his son to be so eager to please and quick to forgive.[aside postID=news_11973330 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/oow_webbanner0122.png']Much later, Rodriguez would tell prison leaders that — from small things like playing video games on duty to planting drugs and weapons on prisoners in order to claim overtime for a bust — his team had been rife with misconduct. But at the time, he said nothing of this to Steele or anyone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez kept another secret, too. He had struggled with opioid addiction in college before successfully kicking the habit in rehab. Mimy said that sometime during his stint at New Folsom he relapsed. By late 2019, the relentless harassment by his peers and the everyday violence he witnessed inside the prison walls was starting to pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, just before the Christmas holiday, a brutal murder in the prison would help tip Rodriguez past his breaking point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would also shake Steele’s faith in the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A killing in B8\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Dec. 12, 2019, 29-year-old Luis Giovanny Aguilar sat watching television in a common area of B8, a highly restricted unit reserved for people who were considered especially violent or dangerous. Aguilar — whose prison nickname was “Raskal” — had a reputation among officers for being “mouthy.” About a week earlier, on the way out of the shower back into the unit, he had kicked an officer in the chest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On surveillance footage leaked to KQED, Aguilar appeared unbothered as a group of officers brought two other men out of their cells and chained them to individual desks — Cody Taylor, a white man with a tattoo down his face, and Anthony Rodriguez, a heavyset Latino man with glasses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1494px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1494\" height=\"753\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar.jpg 1494w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-800x403.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-1020x514.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-160x81.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1494px) 100vw, 1494px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Giovanny Aguilar, chained to his chair inside a high-security unit at New Folsom prison just moments before his death on Dec. 12, 2019. This still shot is from CDCR security camera footage that was leaked to KQED.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This was supposed to be the most secure type of unit in the state. All the men had been strip-searched before stepping out of their cells. Their handcuffs were attached to a chain at their waists, and their feet were shackled together. Once seated, their ankles were also locked to the metal chairs they sat in. Overlooking the three men, a control booth officer sat behind a large window with a less lethal launcher, which fires foam rounds, and a deadly Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As soon as the officers filed out of the room, Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez got to work on their cuffs with tiny metal tools they had smuggled past the guards. They quickly escaped their restraints, headed up the stairs and retrieved makeshift weapons from beneath a cell door. Then they ran back down the stairs and attacked Aguilar, stabbing his upper chest, torso and head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The assault lasted more than a minute. The control booth officer fired a few foam rounds, one of which hit Taylor, but the projectiles did not stop the attack. By the time officers entered the unit with guns drawn, Aguilar was unresponsive on the floor. He was taken to the on-site medical unit where he was pronounced dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1789\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-800x559.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1020x713.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1536x1074.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-2048x1432.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1920x1342.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A makeshift knife that was used in the attempted murder that was carried out by Cody Taylor, Anthony Rodriguez and Dion Green two months before the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. This screenshot of CDCR’s evidence photograph was leaked to KQED.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That same day, another incarcerated man in the unit claimed responsibility for the murder. Self-described prison gang “shot-caller” Dion Green told investigators he’d ordered Anthony Rodriguez and Taylor to kill Aguilar because it was gang “business,” and passed them the weapons under the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the incident, Steele and Officer Rodriguez both had roles to play. Steele’s job was to help facilitate the prosecution of the three men. With Green’s confession and the whole thing caught on surveillance video, it appeared to be a straightforward case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But something about the murder didn’t sit right with Steele. In his book, he describes poring over the video footage “from start to finish innumerable times” to try to understand how it had happened. Given the extensive security protocols in B8, this kind of attack should not have been possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An incarcerated person is cuffed at his ankles to a desk during a group therapy session at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. These are similar to the ankle restraints used in the B8 unit. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez, meanwhile, was assigned to write a report explaining the gang connections of the murder, and to attend the autopsy, which was gruesome. “Skull was full of blood,” he wrote in an update to Steele in which he detailed more than 50 stab wounds to Aguilar’s back, head and heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez had seen violence and death before, but the images of dead bodies from this and other autopsies were getting harder to shake off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017601\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/PHOTO-of-Val-Jr-reasons-to-leave-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A picture of a redacted note saved on Valentino Rodriguez’s phone from January 2020, shortly before he took a leave of absence for work-related stress. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Valentino Rodriguez Sr.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to take this stuff home. It will feed the ghost,” he texted his supervisor, Anderson, in early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his work had already crept into his home and relationship. Mimy was increasingly upset about the long hours Rodriguez worked at the prison, and how even after his shift he was often withdrawn, irritable or too tired to talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Valentino, we’re your family,” Mimy told him. “We love you. You know, if something happens to you, that job is just gonna replace you, but we can’t replace you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks after the B8 murder, Rodriguez walked into Steele’s office and announced he was resigning. In his book, Steele writes that he tried to convince the young officer to stay — he had too much talent to waste — but Rodriguez was adamant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, the chief deputy warden convinced Rodriguez to take a leave of absence for work-related stress, according to public documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez returned home that day and sat down next to Mimy on their living room couch. Even though he hadn’t quit, he told her his career as a correctional officer was over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is my identity,” she remembers him saying. “I feel like I’ve given up on everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hints and allegations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Steele had little time to ruminate on his friend’s absence. As the COVID-19 pandemic slammed into all aspects of prison life in spring of 2020, Steele was tasked with helping prisoners appear in court, which now took place over Zoom. This put him in regular contact with the three men who’d been charged with Aguilar’s murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele writes in his book that on separate occasions, as they waited for court to begin or some technical glitch to be resolved, both “shot-caller” Dion Green and Cody Taylor, one of the two stabbers, dropped hints that there was more to the murder than Steele knew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The men’s insinuations added to some troubling evidence Steele had already come across, according to his book. Just two months before the murder, the same three men had carried out an almost identical attack on another incarcerated man, nearly killing him; yet after that incident, the suspects hadn’t been put in separate housing, as CDCR protocol dictates. Given this violent history, officers should have been on high alert, yet Taylor and his co-assailant, Anthony Rodriguez, had again slipped their cuffs when they killed Aguilar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SSuhezQmsM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis’ demonstration of the double-locking mechanism on the handcuffs that were generally used around the prisoners’ ankles, and how a ‘black box’ device works\u003c/i>. (Sukey Lewis and Maha Sanad/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was especially surprising to Steele because the men were wearing “black boxes” over their restraints — tamper-resistant hard plastic shells that cover the cuffs’ keyhole and, when applied properly, are nearly impossible to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele also stumbled across an unusual incident while looking at archived surveillance footage: It showed Taylor loose in the B8 common room a week before the Aguilar murder, running up the stairs to retrieve something from beneath Green’s cell door. As Steele watched the video, he waited for officers to sound the alarm or enter the unit, but they didn’t. He notes in his book that this apparent “practice-run” wasn’t reported or documented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Taylor, who’d already pleaded guilty to the murder, sent a letter to the warden making a stunning claim: Officers had played a role in the killing. Steele was assigned to follow up. In a recording of that interview, which was leaked to KQED, Taylor told Steele that B8 officers had agreed not to fully lock his and Anthony Rodriguez’s cuffs, allowing the men to circumvent the tamper-proof black boxes, and to instruct the control booth officer not to use deadly force. In Taylor’s telling, officers facilitated the attack on Aguilar because he had assaulted one of their own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tar6yJvCMpM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Sgt. Kevin Steele interviewed Cody Taylor on July 3, 2020, about his allegations that officers enabled the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. This video was edited from CDCR footage that was leaked to KQED. (Annie Fruit/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Anthony Rodriguez did not agree to speak to Steele, Green did. In a recorded interview that was leaked to KQED, Green echoed Taylor’s allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Aguilar] would be alive today if it wasn’t for the assistance and\u003cbr>\nthe help of your staff,” Green told Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR stated that it is “working with outside law enforcement agencies on this case” and could not comment. In court filings, attorneys for CDCR staff members have denied allegations that officers were involved in the killing. An FBI agent said in a phone call last year that they were investigating the case, but a spokesperson declined to officially confirm or deny the agency’s involvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele shared Taylor and Green’s allegations with New Folsom’s warden, Jeff Lynch, with the chief deputy warden, and with his own supervisor, according to correspondence that was leaked to KQED and obtained through public records requests. Steele also sent the videos of his interviews and suggested giving Taylor and Green polygraph tests. The warden thanked Steele and told him New Folsom’s internal affairs lieutenant, Brandon Strohmaier, “will be chatting with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, prison administrators forwarded these allegations to CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs in Sacramento, and to the FBI, which looks into allegations of civil rights abuses by law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But months passed, and Steele saw few signs that anyone had picked up the threads of his investigation. No one else came to interview Taylor or Green, and it appears no one followed up on Steele’s suggestion to polygraph them, according to documents, interviews with the men themselves and confidential sources familiar with the investigation. Early on, a handful of officers who were on duty the day of the murder were reassigned to the mailroom, but they weren’t suspended or banned from the facility (a way to limit officers’ access to the prison while they’re under criminal suspicion).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017599\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keys and handcuffs hang from the belt of a correctional officer in the Short Term Restricted Housing unit at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom prison, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs often moves slowly, but emails obtained by KQED show this case was uniquely delayed, and a special agent was not assigned until a year after the murder, according to a report by the inspector general of prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Steele started to feel the blowback for digging into the case. In his book, he describes being excluded from conversations in the ISU, and how, in the solitary unit where Taylor and Green were being held, officers who’d formerly been helpful began to display “agitation and unrest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps most disturbing to Steele was that Green’s and Taylor’s allegations, which he’d passed up the chain of command in confidence, began circulating among prisoners — a sign, he thought, that his fellow officers were trying to undermine his work and endanger Taylor and Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a leak coming from someone,” Steele wrote in a follow-up email to the warden. This time, Lynch’s response was even more laconic: “Thank u.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Superhero\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While on leave, Valentino Rodriguez had been working for his dad at the family pool business, writing bids for installation and repair. Even though he was still a correctional officer on paper, he was trying to leave the world of the prison behind. But the long-term effects of his years at New Folsom persisted. He wrestled with mounting depression and anxiety. He sought help from a therapist, but had trouble sharing his struggles with those closest to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One afternoon that summer, Steele called. Rodriguez was at his dad’s house for a barbecue, and his father remembers that he disappeared for a couple of hours. He came back saying Steele had uncovered evidence that officers had a hand in the Aguilar murder, and that Steele had reported it up the chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re starting to treat him like they treated me,” Rodriguez Sr. remembers his son telling him. “He’s scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had also been encouraging Rodriguez to report the misconduct he’d witnessed, according to Mimy. But Rodriguez was nervous about what would happen to him and his family if he came forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy said her fiancé became increasingly fearful and reluctant to leave the house even to walk their dogs. He placed obstacles next to the front door so he could hear anyone trying to get in. He slept with his gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is everything okay?” Mimy remembers asking him. “Who are you nervous about coming? What is going on?” Rodriguez never said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy tried to distract him with planning their upcoming wedding. She felt if they could just get through this year, they’d be able to put New Folsom behind them and start a family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a few weeks before the ceremony, Rodriguez started a casual text conversation with Strohmaier, the ISU’s internal affairs lieutenant, about his upcoming marriage and other personal matters. Then Rodriguez let loose with a series of long texts describing his misery in the squad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That team is broken,” he wrote. “There is shit they do, say, or don’t do that could cause everyone from the Warden down to get the boot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017958\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Lynch, warden at New Folsom prison, during a press tour on April 13, 2023. He is set to retire December 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear why Rodriguez chose this moment to share his grievances with the person who fielded internal complaints at New Folsom, but Strohmaier eventually forwarded the messages to the warden, who asked Rodriguez to come talk to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twelve days after his wedding, Rodriguez walked back through the gates of New Folsom to expose the brotherhood of officers he’d once protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Jeff Lynch would later testify that in this meeting, Rodriguez told him the ISU was a “dysfunctional environment” that had driven him from the job and ruined his health. He also warned Lynch that he’d seen ISU officers — the institution’s police — breaking the law by planting drugs and weapons to get overtime. Lynch testified that he’d listened intently, and then asked him to write up his allegations in a formal memo. Rodriguez said he’d think about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy said that when her new husband came home, he looked like a weight had been lifted. “He felt confident that the warden was going to help,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017597\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017597\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero.jpg 931w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph of final messages between Rodriguez and Steele just hours before Rodriguez’s death. Rodriguez did not seek medical treatment for the health issue he describes, so it is unclear what exactly happened. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Valentino Rodriguez Sr.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The following week, while Lynch was still waiting for Rodriguez’s memo, he ordered a search of the ISU for the contraband Rodriguez had mentioned. According to Lynch’s testimony, the search didn’t turn up anything concerning. But it did have an effect — now, the whole team knew someone had talked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele texted Rodriguez the next day to show his support: “I appreciate, admire and respect you!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just hope that i am not mentioned at all to anyone,”\u003cbr>\nRodriguez texted back. “It took a lot out of me to re-live the truth…So much pain and fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dude you are my superhero,” Steele responded. “Stay strong! I got you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rodriguez was already spiraling. That evening, while Mimy was at dinner with friends, Rodriguez texted her to say he’d heard from two people at New Folsom who knew about his meeting with the warden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means it’s out now that i told on the team,” he wrote. “Tomorrow they want me to write a memo and i don’t know what ima do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mimy got home an hour later, she saw a light coming from the guest bathroom. There she found her husband of 19 days slumped against the wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s his job,” she told a responding police officer. “This is all because of his job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coroner’s report notes that drug paraphernalia was next to Rodriguez’s body and classifies his death as an accident. The report also describes the scene — a wedding photo of Rodriguez and Mimy on the mantle and a stack of gifts in the corner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele found out about Rodriguez’s death through social media reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his book, Steele compares Rodriguez to the New Testament figure Timothy, who was beaten to death by a pagan mob after speaking out against them. “In many ways,” he wrote, “young Valentino, like Timothy, would remain courageous and committed to the truth all the way till the end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017596\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017596\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An altar made by Mimy Rodriguez for her late husband, Officer Valentino Rodriguez, sits on a shelf at her home in Sacramento on Nov. 6, 2023. Rodriguez loved ketchup and wore Giorgio Armani cologne. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Flight and fight\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The memorial mass was held under a large oak tree at the Catholic grammar school in West Sacramento. Valentino Rodriguez Sr., weighed down by grief, noticed a trim man with piercing blue eyes making his way forward through the receiving line. While he’d heard a lot about Steele, this was the first time they’d met in person. As Rodriguez Sr. remembers, Steele grabbed his shoulders and said, “If you need me for anything, I can help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the prison that day, Steele taped pictures of Rodriguez up in the window of his office. He wanted the officers who’d harassed his friend to know he held them responsible, Steele later told Rodriguez’s father. The squad, in turn, shunned Steele and went so far as to file a complaint against him, which didn’t go anywhere, according to public records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Lynch sent out an email forbidding anyone in the ISU from speaking to the Rodriguez family. Even though the move could have been preventive — in the event of an investigation into the harassment of Rodriguez, CDCR policy would not allow staff to talk about the case — Steele saw the directive as an attempt at self-protection. Adding to Steele’s disappointment, the warden never called Rodriguez’s family to offer condolences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when Rodriguez Sr., heartbroken and craving answers, reached out to Steele with texts and photos of his son as a boy, Steele wrote back. The two men began texting and talking on the phone nearly every day — discovering their shared Christian faith, their love for antique cars and their sorrow over the loss of Rodriguez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez Sr. drew a direct line between his son’s overdose and New Folsom. In one of their telephone conversations, he even asked Steele if someone at the prison could have provided the fentanyl that killed him (KQED found no evidence to substantiate his concern). Steele urged Rodriguez Sr. to file a complaint with CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs and gave him a contact at the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017595\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017595\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Valentino Rodriguez Sr. stands in a warehouse at his West Sacramento pool business on Nov. 30, 2023, where his son Valentino Rodriguez Jr. worked while on leave from New Folsom before his untimely death. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While Steele told Rodriguez Sr. he could trust those agencies to do the right thing, his book reveals that he had his doubts. Years earlier, the Ronnie Price case had taught him that officers were capable of conspiracy and silence. The apathy he perceived in the wake of Aguilar’s homicide now appeared to be evidence of a dark and willful blindness. And the warden’s apparent focus on damage control rather than human suffering following a young officer’s death broke something inside him. Steele wondered if there were any limits to the corruption he felt closing in around him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili said that, though he tried to hide it from her, her husband was afraid. “He literally would open up the door and look around the corner,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele wasn’t the first whistleblower to feel like he had a target on his back. Over the years, officers who have reported misconduct have found “rat” written on their windshield, received threatening phone calls, been left with no backup in dangerous situations and even been followed home at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had come forward internally, but he’d also been in touch with the FBI, according to text messages given to KQED. He’d passed along evidence he’d gathered regarding Aguilar’s murder and shared his suspicions that officers were somehow culpable. Steele believed that without him, any potential federal investigation would have few witnesses. Steele told Rodriguez Sr. that he had no idea how far CDCR would go to keep him quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, Steele crafted an exit strategy. In January, he and Lili packed up their belongings and moved across the country to Miller County, Missouri, where Steele had spent time in the Air Force. His plan was to run through his vacation and sick days and then retire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017594\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017594\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2238\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-800x700.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1020x892.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-160x140.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1536x1343.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-2048x1791.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1920x1679.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Steele served in the US Air Force Reserve for 21 years before retiring as a master sergeant in April 2016. He deployed twice to Iraq and was commended for his service. \u003ccite>(US Air Force)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Steele couldn’t resist firing off a couple of parting shots at New Folsom’s warden and CDCR — two incendiary memos alleging in detail the mistreatment of incarcerated people and officers’ role in the Aguilar murder. He included Rodriguez’s claims about ISU misconduct, and questioned Warden Lynch’s actions as a leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing Lynch directly, he wrote: “You should consider the very likely possibility that during YOUR superintendence of [New Folsom], more staff will be charged for criminal activity than any other institution within the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month after Steele had left the state, a notice, which was leaked to KQED, was posted at the front gate of New Folsom: Sgt. Kevin Steele was banned from prison grounds. While he had no plans to return, it stung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was crushed,” Lili remembers. Steele told her, “I would have died for that department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had trouble adapting to his new life in the Ozarks. He applied for a couple jobs and interviewed well, but didn’t get them. Lili said he suspected someone at the prison had somehow interfered, though as far as she knew, prison officials still thought they were in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele still woke up before 4 a.m., but now he had nowhere to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘My Thoughts’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On March 15, 2021, Steele sent Rodriguez Sr. a link to \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/the-prison-guard-who-couldnt-escape-prison\">a Buzzfeed article about a correctional officer at High Desert State Prison in Northern California who had reported misconduct\u003c/a>, only to find his colleagues turning on him. The officer was found dead by apparent suicide in 2011. Among some notes with messages for his family was one that read, “I told the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The actual number of suicides among CDCR’s 30,000 officers is unknown; the agency said it doesn’t track those deaths out of respect for employees’ privacy. But KQED has been able to confirm that at least 30 officers who had worked for CDCR died by suicide from 2020 through 2023. Steele dealt with this firsthand; he’d counseled an officer who was struggling with thoughts of suicide and even interrupted a prison employee trying to asphyxiate themselves in a garage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017640\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017640\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These badges represent the 30 CDCR correctional officers who took their own lives from 2020 through 2023. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In response to \u003ca href=\"https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/officer-health-and-wellness-results-from-the-california-correctional-office\">a 2017 UC Berkeley survey of CDCR officers\u003c/a>, 1 in 10 said they had suicidal thoughts. That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/ss/ss7101a1.htm\">more than twice the national average reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>. A CDCR spokesperson wrote in an email that the department is “committed to promoting the mental health and wellbeing” of its employees, who have access to a number of interventions and services including chaplains and therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele did speak to a chaplain, but, like a lot of officers, he was wary of mental health professionals, fearing that if he sought help the institution would use it against him. Instead, Lili said, her husband “self-medicated” with alcohol to get to sleep at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April of 2021, Steele got some news that buoyed his spirits. Daniel Garland, one of the officers who’d mistreated Rodriguez, had been banned from the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, it seemed to Rodriguez Sr. and Steele that their efforts to hold someone accountable for Rodriguez’s death were finally starting to bear fruit. They expected to see more repercussions for everyone who’d harassed Rodriguez, or known about it and done nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017593\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017593\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED.jpg 1507w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The red storage shed where Sgt. Kevin Steele was found deceased on August 20, 2021. Photo obtained from the Sheriff’s Dept. in Miller County, Mo., via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Justice is beginning to simmer!” Steele texted Rodriguez Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But four months later, on Aug. 20, 2021, Steele called up Rodriguez Sr. in a rage. He’d just received a call from CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs to schedule an interview about the Aguilar murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It had been 20 months since Aguilar was killed, over a year since Steele passed on evidence that officers might be involved, and eight months since Steele sent his explosive memo to the warden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez Sr. remembers Steele venting: “Why are they just wrapping this up? All of a sudden they’re in a hurry?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than an hour later, a home security camera captured Steele walking out of his open garage. The footage, obtained by KQED through a public records request, shows him crossing the driveway toward his shed at 5:23 p.m. dressed in an orange T-shirt and shorts. He’s holding one end of a blue nylon rope in his hand. The other end of the rope is looped around his neck. He reaches the shed door and passes out of view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017592\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1246px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017592\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1246\" height=\"742\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot.jpg 1246w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-800x476.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-1020x607.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-160x95.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1246px) 100vw, 1246px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot of the note found on Steele’s computer. KQED redacted the names of the CDCR officials in Steele’s note to protect their privacy. Obtained from the Sheriff’s Dept. in Miller County, Mo. via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, Lili found a document on the home computer titled “My Thoughts.” It read, in part:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lili is my angel, my light and my survivor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an apparent reference to the time of day that Jesus died on the cross, he wrote, “I know what time it is … it is the 9th hour and no one is here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CDCR killed me, I told the truth and shielded the truth… These barbarians killed Valentino and I.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter included a list of names of CDCR officials he held responsible for his and his friend’s deaths. Under the list were the note’s final three words: “Cowards and Bandits!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Aftermath\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Shortly after Steele’s death, CDCR internal affairs agents finally conducted their first interviews with the officers who had been implicated in the death of Luis Giovanny Aguilar — nearly two years after his murder. They never interviewed Green, the shot caller, or the men who stabbed Aguilar, according to a confidential source familiar with the investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a state-level prison watchdog, rated the department’s handling of the case “poor.” In a report, the OIG faulted the agency for “unnecessary” delays and poor interview techniques “that failed to elicit the details of each officers’ involvement and knowledge of events and failed to ask follow-up questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report shows that CDCR ultimately sustained allegations that one officer failed to respond to alarms the day Aguilar was stabbed. The officer in the control booth was disciplined for not having his Mini-14 rifle on him during the attack. Each got a temporary 5% pay cut. A third officer was given the heaviest punishment, a temporary 10% pay cut, for recording the murder footage on his phone and sharing it with a colleague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017591\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017591\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED.jpg 898w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The last time that Luis Giovanny Aguilar saw his mother, Ma Rosario Zaragoza, in Tijuana, Mexico, 2018. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Aguilar family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An ongoing lawsuit filed by Aguilar’s mother against Warden Lynch and the officers in the B8 unit alleges staff either conspired to kill her son, or at the very least failed to protect him. In court filings, lawyers for CDCR have denied that prison staff were involved in the homicide. The FBI declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garland, along with an officer who’d used the N-word and other derogatory language in the office, was fired. Two more ISU team members were given lengthy pay cuts for calling Rodriguez half-patch and failing to report misconduct; they both work at different prisons now. (All four officers have submitted appeals to state court, which are pending.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Folsom remains a violent place; four incarcerated people were killed at the prison this year, three at the hands of other prisoners, and one after being restrained by officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch is retiring this month. Jason Schultz, who worked at New Folsom from 2008 through 2020, was named acting warden in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Steele’s suicide in 2021, CDCR has made some important changes; last year, Governor Gavin Newsom introduced the “California Model” of prison management, which borrows its ethos of reintegration and emotional well-being from the Norwegian approach to incarceration. Officers at certain prisons, including New Folsom, now wear body cameras. And CDCR put in place a new process for reviewing grievances against staff, which the department says will “ensure complaints are properly, fairly and thoroughly reviewed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, despite months of KQED’s attempts to get answers, no one from the agency would address the underlying question raised by the deaths of Steele and Rodriguez: How successful can any reforms be if officers remain afraid to report misconduct, and if the few who come forward risk being marginalized and ignored?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Uncontestable’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When a person in state custody takes their own life, an independent panel reviews the circumstances and makes a determination about how it could have been prevented. But there is no such accounting of the circumstances surrounding officer suicides. In a 2023 interview, Stephen Walker, who advocates for mental health resources on behalf of the correctional officers’ union, told KQED that if these deaths were happening in any other occupation, “there would be a mass public outcry calling for an investigation into what is happening and what is at the root of this many people losing their lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017590\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017590\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mimy Rodriguez holds a framed wedding photo of herself and her late husband, Officer Valentino Rodriguez, at her home in Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After Rodriguez and Steele died, the state insurance fund sent each of their widows instructions on how to receive survivor benefits. There were two options: The simpler path was to sign a form stating that the men’s deaths were unrelated to their jobs. Neither woman could bring herself to sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alternative was to argue that their husbands had died as a direct result of working in the prison. Initially, those claims were denied, and Lili and Mimy had to go through the painful process of documenting their husbands’ decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A doctor who reviewed Rodriguez’s medical records on behalf of the state found that his drug use was related to depression, anxiety and panic attacks stemming from his job at New Folsom. “This claim appears to be uncontestable,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy Rodriguez cried when she received a letter from the state saying that her husband’s death “was the result of his employment” at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Steele’s claim was also granted: A workers’ compensation review of Steele’s writings and an interview with Lili found that psychological strain from his job at the prison contributed to his suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The claim, Lili said, was her way of saying, “I know what you people did to him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is a collaboration between KQED, the \u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">California Reporting Project\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californianewsroom\">California Newsroom\u003c/a>, and was made possible in part by support from \u003ca href=\"https://www.calendow.org\">The California Endowment\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Lead editor: \u003ca href=\"https://www.markbetancourt.com/\">Mark Betancourt\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Data analysis: Amanda Glazer, PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley Statistics; Jeremy Sanchez Rue, Associate Professor of Practice at UC Berkeley Journalism.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional research by students at \u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/a>: Julietta Bisharyan, Laura Fitzgerald, William Jenkins, Cayla Mihalovich, Armon Owlia, Kathleen Quinn, Elizabeth Santos, Vera Watt and Junyao Yang. Additional support from UC Berkeley Journalism’s David Barstow.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "'How to Kill a Cop': Death, Despair and Corruption in California's Most Violent Prison | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Warning: This story contains graphic language, and descriptions of violence and suicide. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class=\"utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__dropcapShortcode__dropcap\">W\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>hen Lili Steele got home from work on that hot, humid evening in August 2021, she expected to find her husband, Sgt. Kevin Steele, sitting at his desk working on his book. The couple had moved to a rural area near Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks after Steele had taken a leave of absence from his job as an investigator in a high-security prison in Folsom, California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Writing the book, Lili said, “was his new job.” The manuscript chronicled Steele’s decade at the prison, where he had become increasingly frustrated with a system he came to see as corrupt and antithetical to his deep Christian faith. His project had an ominous working title: \u003cem>The Thin Line Blurs…How to Kill a Cop…Betrayal\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the 56-year-old wasn’t at his desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili called Steele’s phone and found it ringing on the kitchen counter. She started to panic; she knew her husband had been struggling. Months earlier, he’d told her that he was haunted by a “trailer of dead people.” Some were soldiers he’d served alongside in Iraq who hadn’t made it home. The rest were from the \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdcr.ca.gov/facility-locator/sac/\">California State Prison, Sacramento\u003c/a>, known colloquially as New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was Ronnie Price, the 65-year-old whose arms were shackled behind his back when correctional officers slammed him to the ground, fatally injuring him. There was Luis Giovanny Aguilar, the young man who’d been stabbed to death by two other incarcerated men in full view of officers. Finally, and perhaps most painfully, there was his friend, officer Valentino Rodriguez Jr., who’d died of a fentanyl overdose six days after blowing the whistle on fellow officers for alleged misconduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Kevin, you didn’t kill those people, you tried to help,” Lili remembers telling her husband. “You followed the protocol, the chain of command. You told the people in charge. It’s up to them to carry the ball now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After searching the house, Lili walked from the open garage across their driveway to a red storage shed. That’s where she found her husband already dead. Steele had hanged himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recording of the 911 call, the dispatcher can be heard asking Lili if her husband had been sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No,” she sobbed. “He’s been dealing with a lot of stuff from his work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Considered in isolation, Steele’s suicide might have been chalked up to one man’s struggle, but the timing — less than a year after the death of his friend Rodriguez, who worked in the same elite unit — points at something larger. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/onourwatch\">A multiyear KQED investigation and an eight-part podcast called On Our Watch\u003c/a> found a persistent code of silence among New Folsom officers that went largely unchecked by prison leadership and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). An exclusive analysis of hundreds of internal use-of-force records, dozens of leaked documents and videos, and interviews with current and former CDCR officers revealed a culture of cover-ups that enabled the abuse of incarcerated people, officer-on-officer harassment and at least two homicides at the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017610\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017610\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/020_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An armed correctional officer looks from a window of the Short Term Restricted Housing (STRH) unit entrance at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson said in an email that CDCR “maintains a zero-tolerance policy on code of silence” and that the agency “is fundamentally reforming its approach to addressing allegations of staff misconduct to enhance staff accountability and improve transparency.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past year and a half the agency declined KQED’s multiple requests to interview New Folsom’s outgoing warden, Jeff Lynch, and the head of the agency, Secretary Jeff Macomber, who served as the warden there from 2013 to 2016. The agency also did not respond to a request to speak with Jason Schultz, who was appointed acting warden in November. CDCR representatives have repeatedly declined to answer questions about the high rate of use of force at New Folsom. They said they could not comment on specific allegations made by Steele and Rodriguez before their deaths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a trove of written and recorded materials left behind by the two officers and obtained by KQED details their fear of retribution and sense of despair as they tried to expose misconduct in their institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Outlier\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Steele started off as a true believer. Hired by CDCR in 2001, he was initially assigned to San Quentin before transferring to New Folsom in 2008. Sprawled along the American River just outside Sacramento, the prison houses about 2,200 people, many of whom have mental health needs or have been convicted of the most serious crimes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Working as a correctional officer appealed to the sense of duty and service Steele had enjoyed in his Air Force career, while also promising good benefits and opportunities for advancement. The sergeant’s brother, Michael, said he liked to claim that nobody “worked harder than a Steele.” If his shift started at five in the morning, he’d arrive at four. Each day on his way into New Folsom, Steele walked past the Gothic green tower of the adjoining old Folsom prison (made famous by Johnny Cash) carrying his lunch in a clear plastic bag through the checkpoint of the newer facility. Once he clocked in, “he didn’t stop moving,” said Steele’s colleague, retired correctional officer Annette Eichhorn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prison leadership entrusted Steele with a lot of responsibilities, from drug testing officers to leading annual trainings. In 2015, he was promoted to prosecution coordinator in the Investigative Services Unit (ISU). Known among officers and incarcerated people as the “squad,” the specialized team serves as the police force for the prison, investigating crimes committed by prisoners and complaints against staff, including for excessive use of force.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017609\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017609\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/258_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The East Gate of old Folsom Prison in Sacramento, where Johnny Cash played in 1968. New Folsom, which was initially administered by old Folsom’s warden, opened in 1986. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers can lawfully use their hands, batons and even the weight of their bodies to subdue prisoners who resist, or ignore their commands. They can deploy less lethal weapons like pepper spray and foam bullets to stop fights or break up riots. If someone’s life is in danger, officers can respond with deadly force. In general, force has to be proportional to the threat, and cannot be used after a threat has been subdued, or as retaliation or punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even among high-security prisons, where violent encounters with staff are most common, New Folsom stands out: It had the highest overall use-of-force rate of any California state prison from 2009 through 2023, \u003ca href=\"https://academic.oup.com/jrssig/article-abstract/21/5/16/7803753?redirectedFrom=fulltext\">according to an in-depth analysis of CDCR reports published by researchers\u003c/a> at University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with KQED. CDCR has not yet posted all the data for this year, but numbers released so far show that use-of-force rates at New Folsom remain the highest in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/HT2gx/8/\" width=\"800\" height=\"580\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Folsom has been even more of an outlier when it comes to the most serious cases — those in which officers use deadly force or badly injure incarcerated people. KQED’s exclusive analysis of investigative records from 2014 through 2019 revealed that New Folsom had three times as many of these cases as any other prison in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GLkYl/9/\" width=\"800\" height=\"900\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\" frameborder=\"0\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A CDCR spokesperson told KQED last year that she took issue with KQED’s analysis of general use-of-force data, but the agency did not respond to further detailed requests for clarification and questions regarding these findings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Jeff Lynch appeared unaware of an unusual level of officer violence at New Folsom. Asked about it during a media tour of the facility in April 2023, he said use-of-force rates at his prison were “probably pretty similar” to other high-security facilities in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But over the years, Steele had raised grave concerns about officer violence to prison leadership. It was part of his job to collect the statements of prisoners who’d been injured by guards, and he’d noticed a troubling pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017606\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017606\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/187_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An officer escorts a prisoner to a cell in the Short Term Restricted Housing unit at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>A cover-up\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Sept. 16, 2016, Steele interviewed 65-year-old Ronnie Price as he lay handcuffed on a gurney in the hallway of the UC Davis Medical Center with visible trauma to his face that included missing teeth and a broken jaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his unfinished book, Steele wrote that he expected to find a “combative, disruptive and quarrelsome inmate,” but instead found Price “pleasant and amicable.” Steele recalled Price telling him that officers had tried to force him to move to the cell of an active gang member, which Price feared would mean trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a recording of the interview acquired by KQED, Price told Steele that during the escort he passively resisted officers, who then shackled his feet together. His hands were already chained behind his back. As they walked him through the rotunda of the housing unit — an area not covered by surveillance cameras — Price said an officer stepped on the chain between his ankles, causing him to fall face-first onto the cement floor. Price told Steele that as he raised his head to spit out his bloody teeth, “Somebody grabbed my head and slammed it into the ground.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017608\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-12017608\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1020x1275.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED-1228x1536.jpg 1228w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-KQED.jpg 1374w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prison portrait of Ronnie Price, who died in 2016 as a result of injuries caused by correctional staff. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Price family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, Price died of a pulmonary embolism related to his injuries, according to the coroner’s report. Steele attended the autopsy and then contacted his bosses. “I was very specific when I advised the administration and my supervisor that I believed that staff were responsible for the death of Inmate Price,” he writes in his book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Internal documents obtained by KQED through a public records request show that officers wrote the incident up to make it look like Price posed an active threat, claiming that he’d “spun to his left, and lunged forward breaking free” of the escort and that “immediate force” was used “to overcome” resistance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But after lengthy investigations by the FBI and CDCR, five officers and a sergeant would lose their jobs, and three of them would be convicted of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929335/former-new-folsom-officer-sentenced-to-more-than-12-years-in-federal-prison-for-inmates-death\">federal charges related to excessive force and efforts to cover up the truth about Price’s death\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is exceedingly rare for officers to be disciplined for injuring people in California prisons, but Steele believed the Price cover-up was not an isolated incident. Over the next year, he reported at least two more incidents in which officers’ version of events failed to explain the severe injuries of the men he spoke to. Joel Uribe and Ramiro Navarro, independently made strikingly similar allegations in their use-of-force interviews with Steele: During separate escorts, officers had stopped in an area not covered by surveillance cameras and badly beat them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Please don’t think I’m exaggerating,” said Uribe, 50, who’s still in prison but no longer at New Folsom. “They really wanted to have me killed.” Uribe told KQED he was targeted because staff wrongly suspected that he had helped provoke an attack on an officer. Navarro, 56, said in a phone interview from prison that officers punched and hit him with a metal tool. He told Steele the last thing he remembered before he “passed out” was an officer kicking him in the head. Both men were in restraints for the escort, according to case documents, and denied provoking the officers’ assaults.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017607\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017607\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-800x1029.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1029\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-800x1029.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1020x1312.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-160x206.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1194x1536.jpg 1194w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1592x2048.jpg 1592w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-1920x2471.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-Ronnie-Price-7219-Form-KQED-scaled.jpg 1990w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CDCR medical form indicating Ronnie Price’s injuries. Obtained from CDCR via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But an officer claimed in his report that Uribe “spun around” and struck out with a walking cane, at which point the officer used “immediate physical force to overcome resistance, subdue an attack and effect custody.” A supervisor wrote that after Navarro “aggressively swung his head” in an attempt to headbutt them, officers used “the minimal amount of physical force needed to place Navarro in a prone position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Documents show that Uribe suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a face laceration; he told KQED he still has hearing loss in one of his ears. Navarro’s ribs were also broken, and doctors inserted a chest tube to drain blood from around his lung, reports show.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite internal investigations and formal complaints made by Uribe and Navarro, no officers were ever disciplined. Instead, documents show that both prisoners were written up for the incidents; each said they were sent to solitary confinement for a year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In all, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11977062/4-foul-play-s2-new-folsom\">a dozen men who were incarcerated at New Folsom told KQED\u003c/a> that officers had used force as retaliation for causing trouble, submitting complaints or even attempting suicide, which triggers a protocol that means extra work for officers. Many of these men had filed formal grievances, but to little effect. Internal reports documenting serious use-of-force incidents at New Folsom from 2014 through 2021 show that, aside from the case involving Price, only one other incident resulted in discipline for an officer, who CDCR fired for using a prohibited chokehold.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unlike Steele, many CDCR employees chose not to speak up. Four current and former correctional officers — who asked KQED for anonymity because they feared for their job security or physical safety — said that it was well known that some officers would beat up incarcerated people. Each said they witnessed at least one of these beatings firsthand, but did not report misconduct due to fear of retaliation from their fellow officers or supervisors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m sorry that we were too fearful to do the right thing when we were there,” said one retired officer. “But to live under that kind of fear, I can’t explain to you.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/d8-DcbCqgpc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/d8-DcbCqgpc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Sgt. Kevin Steele conducted use-of-force interviews with incarcerated people; subjects’ faces were redacted by the agency. Edited from video footage obtained from CDCR via public records request. (Annie Fruit/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The rookie\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In late 2018, correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez walked into the ISU office for his first day on the job. Steele writes in his book that the 28-year-old was “fresh-faced and eager to overachieve.” Rodriguez had stopped by Adalberto’s Mexican Food that morning to pick up breakfast burritos for the whole team — an office tradition by which new members would gain acceptance into the squad. But as the morning wore on, the offering was ignored; to Steele this was a deliberate snub, and he’d see it as an omen of what was to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017605\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 683px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017605\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"683\" height=\"854\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED.jpg 683w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-04-KQED-160x200.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Valentino Rodriguez Jr. with his mother Erma Rodriguez at his graduation from CDCR’s officer academy in Galt, California, May 1, 2015. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rodriguez family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Officers often wait years to get tapped for the squad. Rodriguez had earned kudos as a sharp report writer and a hard worker, but he was relatively inexperienced. Some in the unit thought he’d “skipped the line,” according to officers’ later testimony in a disciplinary hearing. They began calling Rodriguez “half-patch,” suggesting he hadn’t fully earned the special black and green badge of the ISU uniform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In contrast, Steele welcomed the new guy. In his book, he describes thanking Rodriguez for the food that first day and taking an extra burrito home “so as not to waste his act of kindness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two men worked in different divisions of the squad — Steele was in Criminal Prosecution while Rodriguez had been assigned to Security and Investigations — but Steele always had a positive word for the younger officer. “You inspire me!” Steele texted him on more than one occasion. Sometimes, on the weekends, they’d carpool to law enforcement seminars where they could brush up on the latest drug interdiction tools or California’s prison gangs. And Steele became a lifeline for Rodriguez when he needed advice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the coldness from Rodriguez’s closest teammates soon turned to open hostility, according to KQED’s review of text messages in Rodriguez’s phone. One officer in particular, Daniel Garland, taunted him regularly. He called him “fag,” and told him to “sukadik” on a group chat. Garland did not agree to speak to KQED for this story, but his attorney said her client’s actions did not rise to the level of harassment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez’s direct supervisor, Sgt. David Anderson, who was on some of the text threads, did not intervene (Anderson later told investigators “I should have stepped in,” according to public documents). Rodriguez complained in a text to another officer that Anderson would bad-mouth Steele and other senior officers in front of his subordinates, and then threaten to throw Rodriguez off the squad if he said anything. Rodriguez told his fiancée, Mimy, that his supervisor once put his hands around Rodriguez’s neck and told him he could “make it look like an accident.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Anderson, who was promoted to lieutenant in 2022, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. He told investigators that he treated Rodriguez the same as everyone else, and did not believe the young officer had been offended by what he characterized as “banter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017604\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1005px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017604\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1005\" height=\"670\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED.jpg 1005w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-VALENTINO-RODRIGUEZ-JR-02-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1005px) 100vw, 1005px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rodriguez in the office at his family’s business early in his career, dressed for work at San Quentin State Prison. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Rodriguez family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CDCR has a “zero tolerance” policy for discriminatory language and harassment. But in reviewing 80 cases of officer discrimination going back to 2015, KQED found that misconduct rarely led to firing, even in instances that involved unwanted touching or threatening a subordinate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid the violence and chaos of a maximum security prison, where trust is essential for officers’ safety, Rodriguez didn’t feel his team had his back. He complained to a friend over text that his colleagues refused to help him with an arrest, and that they disparaged him in front of prisoners; he said that the only person he trusted was Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele was only partially aware of what was going on with Rodriguez, but he later told investigators that he noticed his friend would duck into the bathroom nearly every day before his shift. When Steele asked if he was OK, Rodriguez confided that his stress was so intense he often had to vomit before he went into the ISU. Steele recalled Rodriguez saying, “They just never stop teasing me. They don’t ever stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite this, Rodriguez continued to seek his colleagues’ approval — texting the group about his efforts to lose weight or a big drug bust he pulled off. Rodriguez’s father, Valentino Rodriguez Sr., told KQED he now regrets raising his son to be so eager to please and quick to forgive.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Much later, Rodriguez would tell prison leaders that — from small things like playing video games on duty to planting drugs and weapons on prisoners in order to claim overtime for a bust — his team had been rife with misconduct. But at the time, he said nothing of this to Steele or anyone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez kept another secret, too. He had struggled with opioid addiction in college before successfully kicking the habit in rehab. Mimy said that sometime during his stint at New Folsom he relapsed. By late 2019, the relentless harassment by his peers and the everyday violence he witnessed inside the prison walls was starting to pile up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, just before the Christmas holiday, a brutal murder in the prison would help tip Rodriguez past his breaking point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would also shake Steele’s faith in the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A killing in B8\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On Dec. 12, 2019, 29-year-old Luis Giovanny Aguilar sat watching television in a common area of B8, a highly restricted unit reserved for people who were considered especially violent or dangerous. Aguilar — whose prison nickname was “Raskal” — had a reputation among officers for being “mouthy.” About a week earlier, on the way out of the shower back into the unit, he had kicked an officer in the chest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On surveillance footage leaked to KQED, Aguilar appeared unbothered as a group of officers brought two other men out of their cells and chained them to individual desks — Cody Taylor, a white man with a tattoo down his face, and Anthony Rodriguez, a heavyset Latino man with glasses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1494px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1494\" height=\"753\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar.jpg 1494w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-800x403.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-1020x514.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/10_05_08.95Aguilar-160x81.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1494px) 100vw, 1494px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Luis Giovanny Aguilar, chained to his chair inside a high-security unit at New Folsom prison just moments before his death on Dec. 12, 2019. This still shot is from CDCR security camera footage that was leaked to KQED.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This was supposed to be the most secure type of unit in the state. All the men had been strip-searched before stepping out of their cells. Their handcuffs were attached to a chain at their waists, and their feet were shackled together. Once seated, their ankles were also locked to the metal chairs they sat in. Overlooking the three men, a control booth officer sat behind a large window with a less lethal launcher, which fires foam rounds, and a deadly Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As soon as the officers filed out of the room, Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez got to work on their cuffs with tiny metal tools they had smuggled past the guards. They quickly escaped their restraints, headed up the stairs and retrieved makeshift weapons from beneath a cell door. Then they ran back down the stairs and attacked Aguilar, stabbing his upper chest, torso and head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The assault lasted more than a minute. The control booth officer fired a few foam rounds, one of which hit Taylor, but the projectiles did not stop the attack. By the time officers entered the unit with guns drawn, Aguilar was unresponsive on the floor. He was taken to the on-site medical unit where he was pronounced dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017602\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017602\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1789\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-800x559.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1020x713.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-160x112.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1536x1074.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-2048x1432.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_3947-Tinkerbell-1920x1342.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A makeshift knife that was used in the attempted murder that was carried out by Cody Taylor, Anthony Rodriguez and Dion Green two months before the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. This screenshot of CDCR’s evidence photograph was leaked to KQED.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>That same day, another incarcerated man in the unit claimed responsibility for the murder. Self-described prison gang “shot-caller” Dion Green told investigators he’d ordered Anthony Rodriguez and Taylor to kill Aguilar because it was gang “business,” and passed them the weapons under the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the incident, Steele and Officer Rodriguez both had roles to play. Steele’s job was to help facilitate the prosecution of the three men. With Green’s confession and the whole thing caught on surveillance video, it appeared to be a straightforward case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But something about the murder didn’t sit right with Steele. In his book, he describes poring over the video footage “from start to finish innumerable times” to try to understand how it had happened. Given the extensive security protocols in B8, this kind of attack should not have been possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017600\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/046_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An incarcerated person is cuffed at his ankles to a desk during a group therapy session at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom, on April 13, 2023. These are similar to the ankle restraints used in the B8 unit. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez, meanwhile, was assigned to write a report explaining the gang connections of the murder, and to attend the autopsy, which was gruesome. “Skull was full of blood,” he wrote in an update to Steele in which he detailed more than 50 stab wounds to Aguilar’s back, head and heart.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez had seen violence and death before, but the images of dead bodies from this and other autopsies were getting harder to shake off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017601\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017601\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/PHOTO-of-Val-Jr-reasons-to-leave-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A picture of a redacted note saved on Valentino Rodriguez’s phone from January 2020, shortly before he took a leave of absence for work-related stress. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Valentino Rodriguez Sr.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I don’t want to take this stuff home. It will feed the ghost,” he texted his supervisor, Anderson, in early January.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But his work had already crept into his home and relationship. Mimy was increasingly upset about the long hours Rodriguez worked at the prison, and how even after his shift he was often withdrawn, irritable or too tired to talk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Valentino, we’re your family,” Mimy told him. “We love you. You know, if something happens to you, that job is just gonna replace you, but we can’t replace you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks after the B8 murder, Rodriguez walked into Steele’s office and announced he was resigning. In his book, Steele writes that he tried to convince the young officer to stay — he had too much talent to waste — but Rodriguez was adamant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ultimately, the chief deputy warden convinced Rodriguez to take a leave of absence for work-related stress, according to public documents.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez returned home that day and sat down next to Mimy on their living room couch. Even though he hadn’t quit, he told her his career as a correctional officer was over.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is my identity,” she remembers him saying. “I feel like I’ve given up on everything.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Hints and allegations\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Steele had little time to ruminate on his friend’s absence. As the COVID-19 pandemic slammed into all aspects of prison life in spring of 2020, Steele was tasked with helping prisoners appear in court, which now took place over Zoom. This put him in regular contact with the three men who’d been charged with Aguilar’s murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele writes in his book that on separate occasions, as they waited for court to begin or some technical glitch to be resolved, both “shot-caller” Dion Green and Cody Taylor, one of the two stabbers, dropped hints that there was more to the murder than Steele knew.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The men’s insinuations added to some troubling evidence Steele had already come across, according to his book. Just two months before the murder, the same three men had carried out an almost identical attack on another incarcerated man, nearly killing him; yet after that incident, the suspects hadn’t been put in separate housing, as CDCR protocol dictates. Given this violent history, officers should have been on high alert, yet Taylor and his co-assailant, Anthony Rodriguez, had again slipped their cuffs when they killed Aguilar.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/9SSuhezQmsM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/9SSuhezQmsM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis’ demonstration of the double-locking mechanism on the handcuffs that were generally used around the prisoners’ ankles, and how a ‘black box’ device works\u003c/i>. (Sukey Lewis and Maha Sanad/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That was especially surprising to Steele because the men were wearing “black boxes” over their restraints — tamper-resistant hard plastic shells that cover the cuffs’ keyhole and, when applied properly, are nearly impossible to escape.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele also stumbled across an unusual incident while looking at archived surveillance footage: It showed Taylor loose in the B8 common room a week before the Aguilar murder, running up the stairs to retrieve something from beneath Green’s cell door. As Steele watched the video, he waited for officers to sound the alarm or enter the unit, but they didn’t. He notes in his book that this apparent “practice-run” wasn’t reported or documented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In June, Taylor, who’d already pleaded guilty to the murder, sent a letter to the warden making a stunning claim: Officers had played a role in the killing. Steele was assigned to follow up. In a recording of that interview, which was leaked to KQED, Taylor told Steele that B8 officers had agreed not to fully lock his and Anthony Rodriguez’s cuffs, allowing the men to circumvent the tamper-proof black boxes, and to instruct the control booth officer not to use deadly force. In Taylor’s telling, officers facilitated the attack on Aguilar because he had assaulted one of their own.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/tar6yJvCMpM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/tar6yJvCMpM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Sgt. Kevin Steele interviewed Cody Taylor on July 3, 2020, about his allegations that officers enabled the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. This video was edited from CDCR footage that was leaked to KQED. (Annie Fruit/KQED)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Anthony Rodriguez did not agree to speak to Steele, Green did. In a recorded interview that was leaked to KQED, Green echoed Taylor’s allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“[Aguilar] would be alive today if it wasn’t for the assistance and\u003cbr>\nthe help of your staff,” Green told Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR stated that it is “working with outside law enforcement agencies on this case” and could not comment. In court filings, attorneys for CDCR staff members have denied allegations that officers were involved in the killing. An FBI agent said in a phone call last year that they were investigating the case, but a spokesperson declined to officially confirm or deny the agency’s involvement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele shared Taylor and Green’s allegations with New Folsom’s warden, Jeff Lynch, with the chief deputy warden, and with his own supervisor, according to correspondence that was leaked to KQED and obtained through public records requests. Steele also sent the videos of his interviews and suggested giving Taylor and Green polygraph tests. The warden thanked Steele and told him New Folsom’s internal affairs lieutenant, Brandon Strohmaier, “will be chatting with you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At some point, prison administrators forwarded these allegations to CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs in Sacramento, and to the FBI, which looks into allegations of civil rights abuses by law enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But months passed, and Steele saw few signs that anyone had picked up the threads of his investigation. No one else came to interview Taylor or Green, and it appears no one followed up on Steele’s suggestion to polygraph them, according to documents, interviews with the men themselves and confidential sources familiar with the investigation. Early on, a handful of officers who were on duty the day of the murder were reassigned to the mailroom, but they weren’t suspended or banned from the facility (a way to limit officers’ access to the prison while they’re under criminal suspicion).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017599\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017599\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/214_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Keys and handcuffs hang from the belt of a correctional officer in the Short Term Restricted Housing unit at California State Prison, Sacramento, also known as New Folsom prison, on April 13, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs often moves slowly, but emails obtained by KQED show this case was uniquely delayed, and a special agent was not assigned until a year after the murder, according to a report by the inspector general of prisons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, Steele started to feel the blowback for digging into the case. In his book, he describes being excluded from conversations in the ISU, and how, in the solitary unit where Taylor and Green were being held, officers who’d formerly been helpful began to display “agitation and unrest.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps most disturbing to Steele was that Green’s and Taylor’s allegations, which he’d passed up the chain of command in confidence, began circulating among prisoners — a sign, he thought, that his fellow officers were trying to undermine his work and endanger Taylor and Green.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a leak coming from someone,” Steele wrote in a follow-up email to the warden. This time, Lynch’s response was even more laconic: “Thank u.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Superhero\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While on leave, Valentino Rodriguez had been working for his dad at the family pool business, writing bids for installation and repair. Even though he was still a correctional officer on paper, he was trying to leave the world of the prison behind. But the long-term effects of his years at New Folsom persisted. He wrestled with mounting depression and anxiety. He sought help from a therapist, but had trouble sharing his struggles with those closest to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One afternoon that summer, Steele called. Rodriguez was at his dad’s house for a barbecue, and his father remembers that he disappeared for a couple of hours. He came back saying Steele had uncovered evidence that officers had a hand in the Aguilar murder, and that Steele had reported it up the chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re starting to treat him like they treated me,” Rodriguez Sr. remembers his son telling him. “He’s scared.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had also been encouraging Rodriguez to report the misconduct he’d witnessed, according to Mimy. But Rodriguez was nervous about what would happen to him and his family if he came forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy said her fiancé became increasingly fearful and reluctant to leave the house even to walk their dogs. He placed obstacles next to the front door so he could hear anyone trying to get in. He slept with his gun.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Is everything okay?” Mimy remembers asking him. “Who are you nervous about coming? What is going on?” Rodriguez never said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy tried to distract him with planning their upcoming wedding. She felt if they could just get through this year, they’d be able to put New Folsom behind them and start a family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But a few weeks before the ceremony, Rodriguez started a casual text conversation with Strohmaier, the ISU’s internal affairs lieutenant, about his upcoming marriage and other personal matters. Then Rodriguez let loose with a series of long texts describing his misery in the squad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That team is broken,” he wrote. “There is shit they do, say, or don’t do that could cause everyone from the Warden down to get the boot.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017958\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017958\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/230_KQED_NewFolsomPrisonSacramento_04132023-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Lynch, warden at New Folsom prison, during a press tour on April 13, 2023. He is set to retire December 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear why Rodriguez chose this moment to share his grievances with the person who fielded internal complaints at New Folsom, but Strohmaier eventually forwarded the messages to the warden, who asked Rodriguez to come talk to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twelve days after his wedding, Rodriguez walked back through the gates of New Folsom to expose the brotherhood of officers he’d once protected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Jeff Lynch would later testify that in this meeting, Rodriguez told him the ISU was a “dysfunctional environment” that had driven him from the job and ruined his health. He also warned Lynch that he’d seen ISU officers — the institution’s police — breaking the law by planting drugs and weapons to get overtime. Lynch testified that he’d listened intently, and then asked him to write up his allegations in a formal memo. Rodriguez said he’d think about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy said that when her new husband came home, he looked like a weight had been lifted. “He felt confident that the warden was going to help,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017597\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017597\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-800x1067.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1067\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-800x1067.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero-160x213.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/super-hero.jpg 931w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph of final messages between Rodriguez and Steele just hours before Rodriguez’s death. Rodriguez did not seek medical treatment for the health issue he describes, so it is unclear what exactly happened. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Valentino Rodriguez Sr.)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The following week, while Lynch was still waiting for Rodriguez’s memo, he ordered a search of the ISU for the contraband Rodriguez had mentioned. According to Lynch’s testimony, the search didn’t turn up anything concerning. But it did have an effect — now, the whole team knew someone had talked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele texted Rodriguez the next day to show his support: “I appreciate, admire and respect you!”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I just hope that i am not mentioned at all to anyone,”\u003cbr>\nRodriguez texted back. “It took a lot out of me to re-live the truth…So much pain and fear.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dude you are my superhero,” Steele responded. “Stay strong! I got you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Rodriguez was already spiraling. That evening, while Mimy was at dinner with friends, Rodriguez texted her to say he’d heard from two people at New Folsom who knew about his meeting with the warden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Which means it’s out now that i told on the team,” he wrote. “Tomorrow they want me to write a memo and i don’t know what ima do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Mimy got home an hour later, she saw a light coming from the guest bathroom. There she found her husband of 19 days slumped against the wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s his job,” she told a responding police officer. “This is all because of his job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The coroner’s report notes that drug paraphernalia was next to Rodriguez’s body and classifies his death as an accident. The report also describes the scene — a wedding photo of Rodriguez and Mimy on the mantle and a stack of gifts in the corner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele found out about Rodriguez’s death through social media reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his book, Steele compares Rodriguez to the New Testament figure Timothy, who was beaten to death by a pagan mob after speaking out against them. “In many ways,” he wrote, “young Valentino, like Timothy, would remain courageous and committed to the truth all the way till the end.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017596\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017596\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-30-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An altar made by Mimy Rodriguez for her late husband, Officer Valentino Rodriguez, sits on a shelf at her home in Sacramento on Nov. 6, 2023. Rodriguez loved ketchup and wore Giorgio Armani cologne. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Flight and fight\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The memorial mass was held under a large oak tree at the Catholic grammar school in West Sacramento. Valentino Rodriguez Sr., weighed down by grief, noticed a trim man with piercing blue eyes making his way forward through the receiving line. While he’d heard a lot about Steele, this was the first time they’d met in person. As Rodriguez Sr. remembers, Steele grabbed his shoulders and said, “If you need me for anything, I can help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back at the prison that day, Steele taped pictures of Rodriguez up in the window of his office. He wanted the officers who’d harassed his friend to know he held them responsible, Steele later told Rodriguez’s father. The squad, in turn, shunned Steele and went so far as to file a complaint against him, which didn’t go anywhere, according to public records.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Warden Lynch sent out an email forbidding anyone in the ISU from speaking to the Rodriguez family. Even though the move could have been preventive — in the event of an investigation into the harassment of Rodriguez, CDCR policy would not allow staff to talk about the case — Steele saw the directive as an attempt at self-protection. Adding to Steele’s disappointment, the warden never called Rodriguez’s family to offer condolences.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when Rodriguez Sr., heartbroken and craving answers, reached out to Steele with texts and photos of his son as a boy, Steele wrote back. The two men began texting and talking on the phone nearly every day — discovering their shared Christian faith, their love for antique cars and their sorrow over the loss of Rodriguez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez Sr. drew a direct line between his son’s overdose and New Folsom. In one of their telephone conversations, he even asked Steele if someone at the prison could have provided the fentanyl that killed him (KQED found no evidence to substantiate his concern). Steele urged Rodriguez Sr. to file a complaint with CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs and gave him a contact at the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017595\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017595\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231130-OnOurWatch-25-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Valentino Rodriguez Sr. stands in a warehouse at his West Sacramento pool business on Nov. 30, 2023, where his son Valentino Rodriguez Jr. worked while on leave from New Folsom before his untimely death. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While Steele told Rodriguez Sr. he could trust those agencies to do the right thing, his book reveals that he had his doubts. Years earlier, the Ronnie Price case had taught him that officers were capable of conspiracy and silence. The apathy he perceived in the wake of Aguilar’s homicide now appeared to be evidence of a dark and willful blindness. And the warden’s apparent focus on damage control rather than human suffering following a young officer’s death broke something inside him. Steele wondered if there were any limits to the corruption he felt closing in around him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili said that, though he tried to hide it from her, her husband was afraid. “He literally would open up the door and look around the corner,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele wasn’t the first whistleblower to feel like he had a target on his back. Over the years, officers who have reported misconduct have found “rat” written on their windshield, received threatening phone calls, been left with no backup in dangerous situations and even been followed home at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had come forward internally, but he’d also been in touch with the FBI, according to text messages given to KQED. He’d passed along evidence he’d gathered regarding Aguilar’s murder and shared his suspicions that officers were somehow culpable. Steele believed that without him, any potential federal investigation would have few witnesses. Steele told Rodriguez Sr. that he had no idea how far CDCR would go to keep him quiet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And so, Steele crafted an exit strategy. In January, he and Lili packed up their belongings and moved across the country to Miller County, Missouri, where Steele had spent time in the Air Force. His plan was to run through his vacation and sick days and then retire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017594\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017594\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"2238\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-800x700.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1020x892.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-160x140.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1536x1343.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-2048x1791.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/100605-F-1108H-322-1920x1679.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kevin Steele served in the US Air Force Reserve for 21 years before retiring as a master sergeant in April 2016. He deployed twice to Iraq and was commended for his service. \u003ccite>(US Air Force)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But Steele couldn’t resist firing off a couple of parting shots at New Folsom’s warden and CDCR — two incendiary memos alleging in detail the mistreatment of incarcerated people and officers’ role in the Aguilar murder. He included Rodriguez’s claims about ISU misconduct, and questioned Warden Lynch’s actions as a leader.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing Lynch directly, he wrote: “You should consider the very likely possibility that during YOUR superintendence of [New Folsom], more staff will be charged for criminal activity than any other institution within the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A month after Steele had left the state, a notice, which was leaked to KQED, was posted at the front gate of New Folsom: Sgt. Kevin Steele was banned from prison grounds. While he had no plans to return, it stung.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was crushed,” Lili remembers. Steele told her, “I would have died for that department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele had trouble adapting to his new life in the Ozarks. He applied for a couple jobs and interviewed well, but didn’t get them. Lili said he suspected someone at the prison had somehow interfered, though as far as she knew, prison officials still thought they were in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele still woke up before 4 a.m., but now he had nowhere to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘My Thoughts’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>On March 15, 2021, Steele sent Rodriguez Sr. a link to \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertsamaha/the-prison-guard-who-couldnt-escape-prison\">a Buzzfeed article about a correctional officer at High Desert State Prison in Northern California who had reported misconduct\u003c/a>, only to find his colleagues turning on him. The officer was found dead by apparent suicide in 2011. Among some notes with messages for his family was one that read, “I told the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The actual number of suicides among CDCR’s 30,000 officers is unknown; the agency said it doesn’t track those deaths out of respect for employees’ privacy. But KQED has been able to confirm that at least 30 officers who had worked for CDCR died by suicide from 2020 through 2023. Steele dealt with this firsthand; he’d counseled an officer who was struggling with thoughts of suicide and even interrupted a prison employee trying to asphyxiate themselves in a garage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017640\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017640\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/IMG_0848-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">These badges represent the 30 CDCR correctional officers who took their own lives from 2020 through 2023. \u003ccite>(Anna Vignet/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In response to \u003ca href=\"https://gspp.berkeley.edu/research-and-impact/publications/officer-health-and-wellness-results-from-the-california-correctional-office\">a 2017 UC Berkeley survey of CDCR officers\u003c/a>, 1 in 10 said they had suicidal thoughts. That’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/ss/ss7101a1.htm\">more than twice the national average reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u003c/a>. A CDCR spokesperson wrote in an email that the department is “committed to promoting the mental health and wellbeing” of its employees, who have access to a number of interventions and services including chaplains and therapists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steele did speak to a chaplain, but, like a lot of officers, he was wary of mental health professionals, fearing that if he sought help the institution would use it against him. Instead, Lili said, her husband “self-medicated” with alcohol to get to sleep at night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April of 2021, Steele got some news that buoyed his spirits. Daniel Garland, one of the officers who’d mistreated Rodriguez, had been banned from the institution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the time, it seemed to Rodriguez Sr. and Steele that their efforts to hold someone accountable for Rodriguez’s death were finally starting to bear fruit. They expected to see more repercussions for everyone who’d harassed Rodriguez, or known about it and done nothing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017593\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017593\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-KEVIN-STEELE-03-KQED.jpg 1507w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The red storage shed where Sgt. Kevin Steele was found deceased on August 20, 2021. Photo obtained from the Sheriff’s Dept. in Miller County, Mo., via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Justice is beginning to simmer!” Steele texted Rodriguez Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But four months later, on Aug. 20, 2021, Steele called up Rodriguez Sr. in a rage. He’d just received a call from CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs to schedule an interview about the Aguilar murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It had been 20 months since Aguilar was killed, over a year since Steele passed on evidence that officers might be involved, and eight months since Steele sent his explosive memo to the warden.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rodriguez Sr. remembers Steele venting: “Why are they just wrapping this up? All of a sudden they’re in a hurry?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Less than an hour later, a home security camera captured Steele walking out of his open garage. The footage, obtained by KQED through a public records request, shows him crossing the driveway toward his shed at 5:23 p.m. dressed in an orange T-shirt and shorts. He’s holding one end of a blue nylon rope in his hand. The other end of the rope is looped around his neck. He reaches the shed door and passes out of view.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017592\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1246px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017592\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1246\" height=\"742\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot.jpg 1246w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-800x476.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-1020x607.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/MyThoughtsRedactedScreenshot-160x95.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1246px) 100vw, 1246px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot of the note found on Steele’s computer. KQED redacted the names of the CDCR officials in Steele’s note to protect their privacy. Obtained from the Sheriff’s Dept. in Miller County, Mo. via public records request.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next day, Lili found a document on the home computer titled “My Thoughts.” It read, in part:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Lili is my angel, my light and my survivor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an apparent reference to the time of day that Jesus died on the cross, he wrote, “I know what time it is … it is the 9th hour and no one is here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CDCR killed me, I told the truth and shielded the truth… These barbarians killed Valentino and I.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The letter included a list of names of CDCR officials he held responsible for his and his friend’s deaths. Under the list were the note’s final three words: “Cowards and Bandits!”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Aftermath\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Shortly after Steele’s death, CDCR internal affairs agents finally conducted their first interviews with the officers who had been implicated in the death of Luis Giovanny Aguilar — nearly two years after his murder. They never interviewed Green, the shot caller, or the men who stabbed Aguilar, according to a confidential source familiar with the investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Office of the Inspector General (OIG), a state-level prison watchdog, rated the department’s handling of the case “poor.” In a report, the OIG faulted the agency for “unnecessary” delays and poor interview techniques “that failed to elicit the details of each officers’ involvement and knowledge of events and failed to ask follow-up questions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The report shows that CDCR ultimately sustained allegations that one officer failed to respond to alarms the day Aguilar was stabbed. The officer in the control booth was disciplined for not having his Mini-14 rifle on him during the attack. Each got a temporary 5% pay cut. A third officer was given the heaviest punishment, a temporary 10% pay cut, for recording the murder footage on his phone and sharing it with a colleague.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017591\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12017591\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/241113-OOW-LUIS-GIOVANNY-AGUILAR-01-KQED.jpg 898w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The last time that Luis Giovanny Aguilar saw his mother, Ma Rosario Zaragoza, in Tijuana, Mexico, 2018. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Aguilar family)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>An ongoing lawsuit filed by Aguilar’s mother against Warden Lynch and the officers in the B8 unit alleges staff either conspired to kill her son, or at the very least failed to protect him. In court filings, lawyers for CDCR have denied that prison staff were involved in the homicide. The FBI declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Garland, along with an officer who’d used the N-word and other derogatory language in the office, was fired. Two more ISU team members were given lengthy pay cuts for calling Rodriguez half-patch and failing to report misconduct; they both work at different prisons now. (All four officers have submitted appeals to state court, which are pending.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Folsom remains a violent place; four incarcerated people were killed at the prison this year, three at the hands of other prisoners, and one after being restrained by officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lynch is retiring this month. Jason Schultz, who worked at New Folsom from 2008 through 2020, was named acting warden in November.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since Steele’s suicide in 2021, CDCR has made some important changes; last year, Governor Gavin Newsom introduced the “California Model” of prison management, which borrows its ethos of reintegration and emotional well-being from the Norwegian approach to incarceration. Officers at certain prisons, including New Folsom, now wear body cameras. And CDCR put in place a new process for reviewing grievances against staff, which the department says will “ensure complaints are properly, fairly and thoroughly reviewed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yet, despite months of KQED’s attempts to get answers, no one from the agency would address the underlying question raised by the deaths of Steele and Rodriguez: How successful can any reforms be if officers remain afraid to report misconduct, and if the few who come forward risk being marginalized and ignored?\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘Uncontestable’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>When a person in state custody takes their own life, an independent panel reviews the circumstances and makes a determination about how it could have been prevented. But there is no such accounting of the circumstances surrounding officer suicides. In a 2023 interview, Stephen Walker, who advocates for mental health resources on behalf of the correctional officers’ union, told KQED that if these deaths were happening in any other occupation, “there would be a mass public outcry calling for an investigation into what is happening and what is at the root of this many people losing their lives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017590\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017590\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/231106-OnOurWatch-35-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mimy Rodriguez holds a framed wedding photo of herself and her late husband, Officer Valentino Rodriguez, at her home in Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 6, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>After Rodriguez and Steele died, the state insurance fund sent each of their widows instructions on how to receive survivor benefits. There were two options: The simpler path was to sign a form stating that the men’s deaths were unrelated to their jobs. Neither woman could bring herself to sign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The alternative was to argue that their husbands had died as a direct result of working in the prison. Initially, those claims were denied, and Lili and Mimy had to go through the painful process of documenting their husbands’ decline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A doctor who reviewed Rodriguez’s medical records on behalf of the state found that his drug use was related to depression, anxiety and panic attacks stemming from his job at New Folsom. “This claim appears to be uncontestable,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mimy Rodriguez cried when she received a letter from the state saying that her husband’s death “was the result of his employment” at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lili Steele’s claim was also granted: A workers’ compensation review of Steele’s writings and an interview with Lili found that psychological strain from his job at the prison contributed to his suicide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The claim, Lili said, was her way of saying, “I know what you people did to him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story is a collaboration between KQED, the \u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">California Reporting Project\u003c/a> and the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/californianewsroom\">California Newsroom\u003c/a>, and was made possible in part by support from \u003ca href=\"https://www.calendow.org\">The California Endowment\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Lead editor: \u003ca href=\"https://www.markbetancourt.com/\">Mark Betancourt\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Data analysis: Amanda Glazer, PhD Candidate at UC Berkeley Statistics; Jeremy Sanchez Rue, Associate Professor of Practice at UC Berkeley Journalism.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Additional research by students at \u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">Berkeley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/a>: Julietta Bisharyan, Laura Fitzgerald, William Jenkins, Cayla Mihalovich, Armon Owlia, Kathleen Quinn, Elizabeth Santos, Vera Watt and Junyao Yang. Additional support from UC Berkeley Journalism’s David Barstow.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "BONUS: 'More Work to Be Done' | S2: New Folsom",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey and Julie have some news and updates about Valentino Rodriguez Sr., Mimy Rodriguez and some of the key players at New Folsom prison. We also share a recent conversation with an attorney who has been involved in the legal fight for disability rights in California state prisons for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7898353184\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, everyone. We’re back this week with a special bonus episode of On Our Watch. If you’re a new listener to the podcast, welcome. But this episode won’t make a lot of sense. So I suggest you go back to episode one of the season and start from the beginning of what became a really epic journey to trace the footsteps of two whistleblowers at New Folsom Prison. For those of you who’ve been following along, we have some news to share. And we got our hands on some really interesting new tapes where you can hear from some of the key figures at New Folsom who never agreed to speak to us for the podcast. Later in the episode, we’re also going to talk to a lawyer who’s played a big part in state reforms, including helping get body cameras into some California prisons. My co-reporter for this series, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, is with me today so we can talk about what all these developments mean. Hey, Julie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, Sukey. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, we want to share that we’ve been writing an article about Sergeant Kevin Steele and Correctional Officer Valentino Rodriguez, which you can check out on KQED.org, or click the link in the show notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some really interesting tidbits in there which will be totally new to even listeners of the podcast. A video of Steele and some of the evidence that we relied on for our reporting. And it’s a summation of the findings that we came to as a result of two years of investigation in a format where you can really review what those findings are and see what the implications are and really understand the journey of Sergeant Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez Jr. How they affected each other and what that led them to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And the other big news that we have to share is about the warden, Jeff Lynch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. CDCR announced Warden Jeff Lynch is retiring this month. This is the guy who Steele blamed for failure of leadership at New Folsom Prison and who Val Senior blamed for not protecting his son. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, prison officials wouldn’t comment on Lynch’s retirement, but it is interesting timing I think. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We now know who’s replacing Lynch. Well, what do you think about the incoming warden? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So CDCr just named this new acting warden. And this is a man named Jason Shultz. He used to work at New Folsom from 2008 to 2020. He’s also spent time at the California health care facility in Stockton and California State Prison Solano. He’s a pretty well known actor in New Folsom, and he was, in fact, the head of the facility where the Ronnie Price incident happened, the captain of that facility. So for listeners, if you’ll remember from episode four, Ronnie Price is the man who told Steel that he had been tripped by officers and his face was smashed and pretty severely. And then he died the next day of a pulmonary embolism. It was a really big deal there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, that case eventually resulted in criminal conviction of three officers who tried to cover up the excessive force. And you know, that this guy was, you know, involved with that unit. That’s that’s very interesting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it is. It is really interesting. And I don’t know much more, you know, about, you know, why he got this position or if he’ll end up being the permanent warden there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. And we did check in with some of our sources who said that this guy is you know, he follows the rules. He’s worked hard. But, you know, he’s a company man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So anyway, that’s kind of what we know so far about the acting warden. Now, I know, Julie, you talked to Val Senior recently as well. How does Val Senior feel about the warden’s retirement? And also just how is he doing in general? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, in general, like right after the podcast came out, Val Senior, he felt relief for the first time since his son’s death. You know, he got a lot of he felt like he was finally doing something. He got a lot of sympathetic emails and text messages, but he feels that CDCR is not holding the right people accountable. There were some disciplinary actions taken against some of the lower level people involved, other officers. But the warden, he is getting to retire and go on with his life. Meanwhile, Val Senior, you know, continues to suffer. This is not over for him. It will never be over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. And what about what about Valentino’s widow, Mimy? You know, how’s she doing? Have you talked to her recently? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have talked to her recently. You know, she reached out to me, actually, and, you know, wanted to see what, if anything, had happened since the podcast came out. She is, you know, picking up her life, putting it back together. She has gone back to school, which before she couldn’t concentrate well enough to stay in in her courses. She’s finishing up an undergraduate degree. She she has made a decision, though, that she was going to go into corrections and now she is not because of everything that she and her husband, Valentino, went through and her loss of Valentino. She may still do something in the law, but she seems to becoming interested in making the criminal justice system work better. But it’s really a struggle for her still. You know, she’s still in shock. You know, she’s said that this was not what her life was supposed to be. You know, she should never have ended up here. This was not the way it was supposed to go. She married the love of her life, and days later, he was dead. And it’s hard. It’s hard. How do you move on from that? And. And she doesn’t really even have people to talk to about it because how do you talk to somebody about such a profound loss and with so many questions surrounding it still? So she holds a lot of it in I think. What about some of the incarcerated people that you interviewed? Have you checked in with any of them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’ve been in touch with a number of people. You know, Joel Uribe, who listeners will remember from episode four of the podcast, who was, you know, injured in the use of force incident with officers. And he is looking at a potential release date next year and getting ready for that. He’s really excited about that. And one of the things that he’s doing is getting the tattoos removed from his face. Um if listeners remember, this was something that his mom was like a really hard ass with him about and was like, I won’t, you know, see your face. I won’t look at your face while you have those tattoos on it. So I was in touch with Joel. He’s getting those tattoos, you know, starting the process of that. And he said he’s going to do a video call with me as well when he gets them removed so I can see the his new face that he hopes to present to the outside world. Yeah. You know, he is also a little fearful, I think, about something out of prison, like it just is difficult. He’s been kind of in and out of prison for most of his life, and so you get so conditioned to experience there. So I think he’s really excited for that, hoping to get out even sooner. And also, you know, has some trepidation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s totally understandable that he would have trepidation. What have you been hearing about what’s been going on in New Folsom? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, it was another deadly year there. There were four people that were killed by homicide. CDCR only released very thin information about these incidents. But we do know that one of them was the result of a use of force. This man died after being restrained by officers. And, you know, overall, preliminary numbers that have been posted show that the rates of use of force at New Folsom remain the highest in the state. So sounds like much the same. Now, CDCR says, you know, they they declined to speak to us. We asked them again for an interview with the head of CDCR, the secretary with the outgoing warden, with the incoming warden. They declined all of those requests, but they did send us an email in which they, again, really doubled down on their statement that they’re really trying to reform things and that they don’t tolerate a code of silence and that they are really committed to officer accountability. They did not once again respond to any questions about use of force. And I asked them to at least explain why they wouldn’t talk about use of force. And they also wouldn’t talk about why they wouldn’t talk about use of force. So that continues to be a frustration just in terms of getting information about an issue that’s really, you know, I think high public interest and importance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that’s the latest that we’ve heard, you know, from CDCR officially. But thanks to our lawsuit that’s forced them to produce more documents and recordings, we did recently get something really fascinating. They sent us the interrogation tapes from that internal affairs investigation into Valentino’s harassment. Listeners will remember he really struggled in the investigative services unit because his fellow officers could be quite cruel to him. And he finally told the warden about all this misconduct he said he’d witnessed just six days before his death. So after he died, the Office of Internal Affairs talked to those officers and to higher ups at New Folsom, ostensibly to get to the bottom of things. And that’s what these tapes are from. And it was really interesting to hear from some of the players who never agreed to speak to us for the podcast. We’re going to start with someone we’ve been interested in talking to for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Gina Jones. I called her up and she told me to never call her at that number again. I reached her, but she was like, I have nothing to say to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So can you remind listeners, you know, who is Gina Jones and what was her role? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Jones was the second in command at New Folsom, just under Warden Lynch. During our reporting, it was hard to pin down her role exactly in everything that transpired. For listeners, you’ll remember Jones is the person who convinced Valentino to go out on stress leave instead of resigning completely from the department. They had this consequential meeting in which, according to Mimy, Valentino, broke down to her and divulged all the harassment he’d been experiencing, as well as misconduct that he’d witnessed from his colleagues. Here she is talking about that meeting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gena Jones:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> J-O-N-E-S, Chief Deputy Warden, CSP Sacramento. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, you’ll hear some redactions that CDCR made in these tapes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you met with Officer Rodriguez, was anybody else in that meeting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it was just he and I. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you said it was in ISU? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And and you described in that meeting you talked about [REDACTED]. And and and that the issues that he was having, as you mentioned, that he had some issues with with crime scenes and autopsies, you know, issues related to the work in ISU, that was that the source of his problem? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. I mean, he never said anything other than just cumulatively it was getting to be too much and he couldn’t handle the stress and he wasn’t sleeping. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Jones really makes it sound like the only thing bothering Valentino was this kind of persistent violence and brutality at New Folsom, which is really different from what we heard from Mimy, who said that Valentino came home really in despair and told her that he’d broken down in front of the chief deputy warden about everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, And here’s what Jones says about, you know, the harassment and whether or not she knew anything about that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was there anything said during the meeting about Officer Rodriguez being treated inappropriately by other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So just based on questions I’ve asked you to this point, is there anything that I haven’t asked you about this matter that you think is important for me to know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um there’s been a lot of scuttle going on. Obviously, the situation is pretty taxing. I apologize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you need to take a break that’s fine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can I? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yes. Let’s do that. Time is 1513. I’m going to pause the recording and we’re going to take a quick break. Okay. We’re back on the record. Time is 1514. Just for the record, Chief Jones, did I ask you any questions about the case while we were on break? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No you did not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. You were getting ready to say something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, there’s there’s a lot a lot going on and it’s very unfortunate on what happened to this young man. At no time was I ever made aware of any allegation of staff misconduct, inappropriate behavior for this kid. I had a great working relationship with this young man. I was very fond of him and his work. He had a very good work ethic. When I talked to him that day, you know, he was very concerned, you know, he because he enjoyed his job. So he felt like he was letting himself down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ve just heard Jones kind of make these pretty strong statements, you know, about what she knew and she didn’t know. And also, you know, about her personal care for Valentino. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s strange. She is so emphatic about not knowing anything about the harassment or anything else. And she sounds like she has some emotion about Valentino’s death. But if Valentino told her about the harassment he was getting, as he had said he did as his supervisor, she was required to investigate any allegations of misconduct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think there are a few other things that are kind of concerning about this exchange. You know, the Office of Internal Affairs investigator doesn’t even ask her about the allegations regarding planted drugs or weapons. And it’s potentially, you know, potentially they did ask her about it and it’s redacted. But if even so, if they did ask her about it, they really moved away from it very quickly because the entire interview is quite short. And we do know from testimony in front of the state personnel board that Jones was there for that search that happened that happened the day before Valentino died. So it just kind of raises questions about why they don’t ask the questions that I think we would ask or that they should ask if they were really kind of concerned and probing for where the failures were along the way. You know, next up, let’s get into some of the tape about this other guy who had a key role in the story, who didn’t agree to talk to us. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, this guy was the internal affairs sergeant, then he moved up to Lieutenant. I now know that he is working actually for the Office of Internal Affairs at headquarters. So he has since promoted. And he had a had a really kind of key role in how this whole thing played out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Yeah. He is another person I actually spoke to on the phone, but who refused to talk to me. He said something like, “Why would I talk to you?” Anyway, this was the guy Valentino finally vented to in the text messages, pages of them that are really painful and make these huge allegations, including that everyone from the warden on down could get fired based on what Valentino knew and what he had witnessed. The same series of texts triggered that final conversation with the warden. So here’s what Strohmaier says about that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, uh, back in approximately September of 2020. Did he describe some mistreatment that that he he alleged by other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs: \u003c/b>Can you just describe what he told you in that text? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, the text was extremely long. I’m sure you’ve seen it. I read about half of it. He was talking about how he was pretty much being picked on [redacted]. Any little, called names. He was his anxiety was so high that he was throwing up in the restroom for you know being in the bathroom for hours at a time. Vomiting. He didn’t like going to work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie It’s interesting because Strohmaier sounds of two minds in this interview. Remember, he’s the one who took action and passed Valentino’s allegations on to the warden. But in this interview, he doesn’t really want to own that. Like he claims he only read half of Valentino’s texts. And there’s something else like he definitely fudges some things in this interview. For example, he says he forwarded these texts to the warden right away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Asked if I could call and set up a meeting with the warden to um, because he want to let him know what’s going on in the unit. When I got the phone, I immediately called Jeff Lynch. He said, “No problem I’ll send uh \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gena Jones:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who’s the chief deputy to come in for me tomorrow and have him come up here at nine o’clock in the morning.” And that’s what happened. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we know that is not accurate. Like there was at least another three weeks before he sent these to the warden. And then the meeting happened the next day. So I don’t know if he was just sitting on it or considering whether he wanted to forward it or not, but he did end up forwarding it to the warden. But in this interview, he kind of misrepresents the timing on those things. And then, you know, that fateful meeting happens. Here’s what Strohmaier says about the meeting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr. Lynch said, “Well, depending on what you tell me, there’s no guarantee no one’s going to get in trouble.” We sat down for about an hour. He went over every little thing that he pretty much said in the text. Reiterated to Mr. Lynch while he took notes, every allegation Rodriguez made, Lynch would write it down and say, “was there a supervisor present?” And he would pretty much say yes [redacted]. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you observed Warden Lynch taking notes. Do you know what happened to those notes? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do not know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was another point where my jaw kind of dropped when I was first listening to these tapes because Lynch explicitly told OIA that he can’t remember if he wrote notes. Internal Affairs asks him to go take a look for them. He claims he can’t find them. So just the fact that Strohmaier kind of has this very clear memory that he tells Internal Affairs about, of Lynch taking down these meticulous notes and the fact that those were never located just seems like a really big red flag. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And at the end of the interview, despite everything that transpired, he sings the praises of the Investigative Services Unit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anything else that’s come to mind about the things I should know about what’s what, you know, related to the topics that we discussed? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not really, I really I mean, I looked at it as, I mean, I think that was the best ISU unit in the state, you know? And we’ve been told, I mean, there’s all your agents here that uh I get it. There might have been a conflict and maybe locker room gossip talk, you know, who knows? And it’s true. They never did it in front of me they’re not stupid enough to do it in front of their supervisor. But, I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s kind of incredible, right? Okay. Last but not least at all, we also did get the Office of Internal Affairs interview with the warden with Lynch, in which he answers questions about that final meeting that he had with Valentino shortly before he died. And I’m not going to play that much of it because it’s honestly like he doesn’t say very much that’s new and it just didn’t have that much value. But I’m going to play you a little bit here just so you can kind of hear the tone of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you mentioned earlier that he had he had talked about making statements have been made that would violate the EEO policy. And you’ve given me a couple examples that would clearly violate that. Were there any others that he brought up that you recall? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The awkward silence is me thinking so I apologize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No that’s okay. That’s okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure there were. It’s just not coming right to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. He gave a pretty sanitized version of Valentino’s harassment allegations. And then he describes how he asked Valentino to write a memo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked for a written statement. He said he wasn’t willing to provide it, that he didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. I explained to him kind of how we operate, how we work. And I encouraged him to give me a written document, particularly from the perspective of the EEO side of things. He was resistant to do it, but said he would at least consider it. But of course, I never saw it. We waited for it for the, you know, through the weekend and then hopefully to see it maybe the first part of the week. And then obviously the whole thing fell apart after that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, most striking is what the investigators don’t push him on. You know, they don’t appear to really question Lynch at all about the choices that he made. You know, his choice not to turn to OIA with those serious allegations of drugs and weapons. You know, the decision to do this search, which exposed Valentino as a whistleblower. They don’t really push him on anything, you know, even about the notes that he clearly, at least should have taken about that meeting. You know, the investigator has this tone that just sounds really deferential. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think they’re very, very careful with wardens. You know, he’s worked his way up through the ranks. He is the face of CDCR. To do anything that would discredit him. It sort of undermines the whole public image of CDCR. And wardens are very powerful. They really control what goes on inside there. And they also control what information gets out about what happened. He or she decides what gets investigated. And also, even though they’ve changed this process a little bit at CDCR to bring in some more outside influence in looking at allegations, it still comes back to the warden at the end of the day. Even if an outside even outside office, a statewide office says, “yeah, we think there’s a problem here, here, warden, do something about this misconduct.” The warden can say, “I agree and I’m going to discipline them,” or, “I don’t agree,” or, “I do agree, but I’m not going to discipline them.” Still has so much power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and it seems like they’re given a lot of power. They’re given so much trust, you know, by the agency. They’re these kind of official representatives of it. So if they are found to be doing wrong or if they are found to, you know, be betraying the public’s trust in any way, it really kind of undermines the entire agency it feels like in a different way than just, you know, if if a line officer does and then is fired or something like that. You were mentioning, you know, some of the changes that CDCR has made. And we’re going to get into that in the next section. We’re going to talk with somebody who’s been involved in prison reform in California for decades, been part of a really important effort. And we’re going to bring you that conversation after the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole series and our focus on New Folsom in particular began because we noticed this anomaly in the investigative records that we were getting from CDCR. There were so many more of these really serious use of force incidents at this one prison. And one of our first calls to try and understand what these numbers meant was to this law firm, Rosen Bien Galvin & Grunfeld, which has been involved in a class action lawsuit against CDCR since 1994 — 30 years. A result of that have been a number of really widespread reforms ordered by the court that have affected all people in prison, even though the lawsuit is specifically focused on people with disabilities. When we called them up, they said, “We don’t have as many clients at New Folsom, but we have heard about some problems at that prison. And have you guys heard about the two whistleblowers that died there?” That conversation was more than two years and a podcast ago. And so and I wanted to sit down with an attorney with that law firm again to hear what they have been up to and to get their reaction to the series. Here’s that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello. Thanks so much for coming in, can you please introduce yourself? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Penny Godbold\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and I’m an attorney at Rosen Bien Galvin and Grunfeld were a civil rights law firm. And I represent people in prison with disabilities under the Armstrong class action case. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And can you describe in your own words the Armstrong class action case? Like, what is the nature of that litigation that your firm brought against CDCR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a long standing class action that’s about making prisons physically accessible to people with disabilities and making sure that the people who are incarcerated in the state of California, for example, if they need a wheelchair, that they have a wheelchair, if they need hearing aids, that they have hearing aids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you give me an example of why that would be important and how people’s needs have not been met? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Years ago, the example that came to mind was a case of a person with a disability who was being made to crawl up a flight of stairs in order to have access to the what is now the Board of Parole hearings, in order to be able to argue his case that he should be released on parole. So the state of California has come a long way towards providing basic disability accommodations to people in prison. But there’s still more work to be done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there anything that you heard in the podcast that jumped out at you in terms of recognizing similar themes to what you’ve heard from your clients? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. One of the aspects of the podcast that has really resonated with me is the difficulty people face in coming forward to report problems in prison. There’s a reluctance to believe incarcerated people. And there was a person who was deaf and use sign language to communicate, failed to follow a verbal order that he didn’t hear that was ordered by staff. And that also resulted in a use of force incident. And he complained and there was no accountability action. So we took these reports, declarations to the court and said this is what’s happening in California prisons and something needs to be done to protect the disability rights. And there’s a lot of people out there who have experienced staff misconduct who were willing to eventually talk to us, who were not willing to come forward and report it to CDCR or report it to a federal court, because there’s a very real risk of retaliation. When somebody files a staff complaint in CDCR, one of the first things that happens is that the staff member is notified that a complaint has been filed against them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you talk a little bit about the kind of spiral of retaliation that can happen for somebody who makes a complaint against a correctional officer? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What we hear from our clients is if you file a staff complaint about the use of force incident that you were involved in, then you get sucked into a cycle of retaliation that starts with receiving a disciplinary write up for something that happened during the use of force incident itself. Typically, assault on a police officer during the course of the officer using force against you. And that starts a chain reaction of negative consequences for an incarcerated person. You’re moved to segregation. You lose your property, including letters and and photos from family members that mean so much to people. Your hearing aids might get lost in the transfer. And that’s just the common example that we hear people talk about. But there’s a lot of other less obvious forms of retaliation that people share with us. Something like an officer failing to release them from their cell to to receive medication — that can be retaliatory. And the officer might be able to say that’s not retaliation. I just wasn’t able to release them from their cell at that moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What it took to get people to come forward, to tell those stories was tremendous. I would say it it took years to bring the kind of litigation that prompted the most recent orders by the court. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You mentioned the most recent orders. Let’s get into that. This started from events happening in a particular prison, but it’s gotten bigger than that. Can you walk us through what the impetus of that was? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We initially started hearing about reports of staff misconduct at one particular prison. And what we learned over time through talking to other incarcerated people is that that phenomenon of disability related staff misconduct and staff misconduct generally, it’s of course, not limited to one prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know from my reporting that that particular prison you’re referencing is Richard J. Donovan in San Diego. Can you just tell me a little bit more about the types of incidents that were happening there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was an extreme amount of force being used and force that was resulting in broken bones and serious bodily injury. And in fact, the Department of Corrections convened a strike team and the strike team went down there and found that there were very serious problems and filed a report and called for changes at the institution. Those changes were not implemented and that was part of the impetus for the court ordering changes. But CDCR’s own findings were that there was a level of violence being reported at that prison. And in particular, people with disabilities and other vulnerabilities were being impacted, and something needed to be done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But wait a minute, CDCR came to that decision itself, right, that there were these serious problems? So why weren’t those changes implemented? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a good question. I think at the end of the day, CDCR headquarters would be responsible for receiving a report like that and implementing changes. And I can’t answer the question about why it wasn’t done. That is the question. But, in terms of the the court orders themselves right now, they extend to six different CDCR institutions that house a large number of people with disabilities. The most significant remedy has been the implementation of body worn cameras and fixed cameras at these six prisons. And almost immediately, we started hearing reports from our class members at the institutions where the cameras were implemented that unreported, serious use of force incidents went way down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what’s the latest of what’s going on with the lawsuit? And is there a particular area you’re focusing on now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the challenges that we’re seeing after implementation of the court orders right now is that there are body worn cameras. There is video evidence at the six prisons. And yet there are a lot of reasons why the video evidence is not preserved or produced for investigations. Video evidence right now under policy is preserved for 90 days. Somebody who’s involved in a staff misconduct incident might want to wait until they’re moved off of a prison yard, particular yard with an officer who they had this problem with. And that might occur after 90 days. So if they wait until they are located somewhere else and then they filed their complaint, the video is lost. So one of the the primary areas where there is a need for significant improvement is extending the preservation time for footage for all footage. Also just attempting to extend the body worn camera requirements statewide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is that something that CDCR has indicated any willingness to do to spread to all the institutions? I mean they have been sort of, “No, we’re not going to do this. Yes, we will do it. Okay. We’ll do it at a few prisons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to give CDCR credit for extending camera coverage at four additional prisons that they were not court ordered to have cameras at. That’s significant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including New Folsom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, there were a lot of staff complaints coming out of New Folsom. They so far have been unwilling to extend body worn cameras beyond those four additional prisons. So that’s something that we continue to push on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things we found in the podcast was, of course, that the incarcerated person will have this write up on them. And even if what the incident is investigated and even if the officers are found to have engaged in misconduct, the write up of the incarcerated person doesn’t disappear. They continue to pay for the thing that didn’t happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that’s one area that we have been working really hard to bring to the court’s attention and to the fact that in the same way that the staff misconduct investigations are not complete reports of what happened, neither are these disciplinary charges that people are found guilty of, and yet it remains in their file and they continue to suffer the consequences of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. You know when I step back from this… been reporting on California prisons for almost 20 years and have seen a lot of court orders issued and a lot of evidentiary hearings, and, to prove that court orders are not being followed and subsequent court orders, etc., etc. It can be like the court comes up with a prescription and there’s a new rule, but the spirit of the rule is not followed. I hear this a lot that that CDCR will implement a change, but it’s more like they’re checking off a box. “Yeah, we did this.” But not actually addressing the fundamental underlying problem, which is often a lack of respect and a complete imbalance of power because we are talking about prison and just always assuming the worst of the incarcerated population. Do you have any hope that that will change? The way that prisons are run will actually shift? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am hopeful, but it’s more than can be accomplished through a court ordering additional training. Staff can go sit in a one hour training once a year and learn that they are required to accommodate people with disabilities. But that has to be put into practice throughout the prisons and supervisors need to model how that’s done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, the governor introduced the California model last year. Can you define it? Do you think it’s going to make a difference? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have to say that I do have hope for change. I have learned the art of having hope from my incarcerated clients, because if they can get out of bed in the morning while they’re, you know, locked in a prison cell and facing 20 years in that situation, if they can have hope, then I can have hope. I do see some shortcomings in the way that California has conceived of the California model, which is largely based on taking some principles from these Scandinavian prison systems and implementing them in California. There are significant differences between the systems. The Scandinavian systems hire differently than California does. Just the the role of the officer is perceived of as something totally different in those systems. So I think there’s a lot more work to be done to make that a reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for sharing your time with us and your expertise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Thanks so much for your work, Penny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve been listening to a bonus episode of On Our Watch from KQED. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is my co-reporter. Chris Egusa produced this episode. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is our Head of Podcasts. Original Music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our Podcast Operations Manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News and KQED Chief Content Officer, Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey and Julie have some news and updates about Valentino Rodriguez Sr., Mimy Rodriguez and some of the key players at New Folsom prison. We also share a recent conversation with an attorney who has been involved in the legal fight for disability rights in California state prisons for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC7898353184\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, everyone. We’re back this week with a special bonus episode of On Our Watch. If you’re a new listener to the podcast, welcome. But this episode won’t make a lot of sense. So I suggest you go back to episode one of the season and start from the beginning of what became a really epic journey to trace the footsteps of two whistleblowers at New Folsom Prison. For those of you who’ve been following along, we have some news to share. And we got our hands on some really interesting new tapes where you can hear from some of the key figures at New Folsom who never agreed to speak to us for the podcast. Later in the episode, we’re also going to talk to a lawyer who’s played a big part in state reforms, including helping get body cameras into some California prisons. My co-reporter for this series, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, is with me today so we can talk about what all these developments mean. Hey, Julie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, Sukey. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, we want to share that we’ve been writing an article about Sergeant Kevin Steele and Correctional Officer Valentino Rodriguez, which you can check out on KQED.org, or click the link in the show notes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some really interesting tidbits in there which will be totally new to even listeners of the podcast. A video of Steele and some of the evidence that we relied on for our reporting. And it’s a summation of the findings that we came to as a result of two years of investigation in a format where you can really review what those findings are and see what the implications are and really understand the journey of Sergeant Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez Jr. How they affected each other and what that led them to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And the other big news that we have to share is about the warden, Jeff Lynch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. CDCR announced Warden Jeff Lynch is retiring this month. This is the guy who Steele blamed for failure of leadership at New Folsom Prison and who Val Senior blamed for not protecting his son. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, prison officials wouldn’t comment on Lynch’s retirement, but it is interesting timing I think. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We now know who’s replacing Lynch. Well, what do you think about the incoming warden? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So CDCr just named this new acting warden. And this is a man named Jason Shultz. He used to work at New Folsom from 2008 to 2020. He’s also spent time at the California health care facility in Stockton and California State Prison Solano. He’s a pretty well known actor in New Folsom, and he was, in fact, the head of the facility where the Ronnie Price incident happened, the captain of that facility. So for listeners, if you’ll remember from episode four, Ronnie Price is the man who told Steel that he had been tripped by officers and his face was smashed and pretty severely. And then he died the next day of a pulmonary embolism. It was a really big deal there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, that case eventually resulted in criminal conviction of three officers who tried to cover up the excessive force. And you know, that this guy was, you know, involved with that unit. That’s that’s very interesting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it is. It is really interesting. And I don’t know much more, you know, about, you know, why he got this position or if he’ll end up being the permanent warden there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. And we did check in with some of our sources who said that this guy is you know, he follows the rules. He’s worked hard. But, you know, he’s a company man. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So anyway, that’s kind of what we know so far about the acting warden. Now, I know, Julie, you talked to Val Senior recently as well. How does Val Senior feel about the warden’s retirement? And also just how is he doing in general? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, in general, like right after the podcast came out, Val Senior, he felt relief for the first time since his son’s death. You know, he got a lot of he felt like he was finally doing something. He got a lot of sympathetic emails and text messages, but he feels that CDCR is not holding the right people accountable. There were some disciplinary actions taken against some of the lower level people involved, other officers. But the warden, he is getting to retire and go on with his life. Meanwhile, Val Senior, you know, continues to suffer. This is not over for him. It will never be over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. And what about what about Valentino’s widow, Mimy? You know, how’s she doing? Have you talked to her recently? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have talked to her recently. You know, she reached out to me, actually, and, you know, wanted to see what, if anything, had happened since the podcast came out. She is, you know, picking up her life, putting it back together. She has gone back to school, which before she couldn’t concentrate well enough to stay in in her courses. She’s finishing up an undergraduate degree. She she has made a decision, though, that she was going to go into corrections and now she is not because of everything that she and her husband, Valentino, went through and her loss of Valentino. She may still do something in the law, but she seems to becoming interested in making the criminal justice system work better. But it’s really a struggle for her still. You know, she’s still in shock. You know, she’s said that this was not what her life was supposed to be. You know, she should never have ended up here. This was not the way it was supposed to go. She married the love of her life, and days later, he was dead. And it’s hard. It’s hard. How do you move on from that? And. And she doesn’t really even have people to talk to about it because how do you talk to somebody about such a profound loss and with so many questions surrounding it still? So she holds a lot of it in I think. What about some of the incarcerated people that you interviewed? Have you checked in with any of them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’ve been in touch with a number of people. You know, Joel Uribe, who listeners will remember from episode four of the podcast, who was, you know, injured in the use of force incident with officers. And he is looking at a potential release date next year and getting ready for that. He’s really excited about that. And one of the things that he’s doing is getting the tattoos removed from his face. Um if listeners remember, this was something that his mom was like a really hard ass with him about and was like, I won’t, you know, see your face. I won’t look at your face while you have those tattoos on it. So I was in touch with Joel. He’s getting those tattoos, you know, starting the process of that. And he said he’s going to do a video call with me as well when he gets them removed so I can see the his new face that he hopes to present to the outside world. Yeah. You know, he is also a little fearful, I think, about something out of prison, like it just is difficult. He’s been kind of in and out of prison for most of his life, and so you get so conditioned to experience there. So I think he’s really excited for that, hoping to get out even sooner. And also, you know, has some trepidation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s totally understandable that he would have trepidation. What have you been hearing about what’s been going on in New Folsom? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, it was another deadly year there. There were four people that were killed by homicide. CDCR only released very thin information about these incidents. But we do know that one of them was the result of a use of force. This man died after being restrained by officers. And, you know, overall, preliminary numbers that have been posted show that the rates of use of force at New Folsom remain the highest in the state. So sounds like much the same. Now, CDCR says, you know, they they declined to speak to us. We asked them again for an interview with the head of CDCR, the secretary with the outgoing warden, with the incoming warden. They declined all of those requests, but they did send us an email in which they, again, really doubled down on their statement that they’re really trying to reform things and that they don’t tolerate a code of silence and that they are really committed to officer accountability. They did not once again respond to any questions about use of force. And I asked them to at least explain why they wouldn’t talk about use of force. And they also wouldn’t talk about why they wouldn’t talk about use of force. So that continues to be a frustration just in terms of getting information about an issue that’s really, you know, I think high public interest and importance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that’s the latest that we’ve heard, you know, from CDCR officially. But thanks to our lawsuit that’s forced them to produce more documents and recordings, we did recently get something really fascinating. They sent us the interrogation tapes from that internal affairs investigation into Valentino’s harassment. Listeners will remember he really struggled in the investigative services unit because his fellow officers could be quite cruel to him. And he finally told the warden about all this misconduct he said he’d witnessed just six days before his death. So after he died, the Office of Internal Affairs talked to those officers and to higher ups at New Folsom, ostensibly to get to the bottom of things. And that’s what these tapes are from. And it was really interesting to hear from some of the players who never agreed to speak to us for the podcast. We’re going to start with someone we’ve been interested in talking to for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Gina Jones. I called her up and she told me to never call her at that number again. I reached her, but she was like, I have nothing to say to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So can you remind listeners, you know, who is Gina Jones and what was her role? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Jones was the second in command at New Folsom, just under Warden Lynch. During our reporting, it was hard to pin down her role exactly in everything that transpired. For listeners, you’ll remember Jones is the person who convinced Valentino to go out on stress leave instead of resigning completely from the department. They had this consequential meeting in which, according to Mimy, Valentino, broke down to her and divulged all the harassment he’d been experiencing, as well as misconduct that he’d witnessed from his colleagues. Here she is talking about that meeting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gena Jones:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> J-O-N-E-S, Chief Deputy Warden, CSP Sacramento. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, you’ll hear some redactions that CDCR made in these tapes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you met with Officer Rodriguez, was anybody else in that meeting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it was just he and I. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you said it was in ISU? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And and you described in that meeting you talked about [REDACTED]. And and and that the issues that he was having, as you mentioned, that he had some issues with with crime scenes and autopsies, you know, issues related to the work in ISU, that was that the source of his problem? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. I mean, he never said anything other than just cumulatively it was getting to be too much and he couldn’t handle the stress and he wasn’t sleeping. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Jones really makes it sound like the only thing bothering Valentino was this kind of persistent violence and brutality at New Folsom, which is really different from what we heard from Mimy, who said that Valentino came home really in despair and told her that he’d broken down in front of the chief deputy warden about everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, And here’s what Jones says about, you know, the harassment and whether or not she knew anything about that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was there anything said during the meeting about Officer Rodriguez being treated inappropriately by other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So just based on questions I’ve asked you to this point, is there anything that I haven’t asked you about this matter that you think is important for me to know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um there’s been a lot of scuttle going on. Obviously, the situation is pretty taxing. I apologize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you need to take a break that’s fine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can I? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yes. Let’s do that. Time is 1513. I’m going to pause the recording and we’re going to take a quick break. Okay. We’re back on the record. Time is 1514. Just for the record, Chief Jones, did I ask you any questions about the case while we were on break? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No you did not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. You were getting ready to say something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Gena Jones:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, there’s there’s a lot a lot going on and it’s very unfortunate on what happened to this young man. At no time was I ever made aware of any allegation of staff misconduct, inappropriate behavior for this kid. I had a great working relationship with this young man. I was very fond of him and his work. He had a very good work ethic. When I talked to him that day, you know, he was very concerned, you know, he because he enjoyed his job. So he felt like he was letting himself down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ve just heard Jones kind of make these pretty strong statements, you know, about what she knew and she didn’t know. And also, you know, about her personal care for Valentino. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s strange. She is so emphatic about not knowing anything about the harassment or anything else. And she sounds like she has some emotion about Valentino’s death. But if Valentino told her about the harassment he was getting, as he had said he did as his supervisor, she was required to investigate any allegations of misconduct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think there are a few other things that are kind of concerning about this exchange. You know, the Office of Internal Affairs investigator doesn’t even ask her about the allegations regarding planted drugs or weapons. And it’s potentially, you know, potentially they did ask her about it and it’s redacted. But if even so, if they did ask her about it, they really moved away from it very quickly because the entire interview is quite short. And we do know from testimony in front of the state personnel board that Jones was there for that search that happened that happened the day before Valentino died. So it just kind of raises questions about why they don’t ask the questions that I think we would ask or that they should ask if they were really kind of concerned and probing for where the failures were along the way. You know, next up, let’s get into some of the tape about this other guy who had a key role in the story, who didn’t agree to talk to us. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, this guy was the internal affairs sergeant, then he moved up to Lieutenant. I now know that he is working actually for the Office of Internal Affairs at headquarters. So he has since promoted. And he had a had a really kind of key role in how this whole thing played out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Yeah. He is another person I actually spoke to on the phone, but who refused to talk to me. He said something like, “Why would I talk to you?” Anyway, this was the guy Valentino finally vented to in the text messages, pages of them that are really painful and make these huge allegations, including that everyone from the warden on down could get fired based on what Valentino knew and what he had witnessed. The same series of texts triggered that final conversation with the warden. So here’s what Strohmaier says about that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, uh, back in approximately September of 2020. Did he describe some mistreatment that that he he alleged by other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs: \u003c/b>Can you just describe what he told you in that text? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, the text was extremely long. I’m sure you’ve seen it. I read about half of it. He was talking about how he was pretty much being picked on [redacted]. Any little, called names. He was his anxiety was so high that he was throwing up in the restroom for you know being in the bathroom for hours at a time. Vomiting. He didn’t like going to work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie It’s interesting because Strohmaier sounds of two minds in this interview. Remember, he’s the one who took action and passed Valentino’s allegations on to the warden. But in this interview, he doesn’t really want to own that. Like he claims he only read half of Valentino’s texts. And there’s something else like he definitely fudges some things in this interview. For example, he says he forwarded these texts to the warden right away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Asked if I could call and set up a meeting with the warden to um, because he want to let him know what’s going on in the unit. When I got the phone, I immediately called Jeff Lynch. He said, “No problem I’ll send uh \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gena Jones:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> who’s the chief deputy to come in for me tomorrow and have him come up here at nine o’clock in the morning.” And that’s what happened. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we know that is not accurate. Like there was at least another three weeks before he sent these to the warden. And then the meeting happened the next day. So I don’t know if he was just sitting on it or considering whether he wanted to forward it or not, but he did end up forwarding it to the warden. But in this interview, he kind of misrepresents the timing on those things. And then, you know, that fateful meeting happens. Here’s what Strohmaier says about the meeting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mr. Lynch said, “Well, depending on what you tell me, there’s no guarantee no one’s going to get in trouble.” We sat down for about an hour. He went over every little thing that he pretty much said in the text. Reiterated to Mr. Lynch while he took notes, every allegation Rodriguez made, Lynch would write it down and say, “was there a supervisor present?” And he would pretty much say yes [redacted]. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you observed Warden Lynch taking notes. Do you know what happened to those notes? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do not know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was another point where my jaw kind of dropped when I was first listening to these tapes because Lynch explicitly told OIA that he can’t remember if he wrote notes. Internal Affairs asks him to go take a look for them. He claims he can’t find them. So just the fact that Strohmaier kind of has this very clear memory that he tells Internal Affairs about, of Lynch taking down these meticulous notes and the fact that those were never located just seems like a really big red flag. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And at the end of the interview, despite everything that transpired, he sings the praises of the Investigative Services Unit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anything else that’s come to mind about the things I should know about what’s what, you know, related to the topics that we discussed? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Brandon Strohmaier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not really, I really I mean, I looked at it as, I mean, I think that was the best ISU unit in the state, you know? And we’ve been told, I mean, there’s all your agents here that uh I get it. There might have been a conflict and maybe locker room gossip talk, you know, who knows? And it’s true. They never did it in front of me they’re not stupid enough to do it in front of their supervisor. But, I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s kind of incredible, right? Okay. Last but not least at all, we also did get the Office of Internal Affairs interview with the warden with Lynch, in which he answers questions about that final meeting that he had with Valentino shortly before he died. And I’m not going to play that much of it because it’s honestly like he doesn’t say very much that’s new and it just didn’t have that much value. But I’m going to play you a little bit here just so you can kind of hear the tone of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you mentioned earlier that he had he had talked about making statements have been made that would violate the EEO policy. And you’ve given me a couple examples that would clearly violate that. Were there any others that he brought up that you recall? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The awkward silence is me thinking so I apologize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No that’s okay. That’s okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure there were. It’s just not coming right to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Special Agent Biggs:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. He gave a pretty sanitized version of Valentino’s harassment allegations. And then he describes how he asked Valentino to write a memo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jeff Lynch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked for a written statement. He said he wasn’t willing to provide it, that he didn’t want anybody to get in trouble. I explained to him kind of how we operate, how we work. And I encouraged him to give me a written document, particularly from the perspective of the EEO side of things. He was resistant to do it, but said he would at least consider it. But of course, I never saw it. We waited for it for the, you know, through the weekend and then hopefully to see it maybe the first part of the week. And then obviously the whole thing fell apart after that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, most striking is what the investigators don’t push him on. You know, they don’t appear to really question Lynch at all about the choices that he made. You know, his choice not to turn to OIA with those serious allegations of drugs and weapons. You know, the decision to do this search, which exposed Valentino as a whistleblower. They don’t really push him on anything, you know, even about the notes that he clearly, at least should have taken about that meeting. You know, the investigator has this tone that just sounds really deferential. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think they’re very, very careful with wardens. You know, he’s worked his way up through the ranks. He is the face of CDCR. To do anything that would discredit him. It sort of undermines the whole public image of CDCR. And wardens are very powerful. They really control what goes on inside there. And they also control what information gets out about what happened. He or she decides what gets investigated. And also, even though they’ve changed this process a little bit at CDCR to bring in some more outside influence in looking at allegations, it still comes back to the warden at the end of the day. Even if an outside even outside office, a statewide office says, “yeah, we think there’s a problem here, here, warden, do something about this misconduct.” The warden can say, “I agree and I’m going to discipline them,” or, “I don’t agree,” or, “I do agree, but I’m not going to discipline them.” Still has so much power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, and it seems like they’re given a lot of power. They’re given so much trust, you know, by the agency. They’re these kind of official representatives of it. So if they are found to be doing wrong or if they are found to, you know, be betraying the public’s trust in any way, it really kind of undermines the entire agency it feels like in a different way than just, you know, if if a line officer does and then is fired or something like that. You were mentioning, you know, some of the changes that CDCR has made. And we’re going to get into that in the next section. We’re going to talk with somebody who’s been involved in prison reform in California for decades, been part of a really important effort. And we’re going to bring you that conversation after the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole series and our focus on New Folsom in particular began because we noticed this anomaly in the investigative records that we were getting from CDCR. There were so many more of these really serious use of force incidents at this one prison. And one of our first calls to try and understand what these numbers meant was to this law firm, Rosen Bien Galvin & Grunfeld, which has been involved in a class action lawsuit against CDCR since 1994 — 30 years. A result of that have been a number of really widespread reforms ordered by the court that have affected all people in prison, even though the lawsuit is specifically focused on people with disabilities. When we called them up, they said, “We don’t have as many clients at New Folsom, but we have heard about some problems at that prison. And have you guys heard about the two whistleblowers that died there?” That conversation was more than two years and a podcast ago. And so and I wanted to sit down with an attorney with that law firm again to hear what they have been up to and to get their reaction to the series. Here’s that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello. Thanks so much for coming in, can you please introduce yourself? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Penny Godbold\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and I’m an attorney at Rosen Bien Galvin and Grunfeld were a civil rights law firm. And I represent people in prison with disabilities under the Armstrong class action case. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And can you describe in your own words the Armstrong class action case? Like, what is the nature of that litigation that your firm brought against CDCR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a long standing class action that’s about making prisons physically accessible to people with disabilities and making sure that the people who are incarcerated in the state of California, for example, if they need a wheelchair, that they have a wheelchair, if they need hearing aids, that they have hearing aids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you give me an example of why that would be important and how people’s needs have not been met? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Years ago, the example that came to mind was a case of a person with a disability who was being made to crawl up a flight of stairs in order to have access to the what is now the Board of Parole hearings, in order to be able to argue his case that he should be released on parole. So the state of California has come a long way towards providing basic disability accommodations to people in prison. But there’s still more work to be done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there anything that you heard in the podcast that jumped out at you in terms of recognizing similar themes to what you’ve heard from your clients? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. One of the aspects of the podcast that has really resonated with me is the difficulty people face in coming forward to report problems in prison. There’s a reluctance to believe incarcerated people. And there was a person who was deaf and use sign language to communicate, failed to follow a verbal order that he didn’t hear that was ordered by staff. And that also resulted in a use of force incident. And he complained and there was no accountability action. So we took these reports, declarations to the court and said this is what’s happening in California prisons and something needs to be done to protect the disability rights. And there’s a lot of people out there who have experienced staff misconduct who were willing to eventually talk to us, who were not willing to come forward and report it to CDCR or report it to a federal court, because there’s a very real risk of retaliation. When somebody files a staff complaint in CDCR, one of the first things that happens is that the staff member is notified that a complaint has been filed against them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you talk a little bit about the kind of spiral of retaliation that can happen for somebody who makes a complaint against a correctional officer? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What we hear from our clients is if you file a staff complaint about the use of force incident that you were involved in, then you get sucked into a cycle of retaliation that starts with receiving a disciplinary write up for something that happened during the use of force incident itself. Typically, assault on a police officer during the course of the officer using force against you. And that starts a chain reaction of negative consequences for an incarcerated person. You’re moved to segregation. You lose your property, including letters and and photos from family members that mean so much to people. Your hearing aids might get lost in the transfer. And that’s just the common example that we hear people talk about. But there’s a lot of other less obvious forms of retaliation that people share with us. Something like an officer failing to release them from their cell to to receive medication — that can be retaliatory. And the officer might be able to say that’s not retaliation. I just wasn’t able to release them from their cell at that moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What it took to get people to come forward, to tell those stories was tremendous. I would say it it took years to bring the kind of litigation that prompted the most recent orders by the court. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You mentioned the most recent orders. Let’s get into that. This started from events happening in a particular prison, but it’s gotten bigger than that. Can you walk us through what the impetus of that was? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We initially started hearing about reports of staff misconduct at one particular prison. And what we learned over time through talking to other incarcerated people is that that phenomenon of disability related staff misconduct and staff misconduct generally, it’s of course, not limited to one prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know from my reporting that that particular prison you’re referencing is Richard J. Donovan in San Diego. Can you just tell me a little bit more about the types of incidents that were happening there? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was an extreme amount of force being used and force that was resulting in broken bones and serious bodily injury. And in fact, the Department of Corrections convened a strike team and the strike team went down there and found that there were very serious problems and filed a report and called for changes at the institution. Those changes were not implemented and that was part of the impetus for the court ordering changes. But CDCR’s own findings were that there was a level of violence being reported at that prison. And in particular, people with disabilities and other vulnerabilities were being impacted, and something needed to be done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But wait a minute, CDCR came to that decision itself, right, that there were these serious problems? So why weren’t those changes implemented? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a good question. I think at the end of the day, CDCR headquarters would be responsible for receiving a report like that and implementing changes. And I can’t answer the question about why it wasn’t done. That is the question. But, in terms of the the court orders themselves right now, they extend to six different CDCR institutions that house a large number of people with disabilities. The most significant remedy has been the implementation of body worn cameras and fixed cameras at these six prisons. And almost immediately, we started hearing reports from our class members at the institutions where the cameras were implemented that unreported, serious use of force incidents went way down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what’s the latest of what’s going on with the lawsuit? And is there a particular area you’re focusing on now? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the challenges that we’re seeing after implementation of the court orders right now is that there are body worn cameras. There is video evidence at the six prisons. And yet there are a lot of reasons why the video evidence is not preserved or produced for investigations. Video evidence right now under policy is preserved for 90 days. Somebody who’s involved in a staff misconduct incident might want to wait until they’re moved off of a prison yard, particular yard with an officer who they had this problem with. And that might occur after 90 days. So if they wait until they are located somewhere else and then they filed their complaint, the video is lost. So one of the the primary areas where there is a need for significant improvement is extending the preservation time for footage for all footage. Also just attempting to extend the body worn camera requirements statewide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is that something that CDCR has indicated any willingness to do to spread to all the institutions? I mean they have been sort of, “No, we’re not going to do this. Yes, we will do it. Okay. We’ll do it at a few prisons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to give CDCR credit for extending camera coverage at four additional prisons that they were not court ordered to have cameras at. That’s significant. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including New Folsom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, there were a lot of staff complaints coming out of New Folsom. They so far have been unwilling to extend body worn cameras beyond those four additional prisons. So that’s something that we continue to push on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things we found in the podcast was, of course, that the incarcerated person will have this write up on them. And even if what the incident is investigated and even if the officers are found to have engaged in misconduct, the write up of the incarcerated person doesn’t disappear. They continue to pay for the thing that didn’t happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that’s one area that we have been working really hard to bring to the court’s attention and to the fact that in the same way that the staff misconduct investigations are not complete reports of what happened, neither are these disciplinary charges that people are found guilty of, and yet it remains in their file and they continue to suffer the consequences of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. You know when I step back from this… been reporting on California prisons for almost 20 years and have seen a lot of court orders issued and a lot of evidentiary hearings, and, to prove that court orders are not being followed and subsequent court orders, etc., etc. It can be like the court comes up with a prescription and there’s a new rule, but the spirit of the rule is not followed. I hear this a lot that that CDCR will implement a change, but it’s more like they’re checking off a box. “Yeah, we did this.” But not actually addressing the fundamental underlying problem, which is often a lack of respect and a complete imbalance of power because we are talking about prison and just always assuming the worst of the incarcerated population. Do you have any hope that that will change? The way that prisons are run will actually shift? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am hopeful, but it’s more than can be accomplished through a court ordering additional training. Staff can go sit in a one hour training once a year and learn that they are required to accommodate people with disabilities. But that has to be put into practice throughout the prisons and supervisors need to model how that’s done. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, the governor introduced the California model last year. Can you define it? Do you think it’s going to make a difference? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have to say that I do have hope for change. I have learned the art of having hope from my incarcerated clients, because if they can get out of bed in the morning while they’re, you know, locked in a prison cell and facing 20 years in that situation, if they can have hope, then I can have hope. I do see some shortcomings in the way that California has conceived of the California model, which is largely based on taking some principles from these Scandinavian prison systems and implementing them in California. There are significant differences between the systems. The Scandinavian systems hire differently than California does. Just the the role of the officer is perceived of as something totally different in those systems. So I think there’s a lot more work to be done to make that a reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for sharing your time with us and your expertise. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Thanks so much for your work, Penny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Penny Godbold:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve been listening to a bonus episode of On Our Watch from KQED. I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is my co-reporter. Chris Egusa produced this episode. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is our Head of Podcasts. Original Music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our Podcast Operations Manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News and KQED Chief Content Officer, Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get a behind-the-scenes peek at the reporting for On Our Watch: New Folsom as Ayesha Rascoe, host of NPR’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/1213771050/the-sunday-story-from-up-first\">The Sunday Story from Up First\u003c/a>, speaks with Sukey about the season and the wider context of this kind of journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6251136710\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hi, it’s Sukey. This will be our last bonus episode for a while, but we’ll definitely update you if there are any new developments in our reporting. And from time to time, we’ll also share some other podcasts we think you might be interested in checking out. Today I wanted to share a conversation I had on a different show, the Up First podcast from NPR, where you’ll get to hear more of the backstory behind On Our Watch. Here’s that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Ayesha Rascoe, and this is a Sunday story. A warning before we get started, this episode contains mentions of suicide. In recent years, high profile cases of police brutality across the US have brought increased attention and scrutiny to police misconduct and use of force incidents. When something happens, the police often say, “We’re investigating.” But what’s really being done, or not done, to ensure police are held accountable for their actions? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2021, a team of reporters from KQED partnered with NPR to take a closer look at the process for how police policed themselves. They made a podcast called On Our Watch, and it was focused on select cases of police misconduct in California. Today, I’m speaking with criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, the host of On Our Watch. She and her team have continued to uncover thousands of previously sealed Internal Affairs law enforcement records as part of the multi-newsroom California Reporting Project. Sukey tells me about the reporting behind the new season of her show. In season two, the show digs into recent incidents at one of the most dangerous prisons in California. Our conversation about the story she found within the closed world of correctional facilities, and what it takes to investigate what happens inside of a prison… After the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back with The Sunday Story. Here with criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, host of the KQED podcast On Our Watch. Sukey, welcome to the program. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks so much for having me on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get into the reporting for the season of On Our Watch, talk to me about the California Reporting Project. You co-founded that in 2018, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So in 2018, the state here in California passed a new law that would open up internal police records, you know, for the first time, basically, we’d get to see inside this black box of police internal affairs. And that law was called the Right to Know Act. And it affected certain categories of internal records, including deadly use of force incidents, serious use of force incidents, which means, you know, when somebody gets really badly injured by police, and dishonesty and sexual assault or sexual misconduct on duty by police officers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This law gave you access to the paper trail that opened the window to these police departments and how they run, because there’s always a paper trail, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. And for years here in California, it was very secretive. You couldn’t see that paper trail. So some states, like Florida, have had open records laws for a long time. But here in California, because of the power of the police unions, you just could never know. You could never know if somebody was disciplined or fired or like what had happened. And so we teamed up with a group of different news organizations across the state to file blanket public records requests at all 700 law enforcement agencies across the state to start understanding how these systems work. What happens when serious police shooting happens? What happens when you file a complaint against a police officer for excessive force? And they say we’re going to investigate. How does a deadly use of force investigation unfold? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So. So season one of On Our Watch came directly out of this reporting. You examined select misconduct cases and and kind of the shadowy world of police discipline. So what were some of the big lessons or takeaways from your reporting on season one? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think one of our biggest findings was that those promises that we have been made in the public that, “we’re investigating, people will be held accountable,” are really based on this false assumption that its purpose is to provide accountability and that that’s actually not its purpose. It’s a risk management tool. Basically like H.R. Right? If you’re an employee and you make a complaint to H.R., their goal isn’t necessarily to hold the person you made a complaint about to justice. Their goal is to protect the company from liability. That’s what we really found, especially in a secretive system with internal affairs in the world of policing, it was much more about protecting the police department and the city from liability. So sometimes that would mean accountability. Sometimes that would mean an officer gets fired or disciplined because that’s what would protect the city. But that was not actually the goal or the purpose of this institution or the system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this season, you focused on correctional facilities, prisons. How did you decide on that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We decided to turn to the world of correctional facilities in California, because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is actually the largest employer of peace officers in the state. And while we had gotten some insight into how police departments were functioning and how these internal affairs systems were working in police departments, the world of corrections is even more of a closed system. I mean, it’s literally behind walls, right? And so getting behind those walls, even if it was just through the paper trail, as you say, seemed like a really important thing to do. And to understand how these prisons, how these small cities work, and how, accountability works in a, in a system where often the people who are making complaints are incarcerated and have even less power than a civilian on the street. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did you land on the prison that you focused on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we ended up focusing on a prison known as New Folsom or California State Prison Sacramento. And that’s because as we are analyzing data and records from prisons all across the state, there was this pattern that kind of jumped off the page at us. And it for this category of serious use of force incidents — that’s when an officer uses deadly force or seriously injures somebody — there were three times as many of those type of incidents at this one prison than any other prison in the state. And this just kind of raised our alarm bells. We were like, you know, “What is going on at this prison? You know, why is that such an anomaly in the data? Let’s look closer.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We took our findings to some attorneys who work in this space. And these attorneys, they were also surprised. But they said this prison has been, you know, kind of known, known problem. They said, did you know about the whistleblowers that died there? There are these two whistleblowers that died there in the last year. And those two whistleblowers names were correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele. Officer Valentino Rodriguez. His death was found to be accidental overdose due to fentanyl. And the second officer, Sergeant Kevin Steele, who died about ten months later, died by suicide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So within the space of a year, two whistleblowers at this prison had died. I mean, I think that’s going to stop anybody in they tracks. What did you think when you first heard that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, your first thought goes to, is there foul play? Is someone retaliating against these whistleblowers? And so we started doing, you know, what we as investigative journalists do. My colleague Julie Small reached out to the family of Valentino Rodriguez. We both started filing public records requests for the death investigations of each of these men to try and understand what had happened to them, and if there was anything in those death investigations that pointed back to the prison or to to anything else that we needed to uncover. Ultimately, we did not find any evidence of foul play in either case, but we learned a lot more about what they had each been uncovering before they died. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up after the break, Sukey and her team follow the trail of evidence left by correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele after their deaths. We’re back with a Sunday story. Sukey, once you heard about the two whistleblowers who’d worked at the same prison, New Folsom, you started retracing the events before their deaths. How did you go about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one person who ended up being a really key source for us was the father of correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez, who has the same name. So his name is Valentino Rodriguez, Senior. And he ended up being really central to our story. My colleague Julie reached out to him and at first he was really, you know, cautious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just I just want this to work both ways. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I need to know what you’re doing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all I’ve ever asked. I- nobody even knows we’re having these meetings other than my wife. Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we met him, Val Senior was really clearly, you know, still in the midst of the grieving process. And I think part of that process for him was trying to understand, you know, what led to his son’s passing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just can’t I just can’t turn my back on my son, you know what I mean? And, I owe that to him, and I’m going to go as far as I can. And. And then in the end, if nothing, there’s nothing I tried. Right? I’ll find my answers when my time comes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So he started to share with us the evidence that he had been gathering, including his son’s phone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What did you learn about who Valentino Rodriguez was, how he was as a person, and and this journey that he was on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was it was really incredible. We learned a lot about him. He was a really kind of funny, goofy guy. One of the, you know, things that we found on his phone was this video of him in the Investigative Services unit offices inside this prison. It’s one of the most dangerous prisons in the state of California. And he sets up the camera, and then he steps back, and then he starts dancing, and he’s practicing. He’s learning the cumbia because he’s about to get married. And so he’s practicing the cumbia in this, you know, in this office. And, I just loved kind of coming across these little artifacts of who this person was. He also had a dog named Daisy that he loved and would sing to his dog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Jr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Super Dog. Super Dog. This the song about Daisy, the Super Dog. One day there was a dog named Daisy, and she was super lazy… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he really worked hard at the prison, like he was really wanted to get into this investigative unit. It was a big career opportunity for him. But the unit itself, once he joined, they didn’t really think he had earned the right to be there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when he had his first day there, he had come over after. And, I asked him, “How’s your how was your first day?” And he goes, “It was a bunch of older guys that have been there.” He called them OGs. I says, “How do you go?” And he goes, “They asked who the f*** are you?” You know, his first day, and I just, “Eh that’s prison talk, I guess.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, they they had a nickname for him called “Half Patch” to indicate, like he he wasn’t a full member of the team, and he didn’t quite deserve to be there yet. And you can see in his phone, you know, he is trying really hard to fit in with this group of guys and they kind of needle him and call him names, like, just really kind of harassing behavior, you know, from work colleagues. You can see that it really does begin to take a toll on Valentino, and he starts to struggle with his mental health. So he actually has a breakdown at work one day and shares with the chief deputy warden that he is going through some, some really difficult things. And she tells him, okay, you should go out on stress leave. And so he takes some time off work from the prison. But even once he leaves the prison, he really can’t leave it all the way. Like he’s still mentally there and still kind of struggling with the effects of his time there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember sitting on the couch with him and him saying. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Mimy Rodriguez, Valentino’s wife. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember this very clearly. He said, “This is my identity.” He’s like, “I feel like I’ve given up on everything. I feel like I gave up on my job.” He wasn’t at the prison physically, but mentally he was still there. He was still talking to people from the prison. He was still reaching out to people from the- people from the prison were reaching out to him, telling him what was going on within the prison. He he had not at all let that go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reading through his text messages, you can see it’s not like he sets out to become a whistleblower. It’s just eating away at him and he can’t quite let it go. He can’t quite turn away from what he’s seen in the prison. And so six days before his death, he ends up going in to talk to the warden, and he tells them about the harassment that he experienced personally, and also different kinds of misconduct that he witnessed, including allegations that other officers in the unit that he worked in were involved in planting drugs and weapons on incarcerated people. And that’s really important because the unit that he worked in is kind of like the police force for the prison. They have this very special role. And so if they’re dirty, that could taint criminal cases that stem from the investigations they do. And the officers in this unit are supposed to be held to a higher standard because they have this higher level of responsibility in the prison than other officers do. So after he makes this report, the word eventually gets out that he’s talked. And he was really nervous about that happening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So he was nervous about anybody coming to the house. At one point he had put things at the door, so if someone opened it, you can hear the door open. He also like he had a gun and he would sleep with it just to make sure. And I’m like, “What? Who’s coming?” And I would ask him like, “Is everything okay?” You know, “Who’s- who are you nervous about coming? What is going on?” It’s hard to. It’s hard to see the person you love turn into something different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The night that he died, one of the last text messages you can see he sent to his wife was, “It’s out now that I told on the team.” And then she comes home to find him slumped over in the bathroom and no longer breathing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s I mean, it’s so horrible. Who is the other whistleblower? Tell me about him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the other whistleblower, his name is Sergeant Kevin Steele. He had worked for the California Department of Corrections for about 20 years at this point. He is a military veteran. Just this real kind of straight arrow guy had a very kind of rigorous sense of morality, a very rigorous sense of right and wrong. He’s seen a lot and been through a lot, and was beginning to come to this point of disillusionment with these systems that he had been promised were going to affect change and provide accountability. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s in this environment that his friend Valentino Rodriguez passes away. And so I think for Steele at this point, Valentino’s death was kind of like the last straw for him. He felt like all these things he’s seen over the years and tried to report up the chain had not been properly addressed. And then there was this kind of moral failing in response to the death of an officer and how they treated Latino’s family after his death. And so Steele decides to make his last stand, basically. And what he does is he writes up a memo to the warden detailing the list of failings, as he sees it — times where the institution failed to keep its promises to the public, and times where it failed to keep people safe, and times where it failed to protect officers from harassment and things like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so he writes up this memo and sends it off to the warden. And after that, he actually leaves California. He moves to Missouri, and it seems like his plan was to drop this bomb and then right off into the sunset. He was planning to retire at the end of the year and just kind of be done with the prison and with this whole institution. But much like we saw with Valentino, even though Sergeant Kevin Steele is out of the prison and, you know, even miles and miles away, he’s still trapped there mentally. And, you know, at one point, about eight months after he’s he’s left the state, things reach a head for him. And one day, Steele goes into the shed on his property in Missouri and he doesn’t come out again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean these are, you know, two extremely tragic losses. But both of these whistleblowers, they left behind evidence for you to understand New Folsom, right? The the failures that happened there, like for Valentino, you had his phone and and Steele wrote a memo that talked about his concerns about use of force incidents going back years. What did you find out when you started looking into those? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the things that was really incredible about this story is the evidence that was left behind. Steele’s memo kind of gave us this key to understanding what he saw was wrong with these incidents, which was that the injuries that people were showing up in the hospital with — incarcerated people — were not matching the reports. So we started kind of looking at our incident reports, kind of through this lens that he had left for us. And seeing how repeatedly, these incident reports had this kind of pattern to them, almost. And a lot of these incidents, that appeared very troubling, you know, occurred in areas where there was no camera coverage. And the use of force described often did not, you know, at all make sense on how they got injured. So it would be something like I think one of them was like, “We guided the man to the floor and they ended up, you know, with internal bleeding and, and broken ribs.” And you’re like, okay, like how how does that even make- make that makes sense, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what we saw over and over again in these cases is that they didn’t result in discipline for officers. Well, you know, one theme that we just kind of ran into over and over again is the code of silence. And it’s basically an agreement, you know, unspoken agreement to never tell on each other. And it’s this is something that we’ve seen in policing as well with the Thin Blue line. But I would say it’s even stronger in a prison context. And because there isn’t that thing of a bystander who can kind of intercede or be an outside witness to events, that code of silence is just a really, really thick wall to break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so many people that we talked to, we talked to correctional officers for this story, many of whom did not want to go on the record because they fear retaliation. Even retired officers who still feel like potentially the agency could come after them for their pensions if they talk. There is no real incentive to do so. Like even institutionally, you will be reassigned. You will not be rewarded basically for for reporting things like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re confirming this culture of silence that both Steele and Val experienced and and tried to disrupt. What did you ultimately end up finding out about their deaths? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So again, we did not find there was any evidence of foul play. But I feel like our reporting really does clearly show that they were victims. They were victims of this system, and they were victims of this code of silence and that fear and the kind of psychosocial trauma that they experienced by having to go against this, this machine, in order to try and do what they felt was the right thing, really contributed to their deaths, and contributed to the decline of their mental health and led them to to their end. And this was, in fact, a finding that was made after their deaths. Their widows filed basically workers compensation claims with the state to get their death benefits. And during that process, they found that these deaths were industrial. These deaths were related to their jobs and their work as correctional officers for the state of California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your sources included law enforcement, former law enforcement, incarcerated people, their their family members. Like, what are the particular challenges of reporting in and about a prison? Like how does it require a different approach, especially when you’re dealing with people who likely have dealt with some very traumatic things? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there are a lot of different challenges. I think, you know, in terms of bringing correctional officers in in to feeling like they could speak to us and trust us, it was a lot of conversations about confidentiality, how we could keep them protected, and also that we were trying to tell a deep, nuanced story that that wasn’t just a story about how correctional officers always are using excessive force or something like that. It was this story that we had found, which was very complicated, and it was about the the mental impacts of working inside a prison on officers, and that they experienced some of the same difficult things that incarcerated people experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then for the incarcerated people that we spoke to, there was also a lot of different factors to consider. You know, for one thing, a lot of the phone conversations, or all the phone conversations that we had are recorded. So you know that you are being listened in on and that what they say could have impacts for their lives. Some people I talked to have been in prison for years have kind of a vague idea about what a podcast is, but not everybody does, you know? So just kind of walking people through like what- what this means, what their participation means, what going on their record means and stuff like that, so they can be informed and make informed decisions about participating or not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then, you know, in terms of people who have been dealing with trauma, you know, we talked to Val Senior, obviously, who was kind of in in the throes of his own grieving process. We talked to the family of Sergeant Kevin Steele as well, his brother, who agreed to go on the record with us. And we talked to Mimy, Valentino Rodriguez’s wife. And I think, you know, just in terms of having a trauma informed approach as much as possible, a lot of it was about giving them the power, not trying to be extractive, or just take their story and see how it fit in with our narrative. But to hold space for them to talk about what they had gone through and also the power to be like, “Okay, if you don’t feel like you said that right, or if you want to rethink that, like this is how you’re going to be portrayed in the story, this is the context in which your story is going to be used. Are you comfortable with that?” And saying “if you’re not, you can take it back any time.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so it was a lot more conversation than I think you would normally have of going back to sources and playing pieces of tape for them and that kind of thing, but it really felt like the responsible thing to do. So there were no surprises when the podcast came out. And so we could also be sure that we were being accurate and that we were accurately representing the experience of our primary sources. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, people will say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Is it making the difference? Is the reporting, the transparency… How is it impacting these, these prisons? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s it’s still too soon to say. And it’s also kind of the next step. I feel like this is the first step is saying like, “Look, this is what’s happening.” And then the next step is actually beyond our power as journalists. I feel like it’s in the hands of lawmakers and the oversight bodies over the prisons, here in California or nationally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One thing that’s interesting to know about the California prison system is that there’s there is an oversight body called the office of the Inspector General of Prisons, and they do get a lot of insight into the prisons, but they have no power. So they regularly issue these reports that say “you’re doing a bad job, you need to do better.” Or like, “this person violated policy. We don’t agree with this.” But until there is a real appetite in internally in the agency to take action or body like that has teeth, this transparency only gets you so far. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s really important again, for the public to know about it, because that is how change happens, is people taking an interest and people, taking a care about this public institution that we own. Like this is our this is our bag. And so I think that’s that’s why I do this work. But then I have to hand it off and see where it goes from there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well thank you so much. I think this reporting is so important. And it’s the- it’s reporting on people who truly don’t have a voice, people who have died, people who are incarcerated. And you give them a voice. So we’re so grateful to to be able to tell this story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. And and I also feel honored, you know, that people allowed me to share their stories with so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, host of On Our Watch from KQED in San Francisco. You can listen to all eight episodes of their latest season at kqed.org/onourwatch, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Liana Simstrom, with additional editing by Jen Chien, the director of podcasts at KQED. Production support from Chris Egusa. Our engineer was Robert Rodriguez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sunday Story team includes Abby Windle and our senior editor, Jenny Schmidt. Liana Simstrom is our supervising producer and Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. If you are experiencing mental health related distress or have a loved one who needs crisis support, please call or text 988. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. I’m Ayesha Rascoe. Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Get a behind-the-scenes peek at the reporting for On Our Watch: New Folsom as Ayesha Rascoe, host of NPR’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/series/1213771050/the-sunday-story-from-up-first\">The Sunday Story from Up First\u003c/a>, speaks with Sukey about the season and the wider context of this kind of journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6251136710\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hi, it’s Sukey. This will be our last bonus episode for a while, but we’ll definitely update you if there are any new developments in our reporting. And from time to time, we’ll also share some other podcasts we think you might be interested in checking out. Today I wanted to share a conversation I had on a different show, the Up First podcast from NPR, where you’ll get to hear more of the backstory behind On Our Watch. Here’s that conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Ayesha Rascoe, and this is a Sunday story. A warning before we get started, this episode contains mentions of suicide. In recent years, high profile cases of police brutality across the US have brought increased attention and scrutiny to police misconduct and use of force incidents. When something happens, the police often say, “We’re investigating.” But what’s really being done, or not done, to ensure police are held accountable for their actions? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2021, a team of reporters from KQED partnered with NPR to take a closer look at the process for how police policed themselves. They made a podcast called On Our Watch, and it was focused on select cases of police misconduct in California. Today, I’m speaking with criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, the host of On Our Watch. She and her team have continued to uncover thousands of previously sealed Internal Affairs law enforcement records as part of the multi-newsroom California Reporting Project. Sukey tells me about the reporting behind the new season of her show. In season two, the show digs into recent incidents at one of the most dangerous prisons in California. Our conversation about the story she found within the closed world of correctional facilities, and what it takes to investigate what happens inside of a prison… After the break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back with The Sunday Story. Here with criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, host of the KQED podcast On Our Watch. Sukey, welcome to the program. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks so much for having me on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get into the reporting for the season of On Our Watch, talk to me about the California Reporting Project. You co-founded that in 2018, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So in 2018, the state here in California passed a new law that would open up internal police records, you know, for the first time, basically, we’d get to see inside this black box of police internal affairs. And that law was called the Right to Know Act. And it affected certain categories of internal records, including deadly use of force incidents, serious use of force incidents, which means, you know, when somebody gets really badly injured by police, and dishonesty and sexual assault or sexual misconduct on duty by police officers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This law gave you access to the paper trail that opened the window to these police departments and how they run, because there’s always a paper trail, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. And for years here in California, it was very secretive. You couldn’t see that paper trail. So some states, like Florida, have had open records laws for a long time. But here in California, because of the power of the police unions, you just could never know. You could never know if somebody was disciplined or fired or like what had happened. And so we teamed up with a group of different news organizations across the state to file blanket public records requests at all 700 law enforcement agencies across the state to start understanding how these systems work. What happens when serious police shooting happens? What happens when you file a complaint against a police officer for excessive force? And they say we’re going to investigate. How does a deadly use of force investigation unfold? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So. So season one of On Our Watch came directly out of this reporting. You examined select misconduct cases and and kind of the shadowy world of police discipline. So what were some of the big lessons or takeaways from your reporting on season one? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think one of our biggest findings was that those promises that we have been made in the public that, “we’re investigating, people will be held accountable,” are really based on this false assumption that its purpose is to provide accountability and that that’s actually not its purpose. It’s a risk management tool. Basically like H.R. Right? If you’re an employee and you make a complaint to H.R., their goal isn’t necessarily to hold the person you made a complaint about to justice. Their goal is to protect the company from liability. That’s what we really found, especially in a secretive system with internal affairs in the world of policing, it was much more about protecting the police department and the city from liability. So sometimes that would mean accountability. Sometimes that would mean an officer gets fired or disciplined because that’s what would protect the city. But that was not actually the goal or the purpose of this institution or the system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this season, you focused on correctional facilities, prisons. How did you decide on that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We decided to turn to the world of correctional facilities in California, because the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is actually the largest employer of peace officers in the state. And while we had gotten some insight into how police departments were functioning and how these internal affairs systems were working in police departments, the world of corrections is even more of a closed system. I mean, it’s literally behind walls, right? And so getting behind those walls, even if it was just through the paper trail, as you say, seemed like a really important thing to do. And to understand how these prisons, how these small cities work, and how, accountability works in a, in a system where often the people who are making complaints are incarcerated and have even less power than a civilian on the street. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did you land on the prison that you focused on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we ended up focusing on a prison known as New Folsom or California State Prison Sacramento. And that’s because as we are analyzing data and records from prisons all across the state, there was this pattern that kind of jumped off the page at us. And it for this category of serious use of force incidents — that’s when an officer uses deadly force or seriously injures somebody — there were three times as many of those type of incidents at this one prison than any other prison in the state. And this just kind of raised our alarm bells. We were like, you know, “What is going on at this prison? You know, why is that such an anomaly in the data? Let’s look closer.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We took our findings to some attorneys who work in this space. And these attorneys, they were also surprised. But they said this prison has been, you know, kind of known, known problem. They said, did you know about the whistleblowers that died there? There are these two whistleblowers that died there in the last year. And those two whistleblowers names were correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele. Officer Valentino Rodriguez. His death was found to be accidental overdose due to fentanyl. And the second officer, Sergeant Kevin Steele, who died about ten months later, died by suicide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So within the space of a year, two whistleblowers at this prison had died. I mean, I think that’s going to stop anybody in they tracks. What did you think when you first heard that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, your first thought goes to, is there foul play? Is someone retaliating against these whistleblowers? And so we started doing, you know, what we as investigative journalists do. My colleague Julie Small reached out to the family of Valentino Rodriguez. We both started filing public records requests for the death investigations of each of these men to try and understand what had happened to them, and if there was anything in those death investigations that pointed back to the prison or to to anything else that we needed to uncover. Ultimately, we did not find any evidence of foul play in either case, but we learned a lot more about what they had each been uncovering before they died. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up after the break, Sukey and her team follow the trail of evidence left by correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele after their deaths. We’re back with a Sunday story. Sukey, once you heard about the two whistleblowers who’d worked at the same prison, New Folsom, you started retracing the events before their deaths. How did you go about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one person who ended up being a really key source for us was the father of correctional officer Valentino Rodriguez, who has the same name. So his name is Valentino Rodriguez, Senior. And he ended up being really central to our story. My colleague Julie reached out to him and at first he was really, you know, cautious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just I just want this to work both ways. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I need to know what you’re doing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all I’ve ever asked. I- nobody even knows we’re having these meetings other than my wife. Right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we met him, Val Senior was really clearly, you know, still in the midst of the grieving process. And I think part of that process for him was trying to understand, you know, what led to his son’s passing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just can’t I just can’t turn my back on my son, you know what I mean? And, I owe that to him, and I’m going to go as far as I can. And. And then in the end, if nothing, there’s nothing I tried. Right? I’ll find my answers when my time comes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So he started to share with us the evidence that he had been gathering, including his son’s phone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What did you learn about who Valentino Rodriguez was, how he was as a person, and and this journey that he was on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was it was really incredible. We learned a lot about him. He was a really kind of funny, goofy guy. One of the, you know, things that we found on his phone was this video of him in the Investigative Services unit offices inside this prison. It’s one of the most dangerous prisons in the state of California. And he sets up the camera, and then he steps back, and then he starts dancing, and he’s practicing. He’s learning the cumbia because he’s about to get married. And so he’s practicing the cumbia in this, you know, in this office. And, I just loved kind of coming across these little artifacts of who this person was. He also had a dog named Daisy that he loved and would sing to his dog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Jr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Super Dog. Super Dog. This the song about Daisy, the Super Dog. One day there was a dog named Daisy, and she was super lazy… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he really worked hard at the prison, like he was really wanted to get into this investigative unit. It was a big career opportunity for him. But the unit itself, once he joined, they didn’t really think he had earned the right to be there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when he had his first day there, he had come over after. And, I asked him, “How’s your how was your first day?” And he goes, “It was a bunch of older guys that have been there.” He called them OGs. I says, “How do you go?” And he goes, “They asked who the f*** are you?” You know, his first day, and I just, “Eh that’s prison talk, I guess.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, they they had a nickname for him called “Half Patch” to indicate, like he he wasn’t a full member of the team, and he didn’t quite deserve to be there yet. And you can see in his phone, you know, he is trying really hard to fit in with this group of guys and they kind of needle him and call him names, like, just really kind of harassing behavior, you know, from work colleagues. You can see that it really does begin to take a toll on Valentino, and he starts to struggle with his mental health. So he actually has a breakdown at work one day and shares with the chief deputy warden that he is going through some, some really difficult things. And she tells him, okay, you should go out on stress leave. And so he takes some time off work from the prison. But even once he leaves the prison, he really can’t leave it all the way. Like he’s still mentally there and still kind of struggling with the effects of his time there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember sitting on the couch with him and him saying. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Mimy Rodriguez, Valentino’s wife. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember this very clearly. He said, “This is my identity.” He’s like, “I feel like I’ve given up on everything. I feel like I gave up on my job.” He wasn’t at the prison physically, but mentally he was still there. He was still talking to people from the prison. He was still reaching out to people from the- people from the prison were reaching out to him, telling him what was going on within the prison. He he had not at all let that go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reading through his text messages, you can see it’s not like he sets out to become a whistleblower. It’s just eating away at him and he can’t quite let it go. He can’t quite turn away from what he’s seen in the prison. And so six days before his death, he ends up going in to talk to the warden, and he tells them about the harassment that he experienced personally, and also different kinds of misconduct that he witnessed, including allegations that other officers in the unit that he worked in were involved in planting drugs and weapons on incarcerated people. And that’s really important because the unit that he worked in is kind of like the police force for the prison. They have this very special role. And so if they’re dirty, that could taint criminal cases that stem from the investigations they do. And the officers in this unit are supposed to be held to a higher standard because they have this higher level of responsibility in the prison than other officers do. So after he makes this report, the word eventually gets out that he’s talked. And he was really nervous about that happening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So he was nervous about anybody coming to the house. At one point he had put things at the door, so if someone opened it, you can hear the door open. He also like he had a gun and he would sleep with it just to make sure. And I’m like, “What? Who’s coming?” And I would ask him like, “Is everything okay?” You know, “Who’s- who are you nervous about coming? What is going on?” It’s hard to. It’s hard to see the person you love turn into something different. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The night that he died, one of the last text messages you can see he sent to his wife was, “It’s out now that I told on the team.” And then she comes home to find him slumped over in the bathroom and no longer breathing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s I mean, it’s so horrible. Who is the other whistleblower? Tell me about him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the other whistleblower, his name is Sergeant Kevin Steele. He had worked for the California Department of Corrections for about 20 years at this point. He is a military veteran. Just this real kind of straight arrow guy had a very kind of rigorous sense of morality, a very rigorous sense of right and wrong. He’s seen a lot and been through a lot, and was beginning to come to this point of disillusionment with these systems that he had been promised were going to affect change and provide accountability. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s in this environment that his friend Valentino Rodriguez passes away. And so I think for Steele at this point, Valentino’s death was kind of like the last straw for him. He felt like all these things he’s seen over the years and tried to report up the chain had not been properly addressed. And then there was this kind of moral failing in response to the death of an officer and how they treated Latino’s family after his death. And so Steele decides to make his last stand, basically. And what he does is he writes up a memo to the warden detailing the list of failings, as he sees it — times where the institution failed to keep its promises to the public, and times where it failed to keep people safe, and times where it failed to protect officers from harassment and things like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so he writes up this memo and sends it off to the warden. And after that, he actually leaves California. He moves to Missouri, and it seems like his plan was to drop this bomb and then right off into the sunset. He was planning to retire at the end of the year and just kind of be done with the prison and with this whole institution. But much like we saw with Valentino, even though Sergeant Kevin Steele is out of the prison and, you know, even miles and miles away, he’s still trapped there mentally. And, you know, at one point, about eight months after he’s he’s left the state, things reach a head for him. And one day, Steele goes into the shed on his property in Missouri and he doesn’t come out again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean these are, you know, two extremely tragic losses. But both of these whistleblowers, they left behind evidence for you to understand New Folsom, right? The the failures that happened there, like for Valentino, you had his phone and and Steele wrote a memo that talked about his concerns about use of force incidents going back years. What did you find out when you started looking into those? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the things that was really incredible about this story is the evidence that was left behind. Steele’s memo kind of gave us this key to understanding what he saw was wrong with these incidents, which was that the injuries that people were showing up in the hospital with — incarcerated people — were not matching the reports. So we started kind of looking at our incident reports, kind of through this lens that he had left for us. And seeing how repeatedly, these incident reports had this kind of pattern to them, almost. And a lot of these incidents, that appeared very troubling, you know, occurred in areas where there was no camera coverage. And the use of force described often did not, you know, at all make sense on how they got injured. So it would be something like I think one of them was like, “We guided the man to the floor and they ended up, you know, with internal bleeding and, and broken ribs.” And you’re like, okay, like how how does that even make- make that makes sense, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what we saw over and over again in these cases is that they didn’t result in discipline for officers. Well, you know, one theme that we just kind of ran into over and over again is the code of silence. And it’s basically an agreement, you know, unspoken agreement to never tell on each other. And it’s this is something that we’ve seen in policing as well with the Thin Blue line. But I would say it’s even stronger in a prison context. And because there isn’t that thing of a bystander who can kind of intercede or be an outside witness to events, that code of silence is just a really, really thick wall to break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so many people that we talked to, we talked to correctional officers for this story, many of whom did not want to go on the record because they fear retaliation. Even retired officers who still feel like potentially the agency could come after them for their pensions if they talk. There is no real incentive to do so. Like even institutionally, you will be reassigned. You will not be rewarded basically for for reporting things like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re confirming this culture of silence that both Steele and Val experienced and and tried to disrupt. What did you ultimately end up finding out about their deaths? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So again, we did not find there was any evidence of foul play. But I feel like our reporting really does clearly show that they were victims. They were victims of this system, and they were victims of this code of silence and that fear and the kind of psychosocial trauma that they experienced by having to go against this, this machine, in order to try and do what they felt was the right thing, really contributed to their deaths, and contributed to the decline of their mental health and led them to to their end. And this was, in fact, a finding that was made after their deaths. Their widows filed basically workers compensation claims with the state to get their death benefits. And during that process, they found that these deaths were industrial. These deaths were related to their jobs and their work as correctional officers for the state of California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your sources included law enforcement, former law enforcement, incarcerated people, their their family members. Like, what are the particular challenges of reporting in and about a prison? Like how does it require a different approach, especially when you’re dealing with people who likely have dealt with some very traumatic things? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there are a lot of different challenges. I think, you know, in terms of bringing correctional officers in in to feeling like they could speak to us and trust us, it was a lot of conversations about confidentiality, how we could keep them protected, and also that we were trying to tell a deep, nuanced story that that wasn’t just a story about how correctional officers always are using excessive force or something like that. It was this story that we had found, which was very complicated, and it was about the the mental impacts of working inside a prison on officers, and that they experienced some of the same difficult things that incarcerated people experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then for the incarcerated people that we spoke to, there was also a lot of different factors to consider. You know, for one thing, a lot of the phone conversations, or all the phone conversations that we had are recorded. So you know that you are being listened in on and that what they say could have impacts for their lives. Some people I talked to have been in prison for years have kind of a vague idea about what a podcast is, but not everybody does, you know? So just kind of walking people through like what- what this means, what their participation means, what going on their record means and stuff like that, so they can be informed and make informed decisions about participating or not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then, you know, in terms of people who have been dealing with trauma, you know, we talked to Val Senior, obviously, who was kind of in in the throes of his own grieving process. We talked to the family of Sergeant Kevin Steele as well, his brother, who agreed to go on the record with us. And we talked to Mimy, Valentino Rodriguez’s wife. And I think, you know, just in terms of having a trauma informed approach as much as possible, a lot of it was about giving them the power, not trying to be extractive, or just take their story and see how it fit in with our narrative. But to hold space for them to talk about what they had gone through and also the power to be like, “Okay, if you don’t feel like you said that right, or if you want to rethink that, like this is how you’re going to be portrayed in the story, this is the context in which your story is going to be used. Are you comfortable with that?” And saying “if you’re not, you can take it back any time.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so it was a lot more conversation than I think you would normally have of going back to sources and playing pieces of tape for them and that kind of thing, but it really felt like the responsible thing to do. So there were no surprises when the podcast came out. And so we could also be sure that we were being accurate and that we were accurately representing the experience of our primary sources. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, people will say sunlight is the best disinfectant. Is it making the difference? Is the reporting, the transparency… How is it impacting these, these prisons? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s it’s still too soon to say. And it’s also kind of the next step. I feel like this is the first step is saying like, “Look, this is what’s happening.” And then the next step is actually beyond our power as journalists. I feel like it’s in the hands of lawmakers and the oversight bodies over the prisons, here in California or nationally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One thing that’s interesting to know about the California prison system is that there’s there is an oversight body called the office of the Inspector General of Prisons, and they do get a lot of insight into the prisons, but they have no power. So they regularly issue these reports that say “you’re doing a bad job, you need to do better.” Or like, “this person violated policy. We don’t agree with this.” But until there is a real appetite in internally in the agency to take action or body like that has teeth, this transparency only gets you so far. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s really important again, for the public to know about it, because that is how change happens, is people taking an interest and people, taking a care about this public institution that we own. Like this is our this is our bag. And so I think that’s that’s why I do this work. But then I have to hand it off and see where it goes from there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well thank you so much. I think this reporting is so important. And it’s the- it’s reporting on people who truly don’t have a voice, people who have died, people who are incarcerated. And you give them a voice. So we’re so grateful to to be able to tell this story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. And and I also feel honored, you know, that people allowed me to share their stories with so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ayesha Rascoe: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was criminal justice reporter Sukey Lewis, host of On Our Watch from KQED in San Francisco. You can listen to all eight episodes of their latest season at kqed.org/onourwatch, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Justine Yan and edited by Liana Simstrom, with additional editing by Jen Chien, the director of podcasts at KQED. Production support from Chris Egusa. Our engineer was Robert Rodriguez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sunday Story team includes Abby Windle and our senior editor, Jenny Schmidt. Liana Simstrom is our supervising producer and Irene Noguchi is our executive producer. If you are experiencing mental health related distress or have a loved one who needs crisis support, please call or text 988. The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. I’m Ayesha Rascoe. Up First is back tomorrow with all the news you need to start your week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was made possible by the passage of a groundbreaking law enforcement sunshine bill in 2018. Today we talk to California State Senator Nancy Skinner, who co-authored the state’s “Right to Know Act,” about the legacy of her landmark bill, ongoing obstacles to transparency, and the need for accountability in California prisons.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4741087741\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Learn more about Sen. Skinner’s work on law enforcement transparency, including The Right to Know Act (SB 1421) and SB 16, by visiting her \u003ca href=\"https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">webpage\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Reporting Project\u003c/a>, a coalition of newsrooms, provides insights into how these open-records acts are being implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode briefly references violence, sexual assault, and suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone, Sukey here. I’ve got a conversation with a very special guest to share with you in this bonus episode of On Our Watch. Those internal affairs recordings that you heard in this podcast, both in Season One and in Season Two, never would have been made public without California State Senator \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nancy Skinner\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She authored a landmark police transparency bill — Senate Bill 1421 — which was signed into law in 2018 as the Right to Know Act. This law finally broke through decades of secrecy in the state, and she further expanded it a few years later with SB 16. Skinner is serving her final term in the legislature this year and joined me to talk about her legacy, the ongoing barriers to transparency, and I was able to share with her some of what we found out about use of force at New Folsom and the crisis among correctional staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for joining me, Senator. As the architect of this law, which has done so much for law enforcement transparency in California, I wanted to bring you on the podcast to reflect on what’s changed in the past five years. You know, where you still see the need for improvement in terms of transparency. But before we get into all that, can you also just give us a little insight into how the law came to be? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Certainly, and thank you for doing the podcast and for focusing on this very important issue. Back in the 70s, California passed a law that blocked public access to any and all records related to police conduct. And if you compare that to California’s Public Records Act, where you can pretty much request or receive any info you might want about a city or county employee, whether they’re a librarian or a street sweeper, you can find out anything. It doesn’t even have to be misconduct. But not police. They were the one category of, say, city or county employees, just as an example, where you could get no information. So California had almost a 50 year block and a total secrecy on police records, which made us arguably the least transparent state in the US of A. Which is odd when you consider, you know, what we pride ourselves about. And there were numerous previous attempts by other legislators. And when those efforts came around, when I was in the Assembly, I voted yes on each one of them, but none of them made it. I can tell you a little bit more about then why my staff and I in 2018 decided to act. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, tell me about that. Like what made the conditions kind of ripe for it to to finally go through in 2018? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were a number of well publicized law enforcement incidents, whether it’s Rodney King or other things, Oscar Grant, the shooting at the BART platform on a New Year’s Eve, you know, where the public was like, “Hey, what happened? What went on? And were these people investigated and or did the police act justifiably, you know, what were the conditions?” But we couldn’t find out. So, you know, there’s always been some high profile incidents, but there just seemed to be much more public attention to a number of high profile incidents in 2018, in that time period, where there was an openness for some access to police records. So those were some of the things that then made my staff and I sit down and think, “Okay, if we’re going to attempt this, given that every attempt prior has failed, how are we going to frame it?” And we thought, “All right, we’re going to focus on three specific areas. If an officer kills someone or causes great bodily injury or used a gun on someone, that those are things that of course the public feels like, ‘Hey, I want to know what happened there.’ If there was sexual assault by an officer on a member of the public, or if an officer is engaged in falsifying records or dishonesty, tampering of evidence, that kind of thing.” So we thought, “Those three who could, who could in a justifiably or with their head held up high, argue that those things should not be made publicly available.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The law, The Right to Know Act, went into effect, actually before the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the massive protests, which was really interesting just as a reporter, to be equipped when that happened to begin to respond to questions here in California about police departments, we finally were able to get some answers and to get some transparency. In the last season of this podcast, we were able to find out new details about the killing of Oscar Grant that were really impactful for the family. And also, I think really important and understanding that like seminal incident for you, you know, what’s the most gratifying impact that you’ve seen from the law that you’re the most proud of? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, let’s talk the Oscar Grant situation. The Fruitvale Bart station is in my district. Oscar Grant was my constituent. I know now his mother very well. His uncle, Uncle Bobby, various other family members. And, when that incident occurred, BART itself did not have good police review. And so that was one of the big issues that people felt like, “Wow, BART doesn’t even have an independent review board of their police. And of course, we can’t get records on this incident.” And of course, the family, I mean, they were kept in the dark until there were the lawsuits. I mean, sure, there were charges taken against the officer who killed Oscar Grant. That officer was Johannes Mehserle. But the only information they got was that which was revealed in court. They had no other information, and it was just horrible to watch that. So I was very, very happy when 1421 passed. That immediately of course, Oscar Grant’s family requested those records. It took a while for BART to release them, but they did finally get them, and it brought a lot of closure for them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now let’s go to: how does public safety work? How do we achieve public safety? It’s not just having police in our communities. It’s that the police have the cooperation and respect from community members. So from my point of view, if we know that our police departments and our law enforcement agencies take misconduct seriously and that they hold officers accountable for misconduct, then we’re going to trust them more. And when we get the records, it lets us know, “Hey, you know, it was officer X accused of anything? And if so, what steps did our police department take in investigating officer X? And then, what consequences were there?” That’s why having access to these records is important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And where is the conversation around law enforcement transparency now? Like what have you heard from your constituents? What are the conversations you have with other lawmakers? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, you know, we’ve discussed already that 1421, the first attempt that was successful in over 40 years was modest. And then we did SB 16, because we saw, you know, whether it was George Floyd or other incidents — we just saw that look, racial bias is a legitimate thing for the public to know. Are there a set of officers in a particular department that have, you know, umpteen numbers of complaints around racial bias that have been investigated and upheld? And then some of the other things that SB 16 did was look at what other kinds of excessive use of force — so not just the gun. There are many other types of excessive force. Or the other thing we wanted to ensure, let’s say you’re an officer who, under 1421 that you had some falsifying of records, you had committed some dishonesty. And we you know, we want to find out about this. Well, you quit the force before the investigation is completed. So then it’s not on your personnel record and it’s not available to me. So then you go and get hired by another police agency. So basically, by not requiring that records follow the officer and that each agency who hires an officer requests explicitly whether there were, you know, such investigations on that officer — we allow bad apples to move around to different law enforcement agencies. So that was another really important improvement of SB 16. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, there are probably other legitimate things that the public has the right to know that aren’t covered yet in 1421 or 16. And, you know, we can talk about some of that, I have ideas. Somebody in the future will have to do them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One thing that we’ve seen, you know, in recent years, especially like since the passage of the Right to Know Act, are these memorandums that are being entered into between the employers- the employing agency and the unions, basically giving notice or agreeing to give notice to any officer who is named in their records before they’re released. And, you know, in some lights, like you can see how that makes sense, right? Like, oh, my name is going to go out to the public. I would like to know that as an individual. But I think my concern from a transparency perspective is that it also gives the ability then for the union lawyers to intervene and say, oh, this is actually not a discloseable record. And they get kind of a first shot at claiming that it’s non-discloseable before the public gets a chance to look at the underlying misconduct. And so I just wanted to know if you’ve heard anything about that or you know if you have any thoughts on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I’ve definitely heard some about it. And I’ll preface my next set of comments about it with, look, police officers have a very difficult job. I do not envy police officers. Every time they walk out of their door, meaning, you know, they leave home to go to work in uniform, they take their lives in their hands. I’m careful about the way I do legislation, such as both SB 1421 and SB 16, to legitimately give our officers some right to privacy. Their names should not be disclosed when it’s not appropriate. We don’t need them to be targets if they have not, you know, really engaged in serious misconduct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m very, very protective of that privacy. And I also respect their ability to have a collective bargaining unit, to be in a union. Now, on the other hand, it’s I don’t like MOU agreements that unnecessarily or unlawfully delay the release of records that the public have a right to know about. So it is a balance. We want to protect their privacy, but we do not want MOUs that are counter to good laws that we have passed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At my organization, KQED, you know, we’ve really made a push statewide to try and get as many of these internal records as possible to help the public, you know, gain access and understanding of these, you know, key public institutions — our local police departments, state law enforcement agencies. And most recently, my focus has really been on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which is the largest employer of peace officers in the state and is also one of the most kind of, obscure, not obscure agencies, but opaque. Yeah, very, you know, hard, hard to see inside of it’s a closed world, literally. You know, with everything happens behind these walls. And, you know, one thing that we were able to find out by, you know, utilizing the public records law by utilizing the Right to Know Act, was the incredibly high number of these very serious use of force incidents at this one prison, California State Prison, Sacramento, which is also kind of colloquially known as New Folsom. And I was just wondering, like in your years kind of on the public Safety Committee and, you know, overseeing CDCR and other, via other committees, if this prison had come to your attention before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, first, this is exactly the proof of the validity and the need for bills like 1421 and SB 16 — to enable us to get that information about… If we have a particular prison that has far higher incidence, then we have to wonder, what is it about the culture at that prison that creates this kind of violence? Staff on incarcerated individual violence, which your request of the record seems to indicate. Because we, interestingly, even legislators, I can’t just go to a prison unannounced and visit it. No, there’s all kinds of rules that prohibit. And California now, you know, we already talked about we had the 40 year kind of, 50 year really blackout on these records. Well, we’ve had almost an equivalent number of years where we’ve denied media access to our prisons. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And again, this is where we are an outlier. Many, many states, Maine, Rhode Island, many others allow much more journalistic access to their prisons than California does. Which is why I’m carrying a bill this year, SB 254, which would restore limited access of news media to our California prisons, as well as access to our judicial branch and legislators to be able to, you know, go in and check out the conditions in our prisons. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I chair California’s Women’s Caucus, which is now 50 strong. We have 50 women in the legislature out of 120. So we’re really proud of that. But we’ve been focused on there’s two women’s state prisons. And just this year we have a situation where a D.A. in, I believe it’s Madera County, has charged one officer from our facility in Chowchilla — our women’s facility in Chowchilla — charged that officer with 90 counts of sexual assault against some 16 different incarcerated individuals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the horrific part was that he did this sexual assault while these women were waiting to go before the parole board. So here you are. You’re prepping yourself. You know, this is the determination of whether you can go free or not. And this man is taking you into a room and assaulting you. I mean, it is beyond horrific. So the Women’s Caucus, we have gotten very involved in that. We did a trip to that prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we don’t have a comprehensive set of things that we’re trying to enact to change the conditions, but we certainly have strengthened California’s Office of the Inspector General over our prisons, for the incarcerated individuals to get complaints of this sort of behavior to the inspector general rather than just to officials within the prison therein. Because, of course, when you’re in that kind of closed environment, you don’t know, is your complaint even going to be taken seriously? So those are some of the issues that having transparency, getting records, getting journalists into our prisons is going to help us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have, also in my reporting, talked to quite a few incarcerated women who, you know, experienced things themselves and also just experienced the brokenness of the grievance system. I think one of the, you know, very concerning patterns that we found in our reporting was just how many similar grievances we found piling up against a particular officer. So it was very easy to identify somebody who was repeatedly using very serious use of force and injuring people. And people were filing grievances on this person, but there was no upholding of it. There was no discipline. And a lot of that goes down to kind of the credibility issue that the incarcerated people filing the grievances didn’t have credibility, and it wasn’t captured on camera. And I think for some of the sexual assault instances, it’s been the same where it’s like piled up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, the the officer I mentioned with the 80 counts against him, his name is Rod- Rodriguez. You know, he took the women in a room. He knew the camera was not there. There was no camera in the room that he took them. And, you know, that was definitely purposefully done. And it was over a number of years, the assaults. And it’s hard to imagine that no one else knew. So the other thing that we have to make sure is that whatever reforms we put in not only go after the perpetrator, but anyone who aids or abets or… Aids or abets the perpetrator or sees it and does nothing about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think that is going to be the key, which is also, I think, a really tough nut to crack, you know, which is the issue of the code of silence, the culture of fear inside CDCR. And that that is not just the people who are incarcerated, that’s staff as well. You know, medical staff that I’ve spoken to, psychiatric staff and also correctional officers, and they fear blowing the whistle. They fear coming forward. And they say if they do, you know, they fear that they will be, you know, labeled a rat by their fellow officers and mistreated by them. And then that administrators also, they’ll kind of blacklist them and put them off to the side. It will be very kind of subtle and hard to see retaliation, but that retaliation that they know will come or that they say they know will come. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The terrible, terrible irony of this mistreatment — this, in some cases, brutal conditions — in our prison facilities against our incarcerated individuals. The damage is not just the incarcerated individual. Our corrections officers, they have high rates of suicide. They have their average life expectancy is they die before age 60. While they can retire with great retirement benefits at, I think, age 52 or so. They don’t even live past that. And so the level of stress when you’re in a setting like that, where either you are yourself engaged in this, you know, very inhumane conditions, inhumane treatment — or that you are, you know, going against your own moral self to observing it — it damages everyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is why I think Governor Newsom has adopted this Norway model. And a number of US legislators have taken trips. And I was one of them, who we’ve gone and seen the prisons in Norway and what they do instead and how they treat it. They look at their prison system as, “Yes, the individual committed a heinous act, however likely that individual at some point is going to go back home, is going to live in our community. So how do we use the time that we have them in custody to best bring them to a circumstance where they can be productive and healthy and contribute to their community instead of hurting it?” So I was very, very happy to see Governor Newsom embrace that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You brought up, you know, officer suicide, which was, you know, a really recurrent theme and and problem that we found in our reporting as well. And I think one thing that really shocked me was just how many suicides there were. You know, we found through talking to the correctional officers union, the CCPOA and other word of mouth sources that 31 officers died over a four year period by suicide between 2020 and 2024. And that was just a pretty staggering number and also not a complete number. And so I went to CDCR and asked them for their numbers, and they said, “We don’t track this.” And the fact that they said they don’t track this problem, which I feel is like the highest level red flag indicator of a mental health crisis in their employee base, I think is very problematic. I don’t know if you can comment on that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, they should track it, and I feel that CCPOA should also, because there’s often tension between the legislature and CCPOA, that’s the prison guards union. But I think if- the legislature in general, we don’t want unhealthy work conditions for anyone. And here this is one of our largest base of state workers. And the consequences of bad conditions on the job for them have great consequences, not only on them, as you’ve indicated with the suicides, but also just their, you know, their life expectancy rate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it also has bad consequences on the individuals who are in the prison. And while California hasn’t embraced completely Norway’s sense that, “Look, our role at prisons is not focused really on punishment, but it should be to prepare you to go home.” The reality is the majority of our people go home, too. In other words, the majority of people that we’re holding in a state prison eventually go home. So what good does it do if we send them home damaged? And what good does it do if the employees who are in charge of them in custody are also damaged? None of that is healthy. So it’s one thing I’ve done a lot is engaged with our CCPOA to, you know, really work with them together to kind of embrace, “Hey, we could do it differently and it could be much improved for you, the worker and for that individual who’s being held by us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, and I just so appreciate it. And I wanted to know, is there anything else that I didn’t ask you about that you want to bring up today or talk about on the podcast? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I- this is my last year in the legislature, so I won’t get to, you know, add more police transparency, at least as a legislator for the moment. But I certainly, as chair of the Women’s Caucus, we have engaged more in these issues because I really hope that more of my colleagues that are going to continue in the legislature beyond me, will, will really embrace the importance of, that we have a good carceral system. And I know for some people that just putting those two words together is from their, their point of view, an oxymoron. But public safety is our objective. And having a inhumane system does not help public safety. And I think more of my women colleagues are understanding that. And we’re even- we’ve arranged a trip to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland for some women legislators in September to visit their women’s carceral facilities and to see how they’re doing it differently in those countries, to see what lessons learned we can bring home to California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for your time, Senator. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Thank you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you want to learn more about the Right to Know Act and other law enforcement transparency bills, we’ll include links in the episode description. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to onourwatch@kqed.org. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of podcasts. It was produced by Chris Egusa, final mixing by Christopher Beale. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager; our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr.; Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News; and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "BONUS: Right to Know | S2: New Folsom | KQED",
"description": "On Our Watch was made possible by the passage of a groundbreaking law enforcement sunshine bill in 2018. Today we talk to California State Senator Nancy Skinner, who co-authored the state’s “Right to Know Act," about the legacy of her landmark bill, ongoing obstacles to transparency, and the need for accountability in California prisons.",
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"socialDescription": "On Our Watch was made possible by the passage of a groundbreaking law enforcement sunshine bill in 2018. Today we talk to California State Senator Nancy Skinner, who co-authored the state’s “Right to Know Act," about the legacy of her landmark bill, ongoing obstacles to transparency, and the need for accountability in California prisons.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">was made possible by the passage of a groundbreaking law enforcement sunshine bill in 2018. Today we talk to California State Senator Nancy Skinner, who co-authored the state’s “Right to Know Act,” about the legacy of her landmark bill, ongoing obstacles to transparency, and the need for accountability in California prisons.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4741087741\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Learn more about Sen. Skinner’s work on law enforcement transparency, including The Right to Know Act (SB 1421) and SB 16, by visiting her \u003ca href=\"https://sd09.senate.ca.gov/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">webpage\u003c/a>. The \u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">California Reporting Project\u003c/a>, a coalition of newsrooms, provides insights into how these open-records acts are being implemented.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode briefly references violence, sexual assault, and suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey everyone, Sukey here. I’ve got a conversation with a very special guest to share with you in this bonus episode of On Our Watch. Those internal affairs recordings that you heard in this podcast, both in Season One and in Season Two, never would have been made public without California State Senator \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nancy Skinner\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. She authored a landmark police transparency bill — Senate Bill 1421 — which was signed into law in 2018 as the Right to Know Act. This law finally broke through decades of secrecy in the state, and she further expanded it a few years later with SB 16. Skinner is serving her final term in the legislature this year and joined me to talk about her legacy, the ongoing barriers to transparency, and I was able to share with her some of what we found out about use of force at New Folsom and the crisis among correctional staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for joining me, Senator. As the architect of this law, which has done so much for law enforcement transparency in California, I wanted to bring you on the podcast to reflect on what’s changed in the past five years. You know, where you still see the need for improvement in terms of transparency. But before we get into all that, can you also just give us a little insight into how the law came to be? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Certainly, and thank you for doing the podcast and for focusing on this very important issue. Back in the 70s, California passed a law that blocked public access to any and all records related to police conduct. And if you compare that to California’s Public Records Act, where you can pretty much request or receive any info you might want about a city or county employee, whether they’re a librarian or a street sweeper, you can find out anything. It doesn’t even have to be misconduct. But not police. They were the one category of, say, city or county employees, just as an example, where you could get no information. So California had almost a 50 year block and a total secrecy on police records, which made us arguably the least transparent state in the US of A. Which is odd when you consider, you know, what we pride ourselves about. And there were numerous previous attempts by other legislators. And when those efforts came around, when I was in the Assembly, I voted yes on each one of them, but none of them made it. I can tell you a little bit more about then why my staff and I in 2018 decided to act. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, tell me about that. Like what made the conditions kind of ripe for it to to finally go through in 2018? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were a number of well publicized law enforcement incidents, whether it’s Rodney King or other things, Oscar Grant, the shooting at the BART platform on a New Year’s Eve, you know, where the public was like, “Hey, what happened? What went on? And were these people investigated and or did the police act justifiably, you know, what were the conditions?” But we couldn’t find out. So, you know, there’s always been some high profile incidents, but there just seemed to be much more public attention to a number of high profile incidents in 2018, in that time period, where there was an openness for some access to police records. So those were some of the things that then made my staff and I sit down and think, “Okay, if we’re going to attempt this, given that every attempt prior has failed, how are we going to frame it?” And we thought, “All right, we’re going to focus on three specific areas. If an officer kills someone or causes great bodily injury or used a gun on someone, that those are things that of course the public feels like, ‘Hey, I want to know what happened there.’ If there was sexual assault by an officer on a member of the public, or if an officer is engaged in falsifying records or dishonesty, tampering of evidence, that kind of thing.” So we thought, “Those three who could, who could in a justifiably or with their head held up high, argue that those things should not be made publicly available.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The law, The Right to Know Act, went into effect, actually before the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the massive protests, which was really interesting just as a reporter, to be equipped when that happened to begin to respond to questions here in California about police departments, we finally were able to get some answers and to get some transparency. In the last season of this podcast, we were able to find out new details about the killing of Oscar Grant that were really impactful for the family. And also, I think really important and understanding that like seminal incident for you, you know, what’s the most gratifying impact that you’ve seen from the law that you’re the most proud of? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, let’s talk the Oscar Grant situation. The Fruitvale Bart station is in my district. Oscar Grant was my constituent. I know now his mother very well. His uncle, Uncle Bobby, various other family members. And, when that incident occurred, BART itself did not have good police review. And so that was one of the big issues that people felt like, “Wow, BART doesn’t even have an independent review board of their police. And of course, we can’t get records on this incident.” And of course, the family, I mean, they were kept in the dark until there were the lawsuits. I mean, sure, there were charges taken against the officer who killed Oscar Grant. That officer was Johannes Mehserle. But the only information they got was that which was revealed in court. They had no other information, and it was just horrible to watch that. So I was very, very happy when 1421 passed. That immediately of course, Oscar Grant’s family requested those records. It took a while for BART to release them, but they did finally get them, and it brought a lot of closure for them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now let’s go to: how does public safety work? How do we achieve public safety? It’s not just having police in our communities. It’s that the police have the cooperation and respect from community members. So from my point of view, if we know that our police departments and our law enforcement agencies take misconduct seriously and that they hold officers accountable for misconduct, then we’re going to trust them more. And when we get the records, it lets us know, “Hey, you know, it was officer X accused of anything? And if so, what steps did our police department take in investigating officer X? And then, what consequences were there?” That’s why having access to these records is important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And where is the conversation around law enforcement transparency now? Like what have you heard from your constituents? What are the conversations you have with other lawmakers? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, you know, we’ve discussed already that 1421, the first attempt that was successful in over 40 years was modest. And then we did SB 16, because we saw, you know, whether it was George Floyd or other incidents — we just saw that look, racial bias is a legitimate thing for the public to know. Are there a set of officers in a particular department that have, you know, umpteen numbers of complaints around racial bias that have been investigated and upheld? And then some of the other things that SB 16 did was look at what other kinds of excessive use of force — so not just the gun. There are many other types of excessive force. Or the other thing we wanted to ensure, let’s say you’re an officer who, under 1421 that you had some falsifying of records, you had committed some dishonesty. And we you know, we want to find out about this. Well, you quit the force before the investigation is completed. So then it’s not on your personnel record and it’s not available to me. So then you go and get hired by another police agency. So basically, by not requiring that records follow the officer and that each agency who hires an officer requests explicitly whether there were, you know, such investigations on that officer — we allow bad apples to move around to different law enforcement agencies. So that was another really important improvement of SB 16. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, there are probably other legitimate things that the public has the right to know that aren’t covered yet in 1421 or 16. And, you know, we can talk about some of that, I have ideas. Somebody in the future will have to do them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One thing that we’ve seen, you know, in recent years, especially like since the passage of the Right to Know Act, are these memorandums that are being entered into between the employers- the employing agency and the unions, basically giving notice or agreeing to give notice to any officer who is named in their records before they’re released. And, you know, in some lights, like you can see how that makes sense, right? Like, oh, my name is going to go out to the public. I would like to know that as an individual. But I think my concern from a transparency perspective is that it also gives the ability then for the union lawyers to intervene and say, oh, this is actually not a discloseable record. And they get kind of a first shot at claiming that it’s non-discloseable before the public gets a chance to look at the underlying misconduct. And so I just wanted to know if you’ve heard anything about that or you know if you have any thoughts on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well I’ve definitely heard some about it. And I’ll preface my next set of comments about it with, look, police officers have a very difficult job. I do not envy police officers. Every time they walk out of their door, meaning, you know, they leave home to go to work in uniform, they take their lives in their hands. I’m careful about the way I do legislation, such as both SB 1421 and SB 16, to legitimately give our officers some right to privacy. Their names should not be disclosed when it’s not appropriate. We don’t need them to be targets if they have not, you know, really engaged in serious misconduct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’m very, very protective of that privacy. And I also respect their ability to have a collective bargaining unit, to be in a union. Now, on the other hand, it’s I don’t like MOU agreements that unnecessarily or unlawfully delay the release of records that the public have a right to know about. So it is a balance. We want to protect their privacy, but we do not want MOUs that are counter to good laws that we have passed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At my organization, KQED, you know, we’ve really made a push statewide to try and get as many of these internal records as possible to help the public, you know, gain access and understanding of these, you know, key public institutions — our local police departments, state law enforcement agencies. And most recently, my focus has really been on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which is the largest employer of peace officers in the state and is also one of the most kind of, obscure, not obscure agencies, but opaque. Yeah, very, you know, hard, hard to see inside of it’s a closed world, literally. You know, with everything happens behind these walls. And, you know, one thing that we were able to find out by, you know, utilizing the public records law by utilizing the Right to Know Act, was the incredibly high number of these very serious use of force incidents at this one prison, California State Prison, Sacramento, which is also kind of colloquially known as New Folsom. And I was just wondering, like in your years kind of on the public Safety Committee and, you know, overseeing CDCR and other, via other committees, if this prison had come to your attention before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, first, this is exactly the proof of the validity and the need for bills like 1421 and SB 16 — to enable us to get that information about… If we have a particular prison that has far higher incidence, then we have to wonder, what is it about the culture at that prison that creates this kind of violence? Staff on incarcerated individual violence, which your request of the record seems to indicate. Because we, interestingly, even legislators, I can’t just go to a prison unannounced and visit it. No, there’s all kinds of rules that prohibit. And California now, you know, we already talked about we had the 40 year kind of, 50 year really blackout on these records. Well, we’ve had almost an equivalent number of years where we’ve denied media access to our prisons. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And again, this is where we are an outlier. Many, many states, Maine, Rhode Island, many others allow much more journalistic access to their prisons than California does. Which is why I’m carrying a bill this year, SB 254, which would restore limited access of news media to our California prisons, as well as access to our judicial branch and legislators to be able to, you know, go in and check out the conditions in our prisons. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I chair California’s Women’s Caucus, which is now 50 strong. We have 50 women in the legislature out of 120. So we’re really proud of that. But we’ve been focused on there’s two women’s state prisons. And just this year we have a situation where a D.A. in, I believe it’s Madera County, has charged one officer from our facility in Chowchilla — our women’s facility in Chowchilla — charged that officer with 90 counts of sexual assault against some 16 different incarcerated individuals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the horrific part was that he did this sexual assault while these women were waiting to go before the parole board. So here you are. You’re prepping yourself. You know, this is the determination of whether you can go free or not. And this man is taking you into a room and assaulting you. I mean, it is beyond horrific. So the Women’s Caucus, we have gotten very involved in that. We did a trip to that prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we don’t have a comprehensive set of things that we’re trying to enact to change the conditions, but we certainly have strengthened California’s Office of the Inspector General over our prisons, for the incarcerated individuals to get complaints of this sort of behavior to the inspector general rather than just to officials within the prison therein. Because, of course, when you’re in that kind of closed environment, you don’t know, is your complaint even going to be taken seriously? So those are some of the issues that having transparency, getting records, getting journalists into our prisons is going to help us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have, also in my reporting, talked to quite a few incarcerated women who, you know, experienced things themselves and also just experienced the brokenness of the grievance system. I think one of the, you know, very concerning patterns that we found in our reporting was just how many similar grievances we found piling up against a particular officer. So it was very easy to identify somebody who was repeatedly using very serious use of force and injuring people. And people were filing grievances on this person, but there was no upholding of it. There was no discipline. And a lot of that goes down to kind of the credibility issue that the incarcerated people filing the grievances didn’t have credibility, and it wasn’t captured on camera. And I think for some of the sexual assault instances, it’s been the same where it’s like piled up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, the the officer I mentioned with the 80 counts against him, his name is Rod- Rodriguez. You know, he took the women in a room. He knew the camera was not there. There was no camera in the room that he took them. And, you know, that was definitely purposefully done. And it was over a number of years, the assaults. And it’s hard to imagine that no one else knew. So the other thing that we have to make sure is that whatever reforms we put in not only go after the perpetrator, but anyone who aids or abets or… Aids or abets the perpetrator or sees it and does nothing about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think that is going to be the key, which is also, I think, a really tough nut to crack, you know, which is the issue of the code of silence, the culture of fear inside CDCR. And that that is not just the people who are incarcerated, that’s staff as well. You know, medical staff that I’ve spoken to, psychiatric staff and also correctional officers, and they fear blowing the whistle. They fear coming forward. And they say if they do, you know, they fear that they will be, you know, labeled a rat by their fellow officers and mistreated by them. And then that administrators also, they’ll kind of blacklist them and put them off to the side. It will be very kind of subtle and hard to see retaliation, but that retaliation that they know will come or that they say they know will come. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The terrible, terrible irony of this mistreatment — this, in some cases, brutal conditions — in our prison facilities against our incarcerated individuals. The damage is not just the incarcerated individual. Our corrections officers, they have high rates of suicide. They have their average life expectancy is they die before age 60. While they can retire with great retirement benefits at, I think, age 52 or so. They don’t even live past that. And so the level of stress when you’re in a setting like that, where either you are yourself engaged in this, you know, very inhumane conditions, inhumane treatment — or that you are, you know, going against your own moral self to observing it — it damages everyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is why I think Governor Newsom has adopted this Norway model. And a number of US legislators have taken trips. And I was one of them, who we’ve gone and seen the prisons in Norway and what they do instead and how they treat it. They look at their prison system as, “Yes, the individual committed a heinous act, however likely that individual at some point is going to go back home, is going to live in our community. So how do we use the time that we have them in custody to best bring them to a circumstance where they can be productive and healthy and contribute to their community instead of hurting it?” So I was very, very happy to see Governor Newsom embrace that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You brought up, you know, officer suicide, which was, you know, a really recurrent theme and and problem that we found in our reporting as well. And I think one thing that really shocked me was just how many suicides there were. You know, we found through talking to the correctional officers union, the CCPOA and other word of mouth sources that 31 officers died over a four year period by suicide between 2020 and 2024. And that was just a pretty staggering number and also not a complete number. And so I went to CDCR and asked them for their numbers, and they said, “We don’t track this.” And the fact that they said they don’t track this problem, which I feel is like the highest level red flag indicator of a mental health crisis in their employee base, I think is very problematic. I don’t know if you can comment on that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, they should track it, and I feel that CCPOA should also, because there’s often tension between the legislature and CCPOA, that’s the prison guards union. But I think if- the legislature in general, we don’t want unhealthy work conditions for anyone. And here this is one of our largest base of state workers. And the consequences of bad conditions on the job for them have great consequences, not only on them, as you’ve indicated with the suicides, but also just their, you know, their life expectancy rate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it also has bad consequences on the individuals who are in the prison. And while California hasn’t embraced completely Norway’s sense that, “Look, our role at prisons is not focused really on punishment, but it should be to prepare you to go home.” The reality is the majority of our people go home, too. In other words, the majority of people that we’re holding in a state prison eventually go home. So what good does it do if we send them home damaged? And what good does it do if the employees who are in charge of them in custody are also damaged? None of that is healthy. So it’s one thing I’ve done a lot is engaged with our CCPOA to, you know, really work with them together to kind of embrace, “Hey, we could do it differently and it could be much improved for you, the worker and for that individual who’s being held by us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, and I just so appreciate it. And I wanted to know, is there anything else that I didn’t ask you about that you want to bring up today or talk about on the podcast? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I- this is my last year in the legislature, so I won’t get to, you know, add more police transparency, at least as a legislator for the moment. But I certainly, as chair of the Women’s Caucus, we have engaged more in these issues because I really hope that more of my colleagues that are going to continue in the legislature beyond me, will, will really embrace the importance of, that we have a good carceral system. And I know for some people that just putting those two words together is from their, their point of view, an oxymoron. But public safety is our objective. And having a inhumane system does not help public safety. And I think more of my women colleagues are understanding that. And we’re even- we’ve arranged a trip to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland for some women legislators in September to visit their women’s carceral facilities and to see how they’re doing it differently in those countries, to see what lessons learned we can bring home to California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you so much for your time, Senator. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nancy Skinner:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Thank you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you want to learn more about the Right to Know Act and other law enforcement transparency bills, we’ll include links in the episode description. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to onourwatch@kqed.org. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of podcasts. It was produced by Chris Egusa, final mixing by Christopher Beale. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager; our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr.; Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News; and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reporting on prisons from the outside is often difficult; it’s a closed and secretive world. But there is also important reporting being done by people who are inside prison, which comes with dangers of its own. Sukey and Julie sit down with two formerly incarcerated journalists, Rahsaan Thomas and Jesse Vasquez, to talk about the challenges and opportunities of prison reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6919454101\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rahsaan Thomas is the Executive Director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.empowermentave.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Empowerment Avenue\u003c/a> and a producer at \u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ear Hustle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jesse Vasquez is the Executive Director of the \u003ca href=\"https://polleninitiative.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pollen Initiative\u003c/a> and former Editor-in-Chief of the \u003ca href=\"https://sanquentinnews.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Quentin News\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003c/h2>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start. Just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references acts of violence. If you or someone you know needs support. We’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi and welcome back to another bonus episode of On Our Watch I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Throughout reporting this season, my co-reporter \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and I knocked on a lot of closed doors, pored over hundreds of pages of documents that were often redacted beyond recognition, and our best hope of contacting a source in prison was usually to send a letter via snail mail and hope they responded. In general, reporting on prisons can be really difficult, finding sources and navigating the politics of a closed world. But in recent years, there’s also been a revival of the prison journalism movement. Newspapers and podcasts created from inside that world by incarcerated reporters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Julie and I talk to two journalists who started their careers inside prison. Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, who consulted on this season of On Our Watch, is also a producer for the Ear Hustle podcast and started a nonprofit called Empowerment Avenue that supports incarcerated writers and artists. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was editor in chief of the San Quentin News newspaper and now directs a nonprofit called the Pollen Initiative, which provides multimedia training to other people in California prisons. Here’s our conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, everybody, for coming here today to the various places that we are joining, joining each other from. Rahsaan, how did you become a journalist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I became a journalist by accident and half way because of a scam. I arrived in the San Quentin prison yard after working on this book for like, maybe seven, eight, almost ten years. And, but the book was mostly handwritten and there was no way to really edit it. Like when you want to edit it, you have to rewrite it or retype it and it’s like… And so I wanted to work for San Quentin News because they had computers and I wanted to type my book and set a computer so I can get somebody to help me edit it and hopefully publish it and get it on the New York Times bestseller list and change the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I went in there with that mindset. But I started fell in love with journalism. They made me the, sports reporter. And at first I was like, I want to write about bigger and better issues. Sports just seems so limited. But then I realized that. There was some social justice things happening, some really beautiful human interest things happening on the basketball court because it was uniting worlds that never meet normally, like billionaires and millionaires were playing basketball with kids from the streets of Los Angeles. And so something beautiful happening. And I fell in love with writing. And I found out at the same time that my book was horrible. Nobody ever deserves to see it. I need to rewrite it anyway. And but I got so caught up with journalism I never got to finish the book. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel you, I’m a I’m a failed novelist and poet. So journalism. Same save the universe from my creative writing as well. Jesse, what was your journey to journalism? How did you become involved in this world? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think my journey started with kind of like Rahsaan as an accident. I was more into daily journaling, and I was a pretty good writer in my academic, pursuits. Then I decided to transfer to San Quentin because I saw the San Quentin News join the Journalism Guild. And I fell in love with just telling people stories and meeting people in the yard and seeing what they were up to and making a difference in our community inside. I think journalism for me was what gave me purpose. In spite of the multiple life sentences that I was serving. It gave me an outlet to share people’s stories and make a difference while I was incarcerated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And now you’re an editor. Like, how how was that transition and what’s the difference in in your mind if there is one between the work that you did as a journalist and as an editor? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the huge difference is I have to think more in terms of management and structure, like it’s… Before it was just, you know, I want to tell impactful stories, powerful stories, you know, human interest stories. And then I realized that there’s, you know, a ripple effect to what we say, how we say it and to who we say it, depending on the platform that we’re using. And editing and overseeing the management of incarcerated produced content for, like an institutional publication like San Quentin News can be a bit tricky just because, you know, there’s certain things that we want to be mindful of when it comes to what we publish and produce. So it’s very it’s a very political position. I never understood that being an editor was very political, and you have to be very mindful of, you know, how you approach a subject, you know, not just because of the liabilities, you know, but also because we have a certain responsibility to the community that we represent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. The San Quentin News is such a unique publication. I myself am an alum of that program. When I was in graduate school at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, I got to go in with my professor, Bill Drummond, and work with some of the incarcerated journalists. And for me, you know, as a baby reporter myself, just figuring out the world of journalism, it was so inspiring to work with incarcerated reporters and also just to learn more about the this world of prison, prison reporting and criminal justice and kind of got me started heading down deeper and deeper into gaining expertise in the field and becoming a criminal justice reporter myself. What about you, Julie? Like what- what drew you to prison reporting in the first place? And, you know, is there a kind of seminal story for you about it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I, I like to say that it picked me. I didn’t pick prisons, picked prisons, picked me because my first day on the job in Sacramento was the day the then Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the prisons for overcrowding. The first major story I did was, you know, going into San Quentin, actually, with the federal receiver who’d been appointed by a federal judge to improve prison medical care because one person a day was dying inside our prisons because they couldn’t get access to care. There were like 200,000, almost 200,000 people incarcerated in California in 2006 for facilities designed for 80,000 people. And you can only imagine that’s going to compromise every aspect of life, especially medical care. So the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce the crowding. And that was sort of unprecedented, kind of order to get from the US Supreme Court. So it’s just been a part of my life following that, mostly, for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or San for you, is there a story that you feel kind of most proud of reporting, or a moment where you feel like your journalism was kind of able to, you know, affect the broadest number of people or anything like that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s definitely a story I’m proud of, but I don’t feel it had the impact I wanted. I wrote a story for Wall City Magazine, which is a division of San Quentin News, about stopping gun violence, because I was watching TV one day and the senator was acting like he’s an expert on stopping gun violence because he talked to a gunshot victim. And based on talking to this gunshot victim, he came up with this or supported this idea of arming the teachers. And I’m sitting here thinking like, if you arm to teachers, that’s where the next guns are going to come from, you big dummy. And I just felt like, here I am in a prison with 2500 lifers running around with very little supervision at times, and it’s one of the safest places I had ever been up at that point in my life. And most of these guys that committed violence and we stopped it by therapy really, like putting restorative justice into place, not as a way to deal with harm, but as a as a way of life. So when harm is thinking about happening, this way of life is already in place to prevent it. Right. And just that therapy and being included in a community, being exclusioned, leaving people out of society, right, and rubbing in their face that you’re here but you’re not one of us. There’s all these different things that were happening in San Quentin, and I felt like were an answer to gun violence. And I wanted to get that out there. And so I did a lot of research and wrote this article I’m really proud of, and I think I’m the only that read it. Cuz we still get shot. Ah it’s sad. It’s sad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh I’m sorry. That that’s one of the most frustrating things is finding an audience for for your reporting. What about you, Jesse? Is there a story that you’re the most, you know, proud of writing or, you know, being an editor for getting getting in the paper? You know, despite obstacles?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will clarify that. I did read Roseanne’s piece on gun violence. So it was two of us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At least two people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At least two of us read it. Well, there was probably one adviser who read it to to proofread it. So we did the best we could. There is one story that I think, I, I mean, I wrote and it was based on the victim compensation fund and the Department of Corrections. And I think the reason why I remember that story very vividly, because I had a couple guys on the prison yard actually come to me, right? And tell me, like, dude, like I didn’t know where my restitution money was going. I didn’t understand that there’s this victim compensation fund that is there, but the victims had to actually request it. You know, it’s not an automatic thing where, you know, like you’re paying into the restitution and a check is sent to the victims every, you know, month or every six months or whatever. It’s they have to keep their address up to date. They have to check that the money is there. They have to make sure that they tell the, you know, victim compensation board to make sure that they, you know, get their money. So I had a couple guys come to me and say, like, ‘You know what, I contacted my family to contact so-and-so to let them know, like, hey, there’s some money waiting for you because I’m getting charged for it. And I want to make sure that the victims get it. Instead of it being rolled into the general fund or whatever, you know that the state does.’ And I think the reason why I’m most proud of that story in particular, is because I’ve always wanted to at least make a difference in the small community that we were serving. And for me, that immediate context is the people that I was locked up with. And that’s why, like, you know, still to this day, I remember that one story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rahsaan, I was also wanting to ask you about the stories that you didn’t get to tell. Like, are there any stories that you wished you could tell, you know, while you were incarcerated but could not, because of, you know, the pressures or the censorship from others or just the limitations of the environment?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, there’s stories that I wish were told, but I didn’t want to tell them. For instance, there were like prison officials and wardens that were like getting in legal troubles. And so it felt hypocritical that they weren’t being punished and they were responsible for holding us accountable. But at the same time, I’m not trying to do stories about, like, blood and crip stuff, right? Like I’m trying to do positive stories or story that’s going to make a difference in stories like, look what they’re doing, right? I wanted to do stories that like, ‘Look what we could be doing and be a better place.’ So I can’t say there’s any stories that I really held back on. There’s stories I haven’t finished yet. There’s stories I’m working on, but nothing’s stopping me with me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you know, Jesse, I have a slightly different question for you, which is just, you know, as an editor, has there ever been a time where, you know, CDCR leadership or, you know, the warden of San Quentin or now that you’ve spread to other, you know, places has, you know, shut down a story or killed a story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a story, one in particular that was going to go into Wall City Magazine. And it was a great story about, you know, two people finding love inside of the carceral system. I don’t know if you remember this one Rahsaan, but it was going to go in Wall City Magazine, and it was a great story written by Joe Garcia. And the lead editor on that was Kate McQueen. And it was an awesome piece, maybe about 2500 words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the reason why it became an issue was for safety concerns. You know, inside of the California prison system, you can imagine the amount of, you know, machismo and, let’s say gender bias and stuff that exists, and a lot of the violence that is perpetuated against trans and, you know, other communities that people consider other. So it was like the administration was like, ‘We can’t let you run that story. It’s going to jeopardize these individuals, you know, if they get transferred somewhere else. San Quentin is a more, let’s say, tolerant environment, a more accepting environment. But if they ever get transferred somewhere else, you’re jeopardizing their safety. And, you know, we can’t allow that.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that was one issue where I didn’t agree with the decision. But I also understood that it’s not my responsibility to worry about people’s safety. That’s the state responsibility. And they’re seeing it from a liability perspective that I wasn’t paying attention to. I was just looking at it as a good story. They were looking at it well, there’s liability, you know, and there’s implications. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I wanted to shift us into talking a little bit about some of the things that we ran into reporting this podcast, you know, this season of On Our Watch. Rahsaan, you were an editorial consultant for On Our Watch, and you gave feedback along the way about the series. And, you know, I always just really appreciated your input. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things that you just kind of, I think brought home for me, in the editorial room was the kind of wildness of the situation with the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. The fact that deadly force was not used, you know, in this unit and, you know, when this was transpiring. And you really wanted to, you know, help us get that across to listeners because we, you know, in our earlier drafts, we’re not doing so. Can you talk a little bit about that, like why that particular environment, why it was so kind of startling to you — who has a familiarity with the world inside prison — why the deadly force was not used as an option? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. The first thing you see, or one of the first things you notice that sounds really cold is the sign on the wall that says no warning shots, and they mean it. They don’t yell, you know, ‘Stop, break up the fight.’ They break up fights with gunfire. And so I know them to be really harsh with that weapon that Mini 14. I’ve been on the yard with people who have bullets in them from that Mini 14, and for it not to be used in that incident where the that might have been a viable way to stop somebody from getting killed? And they didn’t? It just spoke to me it like that was a setup. Like that was a huge clue to me that that’s not how that world works. I’ve actually seen the gun fired at San Quentin before, and this is like one guy had another guy in a headlock. No weapons were involved, but he just wouldn’t let him out of a headlock. And then, thank God, the officer fired into the ground. But he fired into the ground three times, right next to where the guy had the other guy in a headlock for a wrestling match, right? So I just don’t know a world where somebody’s gets stabbed to death and they don’t use that gun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And you talked about the kind of psychological impact of, like, living under that gun, like that, you know, that gun is in the control booth kind of looking over you all the time. And that really made an impact on me because I was kind of thinking about it more from the perspective of just like, ‘Oh, this is this person’s job is supposed to keep people safe.’ But there is just always this gun looking over you no matter what you’re doing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I always felt like it’s supposed to protect you, but I always felt like because they have a bad habit of hitting people of color, not using them when your lives on the line, just, like, really selective. And even in a perfect world where they’re trying to do the right thing, it’s still a matter of aim and movement and just all these different factors. I rather take my chances with the ice pick. Y’all mind y’all business. I rather take my chances with the ice pick than that gun being over my head. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Jesse, I also called you a number of times while working on this series because I just think of you as somebody who’s got really good advice about how to deal with tricky situations, ethical decisions, and, you know, just to make sure, like, do a gut check on myself about how I’m approaching certain things. And I know you have really strong feelings about this, but like, can you tell me, you know, what are your pet peeves? What are the pitfalls that you see reporters or news organizations falling prey to, you know, when they’re reporting on prisons and incarceration? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. It’s, I think it’s it’s personal to me just because, like, I know the folks inside, you know, and having been there for, you know, two decades, you get to learn people’s mannerisms and stuff and you have a different appreciation for life. So some of the things that I know, you know, when people report on the incarcerated or just on things that pertain to our living environment, there’s certain things that need to be said and told. Right? But they have repercussions for us as a population. It’s just like one thing, right? Like, for instance, they told the story about us getting, you know, Snickers bars and peanuts back in the days for Christmas. We used to get free Christmas packages, you know, that were paid for by the state. And a reporter happened to run the story and stuff like that. And it was great that the state was doing something for the incarcerated during Christmas time, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But unfortunately, when the story came out, there was so much backlash behind the state being “soft on crime” that they stopped that program. So it’s like, did you do this story as a human interest story or were you doing the story? Just because look at what taxpayer money is doing. Look at what they’re doing. They’re feeding these criminals and stuff. Right. So it’s the twist that they put on it. And sadly, you know, most of the stories that have come out of prison, you know, have been detrimental to the incarcerated, to our conditions. And everybody’s been speaking on our behalf, taking our quotes out of context. And it’s like, well, how come you just don’t let me tell the story, you know, how come you just don’t, like, report accurately what I’m trying to mention. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most reporters, they parachute into the prisons, they parachute in, get a story, run that story, and they tell you like, you know, number one is like, we want to protect people’s, you know, safety and well-being and stuff like that. That’s an illusion. That’s to appease your conscience. You can’t. You can’t guarantee anything. You know, once you take that story and run with it. Right. You can’t guarantee nobody’s safety. That’s number one. Number two, the idea of, you know, journalism doing no harm. It’s like nobody tells a story not intending to do harm. Sometimes we tell the story one and people to go to jail wanting things to change. Like that’s a reality. That’s harm. That’s going to happen to somebody’s family somewhere, somehow. You know, so when you take a story that a reporter publishes and then they don’t come back to talk to the person that they interviewed, when they don’t try to create community or relationships or stay engaged to make sure that nothing does happen to this person, like, that’s a disservice to that individual and to themselves as journalists, because now you’ve lost your credibility with the incarcerated because you told them you wanted this story to make a difference, but then you, like, let them down by just walking away after you got a Pulitzer or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As part of Empowerment Avenue, we have help writers publish stories that are critical to CDCR and major platforms, and they have gotten flack for it. One writer in particular, he was put into a cell with a guy known for attacking people, and we feel it was on purpose. Like, you know, this guy’s attacking. You know, he keeps attacking people. He’s an old man with mental health issues. You know, this is going to happen. Sure enough, my boy got attacked. He didn’t fight back, though. He just did enough to, like, stop the attack. And they still put him in a hole even though he was the victim. Right. So we really feel like it was retaliatory. And in situations like that, your heart goes out and it’s a reminder that everybody’s not in San Quentin. Where the retaliat- I believe there’s retaliation as well, but it looks different. It doesn’t look like violence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was he was that person okay? Like what? What happened to them? Physically? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re fine. They survived it. Got hit in the head with a lock. So he survived it. And we’re trying to like right now sue to get the video footage to try to do something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie, I was going to ask you, was is there anything, you know, that you’ve noticed in your years of reporting about prisons, you know, blind spots that you see regularly in the media or, you know, things that you’ve learned over the years that have kind of informed the way you approach prison reporting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I like what was said about people parachuting in. That happens a lot. I like to think that I didn’t parachute in, but, because I kept covering the stories. But I can see now that I, I relied too heavily on advocates and people on the outside. It was harder before to actually speak to people who are incarcerated. And the first experience of having good access was during Covid. And I was able to talk to people in San Quentin as things were happening. But that was relatively new and recorded on a decent line. And, so it’s it’s changed and there’s better access now, but, a lot of times people will just focus in on one issue. There’s so many systemic issues. It needs to be covered over a period of time. So you can see if anything’s changing, if anything’s coming out of your reporting. It’s nearly impossible because it’s such a closed system. And I didn’t really appreciate that until we did this podcast. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, and I was thinking about the things that are being measured throughout my career, you know, the medical care, mental health care, how many visits to the therapist, dental care. You know, those were tangible things that I could measure, and even use of force going up or use of force going down. But we actually aren’t told what’s going on inside the prisons, where if a crime occurs inside, it’s not a public record. There’s so much going on, and it’s really hard for us to gauge how how dangerous it is because it’s completely being withheld from us. And, this podcast was the first time I really got to talk to correctional officers who were open about it, and also realizing that there are- they’re also people on that side caught in this, you know, silence, this code of silence that you can’t break it. They don’t agree with it. They’re aware of the problems, but they go along. And so I guess. That’s a much harder story to get at. And it took two years for us to get it. That’s, you know, and that’s maybe why people don’t get at it. But, this is breaking through that silence. The only way is to find to talk to more people who are formerly incarcerated and more people who are currently incarcerated and former staff of any stripe, whether they’re officers or psych techs or whatever they are. It’s the only way we’re going to know, really, what’s going on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jesse, you know, two of the kind of main subjects of the series were these two correctional officers who became whistleblowers, who reported misconduct, you know, within the ISU, the investigative services unit that they worked. And I just wonder about your experience with that. Like, have you had experience with correctional officers who became whistleblowers, who are willing to talk to you for stories or willing to talk to reporters for the San Quentin News? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’ve. I’ve gotten, I mean, I know some corrections officers, now. It’s interesting to say, you know, that we’re friends to some extent. You know, it’s it would be odd, you know, to say that they weren’t, though, just because the level of intimacy that we’ve developed over time, and I think that just came with, like, developing a relationship where there was like, care and concern for the individual as a person versus just as a source for a story. And even though some of the stories that they’ve shared. Right, they go back, you know, five years, ten years, 15 years. Right. We haven’t really pursued them in a formal way, in an official way. Like if I get a story, I’ll usually pawn it off on somebody else because it’s not what we actually do at San Quentin News, or it’s something that I know is going to jeopardize, you know, that individual’s job or his safety. And it’s a story that I believe that, it’s not going to necessarily influence policy. Right. Because one of the things, right, when I hear stories of corrections officers in the struggles that they go through, you know, they go through the same issues that we go through as a culture inside of the prison system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, Rahsaan, what was your experience, you know, as a journalist incarcerated, you know, trying to get people to talk, you know, trying to get people to break that code of silence or that taboo against, you know, quote unquote, snitching?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I had different experiences. Some I never broke it, some I did, but for the most part, I wasn’t asking people to snitch on anything. Right. I allow people to be comfortable talking about the story without editing. And then I would edit in a way that would be to tell a story, but be respectful to the to their lives, to their trust in me, their faith in me. Because I always tell people, ‘I’m not TMZ, right? I’m trying to tell a story to make a difference. Right? I’m not. I’m a solution based reporter. I’m not. I’m just telling the story for entertainment. I don’t care about clicks. I don’t care about ratings. I don’t care about none of that stuff.’ I just want to put some intelligence on our world and show people like how we can deal with things in a way that’s gonna be effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so people trusted me with their stories because I wouldn’t put stuff out there that didn’t belong out there. That wasn’t necessary for the story. And if there was something edgy where we walking the line, I would talk about it with them and ask them did they feel comfortable? And they would have to make a grown person decision. Then when we started doing that, there were like OGs that would vouch for us. There were like there were people in the community be like, ‘Nah.’ Then an OG be like, ‘Yo, they good, I good bro. Like, you can talk to them.’ And they would get the green light to do the interview. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s really amazing. Another like really big hurdle that we dealt with and also that incarcerated people face, not just in the world of journalism, but overall is this perceived lack of credibility. And we saw this over and over again, you know, incarcerated people who had reported officers for using excessive force. But if the use of force happened in a place where there were no cameras, if there was no other tangible evidence to back up their story, it was not their story did not prevail. Jesse, can you talk a little bit about how you deal with these issues of credibility as an editor and how you advise journalists that you work with to think about these issues and help them get, you know, accountability or get justice through reporting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. It’s, very tricky. Just because there’s, a couple of things, right, that I learned when I first went into the system before I became a journalist. Right. That have carried over into how we set editorial, reporting expectations. You know, it’s like you can go to an interview, hear a story from somebody, and then if it’s an allegation of misconduct or something like that, then we ask for like, documentation, paperwork, you know, appointment dockets. We ask for corroborating evidence, you know, like maybe a witness or two. Right. Somebody that was there and stuff like that. But the other thing that we also tell our reporters is the people that they’re interviewing, like if there isn’t documentation yet, had them document it now and start lodging those, you know, grievance forms like a 602, right. Start writing the ombudsman, start sending something to the attorney general and stuff like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then that way our story isn’t just, you know, he said she said, because that also protects us. Like, I want to make sure that above all else, right, that we continue to have some institutional credibility as a publication that at least tries to fact check and, you know, try to advise the people that were interviewing to do what’s right. Because the main thing that I realize about, the outside world and how they look at prison journalism, the way that we do it, is they think that it’s always advocacy journalism. And it’s not always that, you know, but they think because it’s prison journalists producing journalism, that it has to be advocacy because we’re talking against a system. And sometimes I think what we’re actually doing is just, you know, as they say, historically, journalism happens to be the first rough draft of human history. And I think that’s what we’re doing, just chronicling, you know, what’s happening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about you, Rahsaan? Is there, like any difference in the way that you think about credibility in, in prison or in talking to incarcerated sources versus just, you know, any source that you might talk to for a story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I start out with talking with anyone as if they’re telling the truth, unless my instincts or they give me a reason not to believe them, or they make a claim that the world might not believe. And like Jesse said, you need proof to back it up. Not for me, but because if we’re going to print, it could be a lawsuit. Whatever I need to be able to back this up, it needs to be a fact, right? I think one of my greatest problems or greatest issues I ran into was being a freelancer. When it came to quoting incarcerated people in the yard. There were organizations that wanted like, it was just hard for them to accept a quote from an incarcerated person. They wanted, like notes and verification and just all this extra layers. But yet they’ll take a CDCR quote and run with it. Just don’t even fact check nothing, just run with it, put out propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I just felt like what makes their work better than ours? Or what as a journalist like, why would you devalue- is it me? Because like, you know, we have people on NBC that was known liars, like all kinds of journalists, on major platforms. So it’s not where you at, you know, that determines your level of integrity. And so I felt like I was almost being censored by my colleagues because you’re putting a higher standard on who’s quotable or who’s reliable. When I’m telling you I’m living right here. And I see this person’s daily walk every day. They’re reliable, right? They have a reliable track record. Right. And so who are you doubting, me? Them? Both? And what are you using to weigh credibility? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie, I know you have spent many years covering prisons, a lot of years talking to public information officers and public affairs officers for CDCR. A lot of years, you know, trying to break through the wall of bureaucracy and official speak to get real answers on things that are incredibly important, you know, both for people who are incarcerated and for people who are not incarcerated, who pay for this incredibly expensive system that we all own here in California. You know, what are your, you know, tips, and, and how to do that or if not tips, what are your frustrations with trying to do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I, I’m going to be a little negative here. I don’t think you’ll ever get a specific answer to a specific question unless it’s innocuous or makes them look good. I think the way to deal with it is to get your information and to dig deep and have your facts. And like we did in the podcast, like, say, ‘This, this and this happened, what’s your response?’ So that it’s like you’re giving them enough rope. They are saying something ludicrous in response to evidence that you’re presenting in your story. So I think it’s like going every other place to get the information, stacking it up and presenting it and then saying, ‘Okay, now try to deny all this.’ And then let them, let them deny it. And they it just exposes them as for what they are, just not telling the truth. Not not being forthright. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what’s been your experience like, Jesse? I mean, I know, like when you were incarcerated, you would have to, you know, try and get response from CDCR and now, you know, as you know, kind of a publisher, like helping other journalists who are incarcerated, you know, how do you kind of bring accountability questions to, you know, CDC, our public affairs, and what are the kinds of answers you get? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s pretty interesting because the whole profession of being a public information officer, right? It’s a lot of damage control. You know, it’s a lot of damage control. It’s a lot of, you know, trying to salvage an image, you know, and I think, again, like I always preface what I say with, I try to give people a lot of grace because I understand as individuals you’re put in between a rock and a hard spot, right? When this is your job, this is what you get paid for. This is what you’re supposed to do, right? Ethically and morally, you may not agree with it, right? And you may have questions. But, you know, at the end of the day, you have to protect your institution from liability, you know? So I’m very mindful of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, when I talk to our reporters and everybody that we’re training to be reporters inside the carceral system, it’s like, don’t expect people to validate the truth that you know. You know, like, just know that there’s going to be some version that’s going to come out that may not be the actual truth, you know, but you have to find a way to tell that story anyway. And then we have to be able to, not just bring them accountability, but also bring enough awareness and notoriety to the issue that it’s going to make a difference. Right? Because it can’t just come from one person and one source. And I think that’s been the thing that has helped us. Right? It’s not just about like the incarcerated. So our editor in chief wants to know this, you know, do you have an answer for him? It’s like, well, our editor in chief, you know, these two other publications and these five organizations, you know, are interested in what’s happening here. And all of a sudden it’s like, oh, you got more people involved and stuff, right? So it’s like there’s more eyeballs. There’s more accountability, right? Having more like institutions that produce journalism be involved with prison journalists is essential if we’re going to hold the systems accountable. Right. Because I think at the end of the day, most people want accountability and transparency, right? But it’s scary to go through that change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, Rahsaan, I know we’ve talked in the past before about like, the frustrations that you have about the kinds of stories you feel like you’re allowed to tell, or people want you to tell. Can you speak to that a little bit about just, you know, the limitations that people of the journalism people allow you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It goes back to credibility again. Right? For whatever reason, they don’t respect incarcerated people as real journalists, even though we are behind enemy lines, so to speak, and speaking from the belly of the beast, which is a tough. But certain organizations limit you to opinion pieces. Right. And so I try to be positive about that. Like we do enough opinion pieces and they’ll respect, like, we’ll build a relationship and then they’ll respect us. And then a guy will end up, you know, doing a feature piece, doing an actual reported piece. And, you know, here and there that works out, but some of us are still stuck, and some of these organizations still got it stuck in opinion piece mode. And I just think we’re so much better than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I know that sometimes somebody might take offense that they’ve been to journalism school and got this degree and spent all this money and here comes somebody who just bootleg trained off the yard in the Journalism Guild, and they’re able to earn a living from prison or take up space in that paper that maybe these journalists feel like that belongs to me and my degree. But I think that if you want a better society, you have to get the whole story. Then we’ll be doing what we supposed to do as journalists, which I believe is a- to foster democracy, a world that’s inclusive, a world that’s better, a world that works for all of us. But if we only featuring one side of the story and we limit ourselves to this crap. This clickbait. We get what we we going to keep getting what we’ve been getting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do want to say that I think things are getting somewhat better. Empowerment Avenue launched during Covid when reporters couldn’t get the story except having direct access to us. And so we controlled the narrative and we were able to put stories out. But COVID’s gone and the demand for incarcerated voices has gone up. And now guys have actual journalism jobs as like editors and reporters from prison and making decent salaries. So I think the world is changing. But there’s still some organizations that don’t have incarcerated voices connected. They haven’t built that community. They don’t know where the experts are. So there’s still more work to be done. But because that the demand for our voices has grown, and formerly incarcerated people keep winning Pulitzer Prizes. So I’m super proud. Like the world wants to hear our side of the story, they tired of the same old law and order crap, right? And so I’m really going into the future hopeful, but yet still speaking loudly about all the flaws that we need to fix so we can hurry up and fix them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think I’ll just add that what made prison journalism a force to be reckoned with in the 1800s early 1900s, up until 1991, when we had, you know 300 newspapers inside of prisons, it was community engagement, you know, like deep engagement, you know, with the prison system and, you know, just paying attention to those stories and holding the system accountable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The other thing, too, like a lot of times we think that change in policy is going to change the world. And it doesn’t. You know, you can’t legislate how people feel about each other. You can’t tell me I gotta like somebody. You have to create a culture and an environment and a space where I want to help, where I want to care, where I want to be involved. Right. And I think creating spaces like this prison journalism movement that we have going on, like we’re actually trying to develop more civic engagement because people who are civically engaged care about their communities, and their communities start caring about them. So and I think that’s going to be at the core of how we create a cultural change that’s going to, you know, supersede policy, you know, by maybe five, ten years. So be mindful that, you know, like how you report on people, shows what you care for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you, Jessie and Roseanne and Julie for having this great conversation about journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. I appreciate being here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Thanks for having us as colleagues on here. It’s great. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have links to Jesse and Rahsaan’s work in our episode description, as well as other resources to support prison journalism. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to onourwatch@KQED.org. This episode was hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of Podcasts. It was produced by Chris Egusa. Final mixing by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, our managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "BONUS: “The Prison Beat” | S2: New Folsom | KQED",
"description": "Reporting on prisons from the outside is often difficult; it’s a closed and secretive world. But there is also important reporting being done by people who are inside prison, which comes with dangers of its own. Sukey and Julie sit down with two formerly incarcerated journalists, Rahsaan Thomas and Jesse Vasquez, to talk about the challenges and opportunities of prison reporting.",
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"socialDescription": "Reporting on prisons from the outside is often difficult; it’s a closed and secretive world. But there is also important reporting being done by people who are inside prison, which comes with dangers of its own. Sukey and Julie sit down with two formerly incarcerated journalists, Rahsaan Thomas and Jesse Vasquez, to talk about the challenges and opportunities of prison reporting.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reporting on prisons from the outside is often difficult; it’s a closed and secretive world. But there is also important reporting being done by people who are inside prison, which comes with dangers of its own. Sukey and Julie sit down with two formerly incarcerated journalists, Rahsaan Thomas and Jesse Vasquez, to talk about the challenges and opportunities of prison reporting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6919454101\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rahsaan Thomas is the Executive Director of \u003ca href=\"https://www.empowermentave.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Empowerment Avenue\u003c/a> and a producer at \u003ca href=\"https://www.earhustlesq.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ear Hustle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jesse Vasquez is the Executive Director of the \u003ca href=\"https://polleninitiative.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pollen Initiative\u003c/a> and former Editor-in-Chief of the \u003ca href=\"https://sanquentinnews.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">San Quentin News\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start. Just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references acts of violence. If you or someone you know needs support. We’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi and welcome back to another bonus episode of On Our Watch I’m \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Throughout reporting this season, my co-reporter \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie Small\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and I knocked on a lot of closed doors, pored over hundreds of pages of documents that were often redacted beyond recognition, and our best hope of contacting a source in prison was usually to send a letter via snail mail and hope they responded. In general, reporting on prisons can be really difficult, finding sources and navigating the politics of a closed world. But in recent years, there’s also been a revival of the prison journalism movement. Newspapers and podcasts created from inside that world by incarcerated reporters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Julie and I talk to two journalists who started their careers inside prison. Rahsaan “New York” Thomas, who consulted on this season of On Our Watch, is also a producer for the Ear Hustle podcast and started a nonprofit called Empowerment Avenue that supports incarcerated writers and artists. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was editor in chief of the San Quentin News newspaper and now directs a nonprofit called the Pollen Initiative, which provides multimedia training to other people in California prisons. Here’s our conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, everybody, for coming here today to the various places that we are joining, joining each other from. Rahsaan, how did you become a journalist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I became a journalist by accident and half way because of a scam. I arrived in the San Quentin prison yard after working on this book for like, maybe seven, eight, almost ten years. And, but the book was mostly handwritten and there was no way to really edit it. Like when you want to edit it, you have to rewrite it or retype it and it’s like… And so I wanted to work for San Quentin News because they had computers and I wanted to type my book and set a computer so I can get somebody to help me edit it and hopefully publish it and get it on the New York Times bestseller list and change the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so I went in there with that mindset. But I started fell in love with journalism. They made me the, sports reporter. And at first I was like, I want to write about bigger and better issues. Sports just seems so limited. But then I realized that. There was some social justice things happening, some really beautiful human interest things happening on the basketball court because it was uniting worlds that never meet normally, like billionaires and millionaires were playing basketball with kids from the streets of Los Angeles. And so something beautiful happening. And I fell in love with writing. And I found out at the same time that my book was horrible. Nobody ever deserves to see it. I need to rewrite it anyway. And but I got so caught up with journalism I never got to finish the book. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I feel you, I’m a I’m a failed novelist and poet. So journalism. Same save the universe from my creative writing as well. Jesse, what was your journey to journalism? How did you become involved in this world? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think my journey started with kind of like Rahsaan as an accident. I was more into daily journaling, and I was a pretty good writer in my academic, pursuits. Then I decided to transfer to San Quentin because I saw the San Quentin News join the Journalism Guild. And I fell in love with just telling people stories and meeting people in the yard and seeing what they were up to and making a difference in our community inside. I think journalism for me was what gave me purpose. In spite of the multiple life sentences that I was serving. It gave me an outlet to share people’s stories and make a difference while I was incarcerated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And now you’re an editor. Like, how how was that transition and what’s the difference in in your mind if there is one between the work that you did as a journalist and as an editor? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the huge difference is I have to think more in terms of management and structure, like it’s… Before it was just, you know, I want to tell impactful stories, powerful stories, you know, human interest stories. And then I realized that there’s, you know, a ripple effect to what we say, how we say it and to who we say it, depending on the platform that we’re using. And editing and overseeing the management of incarcerated produced content for, like an institutional publication like San Quentin News can be a bit tricky just because, you know, there’s certain things that we want to be mindful of when it comes to what we publish and produce. So it’s very it’s a very political position. I never understood that being an editor was very political, and you have to be very mindful of, you know, how you approach a subject, you know, not just because of the liabilities, you know, but also because we have a certain responsibility to the community that we represent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. The San Quentin News is such a unique publication. I myself am an alum of that program. When I was in graduate school at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, I got to go in with my professor, Bill Drummond, and work with some of the incarcerated journalists. And for me, you know, as a baby reporter myself, just figuring out the world of journalism, it was so inspiring to work with incarcerated reporters and also just to learn more about the this world of prison, prison reporting and criminal justice and kind of got me started heading down deeper and deeper into gaining expertise in the field and becoming a criminal justice reporter myself. What about you, Julie? Like what- what drew you to prison reporting in the first place? And, you know, is there a kind of seminal story for you about it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I, I like to say that it picked me. I didn’t pick prisons, picked prisons, picked me because my first day on the job in Sacramento was the day the then Governor Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in the prisons for overcrowding. The first major story I did was, you know, going into San Quentin, actually, with the federal receiver who’d been appointed by a federal judge to improve prison medical care because one person a day was dying inside our prisons because they couldn’t get access to care. There were like 200,000, almost 200,000 people incarcerated in California in 2006 for facilities designed for 80,000 people. And you can only imagine that’s going to compromise every aspect of life, especially medical care. So the Supreme Court ordered California to reduce the crowding. And that was sort of unprecedented, kind of order to get from the US Supreme Court. So it’s just been a part of my life following that, mostly, for over a decade. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or San for you, is there a story that you feel kind of most proud of reporting, or a moment where you feel like your journalism was kind of able to, you know, affect the broadest number of people or anything like that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s definitely a story I’m proud of, but I don’t feel it had the impact I wanted. I wrote a story for Wall City Magazine, which is a division of San Quentin News, about stopping gun violence, because I was watching TV one day and the senator was acting like he’s an expert on stopping gun violence because he talked to a gunshot victim. And based on talking to this gunshot victim, he came up with this or supported this idea of arming the teachers. And I’m sitting here thinking like, if you arm to teachers, that’s where the next guns are going to come from, you big dummy. And I just felt like, here I am in a prison with 2500 lifers running around with very little supervision at times, and it’s one of the safest places I had ever been up at that point in my life. And most of these guys that committed violence and we stopped it by therapy really, like putting restorative justice into place, not as a way to deal with harm, but as a as a way of life. So when harm is thinking about happening, this way of life is already in place to prevent it. Right. And just that therapy and being included in a community, being exclusioned, leaving people out of society, right, and rubbing in their face that you’re here but you’re not one of us. There’s all these different things that were happening in San Quentin, and I felt like were an answer to gun violence. And I wanted to get that out there. And so I did a lot of research and wrote this article I’m really proud of, and I think I’m the only that read it. Cuz we still get shot. Ah it’s sad. It’s sad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh I’m sorry. That that’s one of the most frustrating things is finding an audience for for your reporting. What about you, Jesse? Is there a story that you’re the most, you know, proud of writing or, you know, being an editor for getting getting in the paper? You know, despite obstacles?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will clarify that. I did read Roseanne’s piece on gun violence. So it was two of us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At least two people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At least two of us read it. Well, there was probably one adviser who read it to to proofread it. So we did the best we could. There is one story that I think, I, I mean, I wrote and it was based on the victim compensation fund and the Department of Corrections. And I think the reason why I remember that story very vividly, because I had a couple guys on the prison yard actually come to me, right? And tell me, like, dude, like I didn’t know where my restitution money was going. I didn’t understand that there’s this victim compensation fund that is there, but the victims had to actually request it. You know, it’s not an automatic thing where, you know, like you’re paying into the restitution and a check is sent to the victims every, you know, month or every six months or whatever. It’s they have to keep their address up to date. They have to check that the money is there. They have to make sure that they tell the, you know, victim compensation board to make sure that they, you know, get their money. So I had a couple guys come to me and say, like, ‘You know what, I contacted my family to contact so-and-so to let them know, like, hey, there’s some money waiting for you because I’m getting charged for it. And I want to make sure that the victims get it. Instead of it being rolled into the general fund or whatever, you know that the state does.’ And I think the reason why I’m most proud of that story in particular, is because I’ve always wanted to at least make a difference in the small community that we were serving. And for me, that immediate context is the people that I was locked up with. And that’s why, like, you know, still to this day, I remember that one story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rahsaan, I was also wanting to ask you about the stories that you didn’t get to tell. Like, are there any stories that you wished you could tell, you know, while you were incarcerated but could not, because of, you know, the pressures or the censorship from others or just the limitations of the environment?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, there’s stories that I wish were told, but I didn’t want to tell them. For instance, there were like prison officials and wardens that were like getting in legal troubles. And so it felt hypocritical that they weren’t being punished and they were responsible for holding us accountable. But at the same time, I’m not trying to do stories about, like, blood and crip stuff, right? Like I’m trying to do positive stories or story that’s going to make a difference in stories like, look what they’re doing, right? I wanted to do stories that like, ‘Look what we could be doing and be a better place.’ So I can’t say there’s any stories that I really held back on. There’s stories I haven’t finished yet. There’s stories I’m working on, but nothing’s stopping me with me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you know, Jesse, I have a slightly different question for you, which is just, you know, as an editor, has there ever been a time where, you know, CDCR leadership or, you know, the warden of San Quentin or now that you’ve spread to other, you know, places has, you know, shut down a story or killed a story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a story, one in particular that was going to go into Wall City Magazine. And it was a great story about, you know, two people finding love inside of the carceral system. I don’t know if you remember this one Rahsaan, but it was going to go in Wall City Magazine, and it was a great story written by Joe Garcia. And the lead editor on that was Kate McQueen. And it was an awesome piece, maybe about 2500 words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the reason why it became an issue was for safety concerns. You know, inside of the California prison system, you can imagine the amount of, you know, machismo and, let’s say gender bias and stuff that exists, and a lot of the violence that is perpetuated against trans and, you know, other communities that people consider other. So it was like the administration was like, ‘We can’t let you run that story. It’s going to jeopardize these individuals, you know, if they get transferred somewhere else. San Quentin is a more, let’s say, tolerant environment, a more accepting environment. But if they ever get transferred somewhere else, you’re jeopardizing their safety. And, you know, we can’t allow that.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that was one issue where I didn’t agree with the decision. But I also understood that it’s not my responsibility to worry about people’s safety. That’s the state responsibility. And they’re seeing it from a liability perspective that I wasn’t paying attention to. I was just looking at it as a good story. They were looking at it well, there’s liability, you know, and there’s implications. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I wanted to shift us into talking a little bit about some of the things that we ran into reporting this podcast, you know, this season of On Our Watch. Rahsaan, you were an editorial consultant for On Our Watch, and you gave feedback along the way about the series. And, you know, I always just really appreciated your input. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things that you just kind of, I think brought home for me, in the editorial room was the kind of wildness of the situation with the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. The fact that deadly force was not used, you know, in this unit and, you know, when this was transpiring. And you really wanted to, you know, help us get that across to listeners because we, you know, in our earlier drafts, we’re not doing so. Can you talk a little bit about that, like why that particular environment, why it was so kind of startling to you — who has a familiarity with the world inside prison — why the deadly force was not used as an option? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. The first thing you see, or one of the first things you notice that sounds really cold is the sign on the wall that says no warning shots, and they mean it. They don’t yell, you know, ‘Stop, break up the fight.’ They break up fights with gunfire. And so I know them to be really harsh with that weapon that Mini 14. I’ve been on the yard with people who have bullets in them from that Mini 14, and for it not to be used in that incident where the that might have been a viable way to stop somebody from getting killed? And they didn’t? It just spoke to me it like that was a setup. Like that was a huge clue to me that that’s not how that world works. I’ve actually seen the gun fired at San Quentin before, and this is like one guy had another guy in a headlock. No weapons were involved, but he just wouldn’t let him out of a headlock. And then, thank God, the officer fired into the ground. But he fired into the ground three times, right next to where the guy had the other guy in a headlock for a wrestling match, right? So I just don’t know a world where somebody’s gets stabbed to death and they don’t use that gun. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And you talked about the kind of psychological impact of, like, living under that gun, like that, you know, that gun is in the control booth kind of looking over you all the time. And that really made an impact on me because I was kind of thinking about it more from the perspective of just like, ‘Oh, this is this person’s job is supposed to keep people safe.’ But there is just always this gun looking over you no matter what you’re doing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I always felt like it’s supposed to protect you, but I always felt like because they have a bad habit of hitting people of color, not using them when your lives on the line, just, like, really selective. And even in a perfect world where they’re trying to do the right thing, it’s still a matter of aim and movement and just all these different factors. I rather take my chances with the ice pick. Y’all mind y’all business. I rather take my chances with the ice pick than that gun being over my head. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Jesse, I also called you a number of times while working on this series because I just think of you as somebody who’s got really good advice about how to deal with tricky situations, ethical decisions, and, you know, just to make sure, like, do a gut check on myself about how I’m approaching certain things. And I know you have really strong feelings about this, but like, can you tell me, you know, what are your pet peeves? What are the pitfalls that you see reporters or news organizations falling prey to, you know, when they’re reporting on prisons and incarceration? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. It’s, I think it’s it’s personal to me just because, like, I know the folks inside, you know, and having been there for, you know, two decades, you get to learn people’s mannerisms and stuff and you have a different appreciation for life. So some of the things that I know, you know, when people report on the incarcerated or just on things that pertain to our living environment, there’s certain things that need to be said and told. Right? But they have repercussions for us as a population. It’s just like one thing, right? Like, for instance, they told the story about us getting, you know, Snickers bars and peanuts back in the days for Christmas. We used to get free Christmas packages, you know, that were paid for by the state. And a reporter happened to run the story and stuff like that. And it was great that the state was doing something for the incarcerated during Christmas time, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But unfortunately, when the story came out, there was so much backlash behind the state being “soft on crime” that they stopped that program. So it’s like, did you do this story as a human interest story or were you doing the story? Just because look at what taxpayer money is doing. Look at what they’re doing. They’re feeding these criminals and stuff. Right. So it’s the twist that they put on it. And sadly, you know, most of the stories that have come out of prison, you know, have been detrimental to the incarcerated, to our conditions. And everybody’s been speaking on our behalf, taking our quotes out of context. And it’s like, well, how come you just don’t let me tell the story, you know, how come you just don’t, like, report accurately what I’m trying to mention. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most reporters, they parachute into the prisons, they parachute in, get a story, run that story, and they tell you like, you know, number one is like, we want to protect people’s, you know, safety and well-being and stuff like that. That’s an illusion. That’s to appease your conscience. You can’t. You can’t guarantee anything. You know, once you take that story and run with it. Right. You can’t guarantee nobody’s safety. That’s number one. Number two, the idea of, you know, journalism doing no harm. It’s like nobody tells a story not intending to do harm. Sometimes we tell the story one and people to go to jail wanting things to change. Like that’s a reality. That’s harm. That’s going to happen to somebody’s family somewhere, somehow. You know, so when you take a story that a reporter publishes and then they don’t come back to talk to the person that they interviewed, when they don’t try to create community or relationships or stay engaged to make sure that nothing does happen to this person, like, that’s a disservice to that individual and to themselves as journalists, because now you’ve lost your credibility with the incarcerated because you told them you wanted this story to make a difference, but then you, like, let them down by just walking away after you got a Pulitzer or something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As part of Empowerment Avenue, we have help writers publish stories that are critical to CDCR and major platforms, and they have gotten flack for it. One writer in particular, he was put into a cell with a guy known for attacking people, and we feel it was on purpose. Like, you know, this guy’s attacking. You know, he keeps attacking people. He’s an old man with mental health issues. You know, this is going to happen. Sure enough, my boy got attacked. He didn’t fight back, though. He just did enough to, like, stop the attack. And they still put him in a hole even though he was the victim. Right. So we really feel like it was retaliatory. And in situations like that, your heart goes out and it’s a reminder that everybody’s not in San Quentin. Where the retaliat- I believe there’s retaliation as well, but it looks different. It doesn’t look like violence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was he was that person okay? Like what? What happened to them? Physically? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re fine. They survived it. Got hit in the head with a lock. So he survived it. And we’re trying to like right now sue to get the video footage to try to do something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie, I was going to ask you, was is there anything, you know, that you’ve noticed in your years of reporting about prisons, you know, blind spots that you see regularly in the media or, you know, things that you’ve learned over the years that have kind of informed the way you approach prison reporting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I like what was said about people parachuting in. That happens a lot. I like to think that I didn’t parachute in, but, because I kept covering the stories. But I can see now that I, I relied too heavily on advocates and people on the outside. It was harder before to actually speak to people who are incarcerated. And the first experience of having good access was during Covid. And I was able to talk to people in San Quentin as things were happening. But that was relatively new and recorded on a decent line. And, so it’s it’s changed and there’s better access now, but, a lot of times people will just focus in on one issue. There’s so many systemic issues. It needs to be covered over a period of time. So you can see if anything’s changing, if anything’s coming out of your reporting. It’s nearly impossible because it’s such a closed system. And I didn’t really appreciate that until we did this podcast. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, and I was thinking about the things that are being measured throughout my career, you know, the medical care, mental health care, how many visits to the therapist, dental care. You know, those were tangible things that I could measure, and even use of force going up or use of force going down. But we actually aren’t told what’s going on inside the prisons, where if a crime occurs inside, it’s not a public record. There’s so much going on, and it’s really hard for us to gauge how how dangerous it is because it’s completely being withheld from us. And, this podcast was the first time I really got to talk to correctional officers who were open about it, and also realizing that there are- they’re also people on that side caught in this, you know, silence, this code of silence that you can’t break it. They don’t agree with it. They’re aware of the problems, but they go along. And so I guess. That’s a much harder story to get at. And it took two years for us to get it. That’s, you know, and that’s maybe why people don’t get at it. But, this is breaking through that silence. The only way is to find to talk to more people who are formerly incarcerated and more people who are currently incarcerated and former staff of any stripe, whether they’re officers or psych techs or whatever they are. It’s the only way we’re going to know, really, what’s going on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jesse, you know, two of the kind of main subjects of the series were these two correctional officers who became whistleblowers, who reported misconduct, you know, within the ISU, the investigative services unit that they worked. And I just wonder about your experience with that. Like, have you had experience with correctional officers who became whistleblowers, who are willing to talk to you for stories or willing to talk to reporters for the San Quentin News? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I’ve. I’ve gotten, I mean, I know some corrections officers, now. It’s interesting to say, you know, that we’re friends to some extent. You know, it’s it would be odd, you know, to say that they weren’t, though, just because the level of intimacy that we’ve developed over time, and I think that just came with, like, developing a relationship where there was like, care and concern for the individual as a person versus just as a source for a story. And even though some of the stories that they’ve shared. Right, they go back, you know, five years, ten years, 15 years. Right. We haven’t really pursued them in a formal way, in an official way. Like if I get a story, I’ll usually pawn it off on somebody else because it’s not what we actually do at San Quentin News, or it’s something that I know is going to jeopardize, you know, that individual’s job or his safety. And it’s a story that I believe that, it’s not going to necessarily influence policy. Right. Because one of the things, right, when I hear stories of corrections officers in the struggles that they go through, you know, they go through the same issues that we go through as a culture inside of the prison system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, Rahsaan, what was your experience, you know, as a journalist incarcerated, you know, trying to get people to talk, you know, trying to get people to break that code of silence or that taboo against, you know, quote unquote, snitching?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I had different experiences. Some I never broke it, some I did, but for the most part, I wasn’t asking people to snitch on anything. Right. I allow people to be comfortable talking about the story without editing. And then I would edit in a way that would be to tell a story, but be respectful to the to their lives, to their trust in me, their faith in me. Because I always tell people, ‘I’m not TMZ, right? I’m trying to tell a story to make a difference. Right? I’m not. I’m a solution based reporter. I’m not. I’m just telling the story for entertainment. I don’t care about clicks. I don’t care about ratings. I don’t care about none of that stuff.’ I just want to put some intelligence on our world and show people like how we can deal with things in a way that’s gonna be effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so people trusted me with their stories because I wouldn’t put stuff out there that didn’t belong out there. That wasn’t necessary for the story. And if there was something edgy where we walking the line, I would talk about it with them and ask them did they feel comfortable? And they would have to make a grown person decision. Then when we started doing that, there were like OGs that would vouch for us. There were like there were people in the community be like, ‘Nah.’ Then an OG be like, ‘Yo, they good, I good bro. Like, you can talk to them.’ And they would get the green light to do the interview. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s really amazing. Another like really big hurdle that we dealt with and also that incarcerated people face, not just in the world of journalism, but overall is this perceived lack of credibility. And we saw this over and over again, you know, incarcerated people who had reported officers for using excessive force. But if the use of force happened in a place where there were no cameras, if there was no other tangible evidence to back up their story, it was not their story did not prevail. Jesse, can you talk a little bit about how you deal with these issues of credibility as an editor and how you advise journalists that you work with to think about these issues and help them get, you know, accountability or get justice through reporting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. It’s, very tricky. Just because there’s, a couple of things, right, that I learned when I first went into the system before I became a journalist. Right. That have carried over into how we set editorial, reporting expectations. You know, it’s like you can go to an interview, hear a story from somebody, and then if it’s an allegation of misconduct or something like that, then we ask for like, documentation, paperwork, you know, appointment dockets. We ask for corroborating evidence, you know, like maybe a witness or two. Right. Somebody that was there and stuff like that. But the other thing that we also tell our reporters is the people that they’re interviewing, like if there isn’t documentation yet, had them document it now and start lodging those, you know, grievance forms like a 602, right. Start writing the ombudsman, start sending something to the attorney general and stuff like that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then that way our story isn’t just, you know, he said she said, because that also protects us. Like, I want to make sure that above all else, right, that we continue to have some institutional credibility as a publication that at least tries to fact check and, you know, try to advise the people that were interviewing to do what’s right. Because the main thing that I realize about, the outside world and how they look at prison journalism, the way that we do it, is they think that it’s always advocacy journalism. And it’s not always that, you know, but they think because it’s prison journalists producing journalism, that it has to be advocacy because we’re talking against a system. And sometimes I think what we’re actually doing is just, you know, as they say, historically, journalism happens to be the first rough draft of human history. And I think that’s what we’re doing, just chronicling, you know, what’s happening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about you, Rahsaan? Is there, like any difference in the way that you think about credibility in, in prison or in talking to incarcerated sources versus just, you know, any source that you might talk to for a story? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I start out with talking with anyone as if they’re telling the truth, unless my instincts or they give me a reason not to believe them, or they make a claim that the world might not believe. And like Jesse said, you need proof to back it up. Not for me, but because if we’re going to print, it could be a lawsuit. Whatever I need to be able to back this up, it needs to be a fact, right? I think one of my greatest problems or greatest issues I ran into was being a freelancer. When it came to quoting incarcerated people in the yard. There were organizations that wanted like, it was just hard for them to accept a quote from an incarcerated person. They wanted, like notes and verification and just all this extra layers. But yet they’ll take a CDCR quote and run with it. Just don’t even fact check nothing, just run with it, put out propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I just felt like what makes their work better than ours? Or what as a journalist like, why would you devalue- is it me? Because like, you know, we have people on NBC that was known liars, like all kinds of journalists, on major platforms. So it’s not where you at, you know, that determines your level of integrity. And so I felt like I was almost being censored by my colleagues because you’re putting a higher standard on who’s quotable or who’s reliable. When I’m telling you I’m living right here. And I see this person’s daily walk every day. They’re reliable, right? They have a reliable track record. Right. And so who are you doubting, me? Them? Both? And what are you using to weigh credibility? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie, I know you have spent many years covering prisons, a lot of years talking to public information officers and public affairs officers for CDCR. A lot of years, you know, trying to break through the wall of bureaucracy and official speak to get real answers on things that are incredibly important, you know, both for people who are incarcerated and for people who are not incarcerated, who pay for this incredibly expensive system that we all own here in California. You know, what are your, you know, tips, and, and how to do that or if not tips, what are your frustrations with trying to do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I, I’m going to be a little negative here. I don’t think you’ll ever get a specific answer to a specific question unless it’s innocuous or makes them look good. I think the way to deal with it is to get your information and to dig deep and have your facts. And like we did in the podcast, like, say, ‘This, this and this happened, what’s your response?’ So that it’s like you’re giving them enough rope. They are saying something ludicrous in response to evidence that you’re presenting in your story. So I think it’s like going every other place to get the information, stacking it up and presenting it and then saying, ‘Okay, now try to deny all this.’ And then let them, let them deny it. And they it just exposes them as for what they are, just not telling the truth. Not not being forthright. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what’s been your experience like, Jesse? I mean, I know, like when you were incarcerated, you would have to, you know, try and get response from CDCR and now, you know, as you know, kind of a publisher, like helping other journalists who are incarcerated, you know, how do you kind of bring accountability questions to, you know, CDC, our public affairs, and what are the kinds of answers you get? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s pretty interesting because the whole profession of being a public information officer, right? It’s a lot of damage control. You know, it’s a lot of damage control. It’s a lot of, you know, trying to salvage an image, you know, and I think, again, like I always preface what I say with, I try to give people a lot of grace because I understand as individuals you’re put in between a rock and a hard spot, right? When this is your job, this is what you get paid for. This is what you’re supposed to do, right? Ethically and morally, you may not agree with it, right? And you may have questions. But, you know, at the end of the day, you have to protect your institution from liability, you know? So I’m very mindful of that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, when I talk to our reporters and everybody that we’re training to be reporters inside the carceral system, it’s like, don’t expect people to validate the truth that you know. You know, like, just know that there’s going to be some version that’s going to come out that may not be the actual truth, you know, but you have to find a way to tell that story anyway. And then we have to be able to, not just bring them accountability, but also bring enough awareness and notoriety to the issue that it’s going to make a difference. Right? Because it can’t just come from one person and one source. And I think that’s been the thing that has helped us. Right? It’s not just about like the incarcerated. So our editor in chief wants to know this, you know, do you have an answer for him? It’s like, well, our editor in chief, you know, these two other publications and these five organizations, you know, are interested in what’s happening here. And all of a sudden it’s like, oh, you got more people involved and stuff, right? So it’s like there’s more eyeballs. There’s more accountability, right? Having more like institutions that produce journalism be involved with prison journalists is essential if we’re going to hold the systems accountable. Right. Because I think at the end of the day, most people want accountability and transparency, right? But it’s scary to go through that change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, Rahsaan, I know we’ve talked in the past before about like, the frustrations that you have about the kinds of stories you feel like you’re allowed to tell, or people want you to tell. Can you speak to that a little bit about just, you know, the limitations that people of the journalism people allow you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It goes back to credibility again. Right? For whatever reason, they don’t respect incarcerated people as real journalists, even though we are behind enemy lines, so to speak, and speaking from the belly of the beast, which is a tough. But certain organizations limit you to opinion pieces. Right. And so I try to be positive about that. Like we do enough opinion pieces and they’ll respect, like, we’ll build a relationship and then they’ll respect us. And then a guy will end up, you know, doing a feature piece, doing an actual reported piece. And, you know, here and there that works out, but some of us are still stuck, and some of these organizations still got it stuck in opinion piece mode. And I just think we’re so much better than that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I know that sometimes somebody might take offense that they’ve been to journalism school and got this degree and spent all this money and here comes somebody who just bootleg trained off the yard in the Journalism Guild, and they’re able to earn a living from prison or take up space in that paper that maybe these journalists feel like that belongs to me and my degree. But I think that if you want a better society, you have to get the whole story. Then we’ll be doing what we supposed to do as journalists, which I believe is a- to foster democracy, a world that’s inclusive, a world that’s better, a world that works for all of us. But if we only featuring one side of the story and we limit ourselves to this crap. This clickbait. We get what we we going to keep getting what we’ve been getting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do want to say that I think things are getting somewhat better. Empowerment Avenue launched during Covid when reporters couldn’t get the story except having direct access to us. And so we controlled the narrative and we were able to put stories out. But COVID’s gone and the demand for incarcerated voices has gone up. And now guys have actual journalism jobs as like editors and reporters from prison and making decent salaries. So I think the world is changing. But there’s still some organizations that don’t have incarcerated voices connected. They haven’t built that community. They don’t know where the experts are. So there’s still more work to be done. But because that the demand for our voices has grown, and formerly incarcerated people keep winning Pulitzer Prizes. So I’m super proud. Like the world wants to hear our side of the story, they tired of the same old law and order crap, right? And so I’m really going into the future hopeful, but yet still speaking loudly about all the flaws that we need to fix so we can hurry up and fix them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I think I’ll just add that what made prison journalism a force to be reckoned with in the 1800s early 1900s, up until 1991, when we had, you know 300 newspapers inside of prisons, it was community engagement, you know, like deep engagement, you know, with the prison system and, you know, just paying attention to those stories and holding the system accountable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The other thing, too, like a lot of times we think that change in policy is going to change the world. And it doesn’t. You know, you can’t legislate how people feel about each other. You can’t tell me I gotta like somebody. You have to create a culture and an environment and a space where I want to help, where I want to care, where I want to be involved. Right. And I think creating spaces like this prison journalism movement that we have going on, like we’re actually trying to develop more civic engagement because people who are civically engaged care about their communities, and their communities start caring about them. So and I think that’s going to be at the core of how we create a cultural change that’s going to, you know, supersede policy, you know, by maybe five, ten years. So be mindful that, you know, like how you report on people, shows what you care for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you, Jessie and Roseanne and Julie for having this great conversation about journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rahsaan Thomas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you. I appreciate being here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jesse Vasquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Thanks for having us as colleagues on here. It’s great. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have links to Jesse and Rahsaan’s work in our episode description, as well as other resources to support prison journalism. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to onourwatch@KQED.org. This episode was hosted by me, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey Lewis\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of Podcasts. It was produced by Chris Egusa. Final mixing by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, our managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "BONUS: The Whistleblower Playbook | S2: New Folsom",
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},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sukey sits down with Mary Inman and Poppy Alexander, two whistleblower attorneys who talk about the cost of speaking up, and unpack the playbook that employers use to keep people quiet. They also discuss a shift in thinking that can protect both whistleblowers and their organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4625892902\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblower.law/\">Whistleblower Partners, LLP\u003c/a> (where Mary and Poppy are partners)\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mary Inman was profiled in the New Yorker piece, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/the-personal-toll-of-whistle-blowing\">“The Personal Toll of Whistleblowing.”\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, listeners, it’s Sukey. We’re back. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be bringing you some brand new bonus episodes. We’re going to dip into some of the stories that didn’t make it in the podcast, and talk to some experts to help us understand Correctional Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele in a broader light. We’re starting off this week with a really interesting conversation about what it means to be a whistleblower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When my colleague Julie first spoke to Val Senior about his son and his friend, Sergeant Kevin Steele, he was hesitant to call them whistleblowers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That name doesn’t do justice to people that have come forward, for me. When we were kids, being a whistleblower is tattletale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, see I think of it as heroic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The term and its many fraught interpretations are woven throughout our story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I’m a whistleblower rat for ex- exposing this ongoing corruption of staff and that I need to be taken out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can take on a bad connotation sometimes, but it is, again, a government program intended to expose corruption. That’s what it’s designed for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still haven’t been confirmed with whistleblower status, so that’s another reason why I’m a little still… I mean, I would venture to say that hopefully, the legal system would protect me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so we wanted to spend some time talking to two people who can help us understand this term and the challenges of coming forward. Thank you both so much for coming in. Could we just start off by having you each introduce yourselves? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sure. My name’s Mary Inman. I’m a partner at the law firm Whistleblower Partners, and I’m in the San Francisco office, and we specialize in representing whistleblowers under the various U.S. whistleblower reward programs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I am Poppy Alexander. I am Mary’s partner here at Whistleblower Partners in the San Francisco office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We wanted to talk to Mary and Poppy to better understand the journey that Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele went through to become whistleblowers, and to see if they had any solutions for how to better support people like them in the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, yeah, these were two correctional officers. Well, one was a correctional officer, the other was a correctional sergeant, who both took it upon themselves to report the misconduct of their fellow officers, which is, you know, a very difficult thing to do. And, you know, had pretty serious consequences because of it. And I was just wondering, Mary, if you can put their stories in a broader context, you know, how common are experiences like theirs, among whistleblowers that you speak to or that you have, you know, studied? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Unfortunately, the experiences that both Valentino and Sergeant Steele had are incredibly common. There seems to be a playbook that organizations — whether they’re private or public — have when someone blows the whistle. It’s often people reverting to what I call a ‘medieval mindset,’ where the playbook says we shoot the messenger to divert attention from the message. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that certainly seems very much to be the case that happened here. But it happens regardless of industry or sector. Poppy and I have represented whistleblowers in the tech sector, in health care, in transportation, in finance, and it’s very similar. When you would hope that what a whistleblower does is just shine a light on a fraud for people to look at it or wrongdoing for people to examine it is incredibly demoralizing to a whistleblower that the spotlight gets moved away from that and shown solidly on them. And that can be incredibly disorienting and incredibly demoralizing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mary is absolutely right. We see this all the time in every industry. But I do think that there’s something special about the prison context here. We’re talking about folks who are literally locked up, whether you are a guard or you’re a prisoner, you’re in the same space. You’re sort of stuck together. That is inevitably going to lead to a different mentality that is very much about, you know, circling up, guarding the wagons. That is more extreme even than what we see in sort of the normal context as well. There is a real incentive in these kinds of spaces to guard the institution, to shoot the messenger, to keep the doors closed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s all these perceptions from very- when we’re a very young age that, you know, you don’t rat out or you don’t tattle. That is just magnified a thousand fold when you enter the scenario of military or security or in this case, prison guards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And peace officers as well, kind of have, you know, a unique bind or perhaps a unique bind, which is that they’re often both required by policy to report misconduct and not insulated from retaliation if they do so. And if they end up stepping outside the chain of command to report misconduct, you know, to the media, for example, they can get disciplined for sharing confidential information. And I think it also just makes it so difficult for peace officers, in particular, to know what the right thing to do is, you know, they’re they’re bound by all these conflicting rules. And then where does their own moral compass come into things? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I totally agree, and I think, as you were pointing out, Sukey, the the fact that there can be all of these competing obligations that you have… One of the things that can be most difficult is what was present here — is that the wrongdoing that both Valentino and Sergeant Steele were trying to expose went to the very top. And so it can be- it feels like it’s, it’s futile in a way to expose that internally when you’re exposing it to the very chain of command that’s engaged in the wrongdoing. I do understand that, you know, the Office of Internal Affairs is supposed to be, you know, playing a particular ro- role, but it’s incredibly fraught when the fraud has really been designed, and the architects of the fraud are the people who really control your fate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as you’re saying, you know, if the whistleblower is exposed internally, that can create incredible psychological and emotional pressures on them. And I think we saw that with both Sergeant Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez, in that kind of isolation and ostracization that they experienced. There are also a number of other officers, you know, who have died by suicide after reporting misconduct and feeling like everyone has turned against them, and I think also that their efforts aren’t aren’t- don’t amount to anything. So that frustration that, ‘I did risk so much, I did put my ass on the line to expose the misconduct. And still there’s nothing being done.’ I know you have, you know, this is an area that’s near and dear to your work, Mary. Can you talk a little bit about the psychosocial impacts of whistleblowing and, you know, these very, very serious, you know, deadly consequences? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve seen this, you’re alluding to, unfortunately, I’ve had the great tragedy of losing two clients in my life. And one of them, The New Yorker did an article talking about the personal toll of whistleblowing. But we’ve also seen it very recently with John Barnett, who’s the whistleblower in the, in the, in the Boeing case, who it appears that he took his life. There’s still, you know, I think some questions about that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think one of the hardest pieces, and where I think we would all be really well served, is creating a level of psychosocial support, not just for whistleblowers, which I think is vital, but also for the first responders, for the people who deal with whistleblowers — for lawyers like myself. I learned the hard way on having to know more about resources that whistleblowers need. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the best things that anyone can do when they’re first dealing with a whistleblower, whether it’s someone in H.R., or it’s the lawyers who they ultimately come to, or even the media, is to say, ‘I believe you.’ Right? Because that’s the issue, is that they have been in this unreality where, you know, they have been made the problem, and the problem they’re seeking to expose has been swept under the rug. So their whole world has been turned upside down and they’ve lost their support network. So everyone at work now knows that they are, you know, they’re radioactive. ‘Don’t do what you know, Valentino did because it’s not it’s not going to inure to your benefit.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So all of a sudden you’re- you’re isolated. You’ve lost your support network. Then you magnify this by going at home and you’ve lost your job, and your spouse is now or your significant other is incredibly angry, and resentful. So you, you know, the walls do start to feel like they’re closing in. And that’s why I think society we’re at a point — we need whistleblowers so much. They’re often I, I like to say the ‘Fifth Estate.’ They’re they’re a lot of the folks who are actually exposing and holding people to account, but yet we don’t have the even most basic, psycho- psychosocial supports for these people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it feels like this kind of vicious cycle as well, too, that, you know, then because you’re under the psychological pressure and you, you know, begin to feel gaslit or what have you or you do take your life, then we see these cases where the employer or the organization can point at them and say, ‘Look, see, we don’t have to believe what they said. They were the ones having trouble. They were the one, you know, they were in mental distress. They were crazy.’ And so discount their reports even after, you know, their deaths. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, first of all, that’s not good logic. And secondly, I hope that the folks, the other folks that that message is directed to, which, of course, is the other employees can recognize how circular that logic is and how self-serving, and how it simply doesn’t reflect the truth. And again, that’s why it’s so important that those whistleblowers who are in a position to do so can be public and can come forward and say, ‘Look: I did this. I survived, and this is what the process looks like.’ No one sets out to be a whistleblower. No one. You know, this is not anyone’s life goal or career aspiration. It happens. You’re forced into it for all sorts of different reasons. And knowing that people have come before and have made it through to the other side is really important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally agree. And I think one of the one of the hardest things for whistleblowers that results in these, very desperate situations in terms of whistleblowers taking their own lives, I think, is that whistleblowers start out not thinking that they’re whistleblowers at all. They’re just trying to expose wrongdoing. And then the world gets turned upside down and the wrongdoing is ignored and the spotlight gets turned on them, that they’re the problem. What makes it so difficult is that I think they have an abiding sense of, ‘There’s an injustice, there’s something wrong, and it hasn’t been addressed. And yet all of this energy, like enormous amounts of energy and resources which could have been used to address the problem, are now being focused on me as the problem.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think those are just- it’s so hard to reconcile that. And I think one of the best services that Poppy and I can offer is to describe the playbook to the whistleblower and say, ‘If you talk to me early on, I’m going to spell out for you how this is going to go.’ And then at least it takes some of the sting out of it. And it’s, it’s really quite ironic. Our clients are like, ‘You are completely prescient. Do you have a crystal ball? Like, how did you know this was going to happen?’ And we just said, unfortunately, this is just the path. And so if you know that that’s going to happen and you can try and plan for it, it does help whistleblowers to at least absorb those blows. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I think that, like you’re talking about the psychological journey of the whistleblower. And I think, you know, especially for Sergeant Kevin Steele, he… he really did you kind of see this arc of his, you know, disillusionment with his institution and that the place that he begins in is one of such faith in these, you know, pillars that he believed in and that were of, you know, fairness and accountability. And, you know, he’s just so kind of by the book, dude. And the betrayal that he experienced when he did try to report misconduct and having that not be taken seriously was incredibly crushing to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, I think with Sergeant Steele, it’s a particularly acute scenario because in addition to him feeling, you know, having the expectation that all of these policies and, you know, oaths that they took would be taken seriously. And to have the scales fall from your eyes is, you know, it’s a very disillusioning process. But I think what magnified it for him and amplified it, is that he became close with Valentino’s father and he was really traumatized by Valentino’s death, and this question of whether or not this was, you know, a suspicious death. Whether he died under particular circumstances. So I think there was also a level of guilt, because Valentino was on his team and someone that he should protect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is absolutely the same thing we see. I- we see this day in and day out with whistleblowers in terms of the journeys that they have. And I think that a lot of us have observed this that there’s sort of this culture, at least, at least in the United States, as to whistleblowing that they’re either heroes or villains. And I think a lot of us believe that one of the best things, psychologically, for whistleblowers is if we could normalize it. They don’t want to be either. And I think that that is probably one of the things that they get caught up in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is in this, in this sort of dilemma. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We saw with the MeToo movement that a lot of this is- the psychological journey can also involve gaslighting and starting to doubt yourself. I think that’s what we see with Sergeant Steele is that he believed all of these things to be true. And then his reality started to change. And then that really makes you start to doubt yourself. And, and the circling the wagons phenomenon that Poppy talked about just makes this worse, is that everybody else is trying to suggest that this is not how it happened. And you start to then that makes even more self-doubt, which can be a very vicious cycle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting. There’s some studies that talk a lot about what happens to whistleblowers. Because of the pressures they lose their friends, they lose their social network. And so the New England Journal of Medicine did a study on pharmaceutical whistleblowers who expose the pharmaceutical industry. You know, they’re seeing higher incidences of divorce, of depression, anxiety, substance abuse. I think these are all outward indicators of tools that- and the occasion of what happens when, you know, you expose something and then, instead of it being corrected, it gets covered up. And then you yourself, as the whistleblower, often become persona non grata. The retaliation is done by your employer as a way to send a signal to other whistleblowers, ‘You shouldn’t do this.’ So your sort of almost made, basically made an example of. So I think all of these are, you know, is an environment that’s just incredibly difficult. And it adds insult to injury. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You mentioned the MeToo movement, and I think one of the things that we have found in our reporting as well, is how, you know, discrimination, misogyny, racism also become tools to enforce the code of silence and to keep people from speaking up. I mean, I know as a woman, that feeling of like, oh, I’ve got to be cool to get along. You know, I’m not going to like, rock the boat or push back if somebody makes an inappropriate comment — you know, taken to a much more serious level, obviously, with Valentino Rodriguez. But does that translate to other contexts outside the prison as well? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. Unfortunately, we see this a lot. It is rarer than any of us would like to see female whistleblowers, to see whistleblowers of color. And so much of that has to do with that mentality you just mentioned. That, you know, ‘we’re trained to get along,’ and we’re trained that ‘to get along’ means to value the traditional workplace culture of white cis men. And that obviously is amplified in the prison context. But that’s true everywhere. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- this is my completely uneducated guess, but I do feel like we’re starting to see a shift there. And certainly starting to see more female whistleblowers just coming in the door. And I do wonder how much of that is the MeToo movement. I wonder how much of that is people just being fed up with that attitude. But it still is very much a problem. And, you know, as Mary said, we have this tradition of we either see whistleblowers as heroes or villains, but either way, it’s oftentimes this sort of mentality of, you know, the single man standing alone on the hilltop shouting, you know, shouting the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s not true. Women have been whistleblowers forever. People of color have been whistleblowers forever. They have found other ways to make sure that that information gets out. You know, some have been very public about it. Erin Brockovich is, you know, maybe the quintessential example on some level. But, and other people do it in different ways. They help their community. They make sure that the information gets out via a whisper network, what have you. There’s all sorts of strategies to make sure that the truth gets told. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when it comes to this sort of ‘in-group outgroup mentality’ of making sure that you were sort of getting along in a confined space, whether that’s a workplace, whether that’s a prison, whether that’s whatever it might be, there certainly are added incentives to put your head down, do your work, ignore what is oftentimes right in front of your face as a wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I agree, the power differential is something that is really significant, right? In terms of you see, a lot of studies have shown that women and people of color are more likely to leave an organization than to report. And I do think that MeToo started to show us a way that, if we can create a solidarity among whistleblowers, I think that’s one of the strongest way we can encourage, reporting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I would love to see us have more avenues to find ways to bring whistleblowers together. So it isn’t, just that lone wolf as Poppy said. But that there are multiple people linking arms, saying that this happened to them as well. And then you really do have to pay, give it more credence than if it’s just one sole person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think within, you know, the California Department of Corrections and going back to the policy of their, you know, ban on the code of silence, there’s been an unintended consequence, at least according — or maybe it’s intended, I don’t know — but at least according to the correctional officers that we spoke to, which is that if you don’t report right away, you can then get in trouble when you report later. Like, if you see an incident happen, excessive use of force, maybe you’re fearful to come forward initially, and then you- you gather that internal fortitude and you decide to make that report, you can often then get disciplined for, you know, holding to the code of silence thus far. And it creates a disincentive to come forward rather than, you know, the stated purpose of this policy, which is to create an incentive to come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s such a challenge. You know, we have clients who come forward sometimes and tell us about information that’s many, many years old. And there’s lots of reasons why they might suddenly wake up one day and say, ‘Now’s the time. I have to tell someone.’ Of course, it’s probably better in terms of trying to solve problems, when people come to us with fresh information, we can usually do more with it. But that doesn’t mean that that’s a less valid whistleblower simply because they waited. It usually means that there’s something else going on in their lives that prevented them from coming forward first. And we need to recognize that in how we design our policies and how we think through this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we’ve heard from a number of correctional officers since the podcast came out saying that just hearing these stories made them feel like, you know, they might have an opportunity to speak up. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s, you know, really heartening, obviously, in terms of just the rewarding work of getting these voices out into the world. But I’ve also talked to correctional officers who have, you know, tried to get whistleblower protections, and often they want to do it before they blow the whistle. They want to know, like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be protected ahead of time. Like, where do I go to, you know, get my whistleblower card or whatever.’ \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And, you know, from my understanding, it really doesn’t work like that. Like it’s very based on, you know, retroactive retaliation. And if you can prove that you were retaliated against, maybe you can get some retroactive protection. But can either of you address that issue? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there really, it can be very difficult to prove retaliation. Sort of the statistics of the ability of someone to succeed in a retaliation claim in the United States are very dire. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re not great. And I think part of that is because it’s very difficult to prove that you were retaliated against for speaking up as compared to some- any other reason that someone can pretextual come up with, right? Like, oh, you’re chronically late, even though your chronic lateness was something that everyone tolerated for years. But until you spoke up, then all of a sudden that becomes a problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there something that needs to change in the law to make that an easier argument to make, or to, you know, the lower the standard of proof that you have to reach in order to prove that retaliation happened? What are some fixes that you see for that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s interesting, in Europe there’s now something called the European Whistleblowing Directive. And one of the changes that they made that I would love to see being made across all of the various retaliation protections laws, is this burden- shifting the burden of proof. That the burden initially, and for too long, remains on the plaintiff. To have to prove that, you know, they were retaliated against because they spoke up. And if we can reverse- shift that burden of proof and put it on the employer, actually, to prove that, you know, they did do it for a legitimate reason, I think that would be one concrete way that we could improve the odds that people could succeed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the, you know, looking domestically, I think the SEC also provides a really excellent model here where the SEC takes very seriously any accusations of retaliation related to someone who has reported securities fraud to the, to the agency. And they take it very seriously and they, you know, will tell employers at every opportunity that they take it very seriously. And that public messaging has been extremely important and protective. And then oftentimes it then puts whistleblowers in the somewhat uncomfortable position of having to decide where they’re going to publicly declare to the company that they, in fact, did report to the SEC, because then that does provide them some level of protection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That only applies to some small subset of the whistle blowing world. But there’s no reason that has to be true. There’s lots of other ways to try to build off of that same level of protection that we see. There’s other agencies that are involved and whistle-blowing in all sorts of forms, we have- you know, OSHA is involved in many of these cases. There’s- we have lots of agencies here. So I think there’s lots of other strategies to try to build in more of a protection. But it does. It always starts with culture. Right? And that’s culture both from the government side of telling companies and telling organizations what’s important. And then of course, it starts on the company side. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I think the- the long tail of fear that correctional officers experience after- even after they leave… Like, they’ve retired for years, but they’re still afraid to speak up. They don’t know if their pension can be taken away. They don’t know what power the institution still has over them. There’s also, you know, obviously just their their friendship groups and their culture that they’re afraid of losing. But there’s just this very long tail of oppression, I would say, that they experience psychologically and that it’s not entirely dissipated when they leave the prison at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. And you know, so, so many times prisons, right, are and very small towns. And so even if you’re not working at the prison, you’re still- most other people in the town are going to be. And that then means there’s really no way to sort of escape that. But of course, you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to lose all your friends and community simply because you’re willing to take a stand and tell the truth. That should never be a consequence of telling the truth. And- but of course it acts as a disincentive for coming forward, for speaking out against the pack, for what have you, which can only be remedied by changing the culture, can only be remedied by encouraging people to see that as a good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Sukey, you’re right that the retaliation doesn’t stop when they leave the prison. And there’s sort of a long tail of retaliation, right? Which is often when you go to that next job, unfortunately that next employer will often call for a recommendation or a reference to your existing employer. And, we often see that even if they’re not doing it directly, there’s word of mouth that, ‘You don’t want this person. This is, this person is disloyal. They, you know, they’ve exposed us and created all this difficulty. They’re a troublemaker and you shouldn’t hire them.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so that certainly, you know, in the case of my whistleblower client that was featured in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, that was really ultimately his undoing, right? Is that he ended up, because he couldn’t leave the, the part of Florida where he was practicing. He would get interviews and get to a certain place, and then in, in getting his next job position. And when it got to that reference point and they’d say like, ‘Oh, he seems great.’ And you get all these signals. And then all of a sudden when it came to closing the deal, they would never hire him. So that ends up in you draining your 401K, you now don’t have, you know, you’re no longer gainfully employed, and now you’re blocklisted or blacklisted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think that is one of the other problems that just makes it, again, incredibly insidious that… I always talk about there’s this ‘Scarlet W’ on your chest that’s emblazoned. And that you may want to put it down, you may even want to put down the mantle of whistleblower, but often you’re not allowed to. And that is a cross that you are bearing again and again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, one of the things that really struck me just doing this reporting is the disconnect between the formal institutional stance, which says, you know, ‘The code of silence is banned. And we want, you know, we take all reports of employee misconduct very seriously, and we want people to come forward.’ And then that what actually happens in response to that. And I’m just wondering if either of you can speak to… is there a policy change that can fix this? Or because there is this disconnect already between policy and action, you know, do we need a different intervention? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a cultural problem much more than a policy problem. Though the policies obviously are then tied together because if you know that the company’s policy is that they’re going to, you know, they’re going to take every whistleblower complaint with this huge grain of salt, they’re not going to start from the presumption that the whistleblower is correct. They’re not going to start from the presumption, which is usually true, that the whistleblower is reporting this because they love the company or the organization or, you know, the group. They’re doing it out of love. They’re doing it because they want it to be better. They’ve, you know, they found a problem and they want to fix the problem, and they want to do it before someone from the outside finds out about the problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That so often is what the energy is that our clients bring when they’re coming forward. And what they’re met with is this culture of silence there. You know, you talk into a black box, you never hear what happens again. All too often, our clients say to us that we are the first person to ever listen to them about what they’re talking about. And that’s sad because we are never someone’s first call. We really aren’t. They’re always trying to get some change to happen before they resort to calling a whistleblower attorney — as as they should be, quite honestly. And if smart organizations and smart companies would just listen to their whistleblowers, they would put us out of a job. But that’s good. That would be better for everybody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I agree, and there’s some really great empirical data and research coming out of George Washington University and the University of Utah that really reinforces this idea that whistleblowers are actually your best risk management tool. They’re the canaries in the coal mine that actually help you see a problem before we’re all overtaken by noxious fumes. And this research really basically underscores that companies that actually see whistleblowers in this way as, as, you know, people who can help mitigate risks and deal with problems before they metastasize into something like a big public relations scandal… If you use them in this way, it actually allows companies to be more profitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think one of the biggest things that needs to happen is just an education on who whistleblowers really are. As Poppy said, whistleblowers are- not only are they not disloyal, they are your \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">most\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> loyal employees because it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to be the type of employee who is going to tell you the hard truths at considerable potential risk to themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for coming into the studio and just lending your expertise and your empathy to this conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s been a real pleasure to be on this podcast. It’s a real testament that the only way we’re going to get change is, is to, you know, point to really great investigative journalists like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. It’s, it’s a horrible topic, but it brings great joy to talk about it because it’s so important and so misunderstood, quite honestly, I think, so much about the process of whistleblowing. And so every opportunity to be able to talk about it and really go in depth as you are in this podcast series is just invaluable. And it’s invaluable for the future whistleblowers, for the next person who finds themself in an uncomfortable situation where they really need to speak up and they don’t know what it means and they don’t know how. You know, the education of learning what that process looks like is something we all need to work on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, that was Poppy Alexander and Mary Inman. They are also working right now with federal legislators to try and introduce a bill that would provide mental health support for whistleblowers. We have a link to Mary and Poppy’s website in our episode description, along with other resources for whistleblowers. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to On Our Watch at K-Q-E-D dot O-R-G. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was hosted by me, Sukey Lewis. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of Podcasts. It was produced, scored, and cut by Chris Egusa. Final mixing by Christopher Beale. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our Podcast Operations Manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis, R. Taylor, Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News, and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sukey sits down with Mary Inman and Poppy Alexander, two whistleblower attorneys who talk about the cost of speaking up, and unpack the playbook that employers use to keep people quiet. They also discuss a shift in thinking that can protect both whistleblowers and their organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC4625892902\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblower.law/\">Whistleblower Partners, LLP\u003c/a> (where Mary and Poppy are partners)\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Mary Inman was profiled in the New Yorker piece, \u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/02/04/the-personal-toll-of-whistle-blowing\">“The Personal Toll of Whistleblowing.”\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, listeners, it’s Sukey. We’re back. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be bringing you some brand new bonus episodes. We’re going to dip into some of the stories that didn’t make it in the podcast, and talk to some experts to help us understand Correctional Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele in a broader light. We’re starting off this week with a really interesting conversation about what it means to be a whistleblower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When my colleague Julie first spoke to Val Senior about his son and his friend, Sergeant Kevin Steele, he was hesitant to call them whistleblowers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That name doesn’t do justice to people that have come forward, for me. When we were kids, being a whistleblower is tattletale. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, see I think of it as heroic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The term and its many fraught interpretations are woven throughout our story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I’m a whistleblower rat for ex- exposing this ongoing corruption of staff and that I need to be taken out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can take on a bad connotation sometimes, but it is, again, a government program intended to expose corruption. That’s what it’s designed for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still haven’t been confirmed with whistleblower status, so that’s another reason why I’m a little still… I mean, I would venture to say that hopefully, the legal system would protect me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so we wanted to spend some time talking to two people who can help us understand this term and the challenges of coming forward. Thank you both so much for coming in. Could we just start off by having you each introduce yourselves? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sure. My name’s Mary Inman. I’m a partner at the law firm Whistleblower Partners, and I’m in the San Francisco office, and we specialize in representing whistleblowers under the various U.S. whistleblower reward programs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I am Poppy Alexander. I am Mary’s partner here at Whistleblower Partners in the San Francisco office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We wanted to talk to Mary and Poppy to better understand the journey that Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele went through to become whistleblowers, and to see if they had any solutions for how to better support people like them in the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, yeah, these were two correctional officers. Well, one was a correctional officer, the other was a correctional sergeant, who both took it upon themselves to report the misconduct of their fellow officers, which is, you know, a very difficult thing to do. And, you know, had pretty serious consequences because of it. And I was just wondering, Mary, if you can put their stories in a broader context, you know, how common are experiences like theirs, among whistleblowers that you speak to or that you have, you know, studied? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Unfortunately, the experiences that both Valentino and Sergeant Steele had are incredibly common. There seems to be a playbook that organizations — whether they’re private or public — have when someone blows the whistle. It’s often people reverting to what I call a ‘medieval mindset,’ where the playbook says we shoot the messenger to divert attention from the message. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So that certainly seems very much to be the case that happened here. But it happens regardless of industry or sector. Poppy and I have represented whistleblowers in the tech sector, in health care, in transportation, in finance, and it’s very similar. When you would hope that what a whistleblower does is just shine a light on a fraud for people to look at it or wrongdoing for people to examine it is incredibly demoralizing to a whistleblower that the spotlight gets moved away from that and shown solidly on them. And that can be incredibly disorienting and incredibly demoralizing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mary is absolutely right. We see this all the time in every industry. But I do think that there’s something special about the prison context here. We’re talking about folks who are literally locked up, whether you are a guard or you’re a prisoner, you’re in the same space. You’re sort of stuck together. That is inevitably going to lead to a different mentality that is very much about, you know, circling up, guarding the wagons. That is more extreme even than what we see in sort of the normal context as well. There is a real incentive in these kinds of spaces to guard the institution, to shoot the messenger, to keep the doors closed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s all these perceptions from very- when we’re a very young age that, you know, you don’t rat out or you don’t tattle. That is just magnified a thousand fold when you enter the scenario of military or security or in this case, prison guards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And peace officers as well, kind of have, you know, a unique bind or perhaps a unique bind, which is that they’re often both required by policy to report misconduct and not insulated from retaliation if they do so. And if they end up stepping outside the chain of command to report misconduct, you know, to the media, for example, they can get disciplined for sharing confidential information. And I think it also just makes it so difficult for peace officers, in particular, to know what the right thing to do is, you know, they’re they’re bound by all these conflicting rules. And then where does their own moral compass come into things? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I totally agree, and I think, as you were pointing out, Sukey, the the fact that there can be all of these competing obligations that you have… One of the things that can be most difficult is what was present here — is that the wrongdoing that both Valentino and Sergeant Steele were trying to expose went to the very top. And so it can be- it feels like it’s, it’s futile in a way to expose that internally when you’re exposing it to the very chain of command that’s engaged in the wrongdoing. I do understand that, you know, the Office of Internal Affairs is supposed to be, you know, playing a particular ro- role, but it’s incredibly fraught when the fraud has really been designed, and the architects of the fraud are the people who really control your fate. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as you’re saying, you know, if the whistleblower is exposed internally, that can create incredible psychological and emotional pressures on them. And I think we saw that with both Sergeant Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez, in that kind of isolation and ostracization that they experienced. There are also a number of other officers, you know, who have died by suicide after reporting misconduct and feeling like everyone has turned against them, and I think also that their efforts aren’t aren’t- don’t amount to anything. So that frustration that, ‘I did risk so much, I did put my ass on the line to expose the misconduct. And still there’s nothing being done.’ I know you have, you know, this is an area that’s near and dear to your work, Mary. Can you talk a little bit about the psychosocial impacts of whistleblowing and, you know, these very, very serious, you know, deadly consequences? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve seen this, you’re alluding to, unfortunately, I’ve had the great tragedy of losing two clients in my life. And one of them, The New Yorker did an article talking about the personal toll of whistleblowing. But we’ve also seen it very recently with John Barnett, who’s the whistleblower in the, in the, in the Boeing case, who it appears that he took his life. There’s still, you know, I think some questions about that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think one of the hardest pieces, and where I think we would all be really well served, is creating a level of psychosocial support, not just for whistleblowers, which I think is vital, but also for the first responders, for the people who deal with whistleblowers — for lawyers like myself. I learned the hard way on having to know more about resources that whistleblowers need. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the best things that anyone can do when they’re first dealing with a whistleblower, whether it’s someone in H.R., or it’s the lawyers who they ultimately come to, or even the media, is to say, ‘I believe you.’ Right? Because that’s the issue, is that they have been in this unreality where, you know, they have been made the problem, and the problem they’re seeking to expose has been swept under the rug. So their whole world has been turned upside down and they’ve lost their support network. So everyone at work now knows that they are, you know, they’re radioactive. ‘Don’t do what you know, Valentino did because it’s not it’s not going to inure to your benefit.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So all of a sudden you’re- you’re isolated. You’ve lost your support network. Then you magnify this by going at home and you’ve lost your job, and your spouse is now or your significant other is incredibly angry, and resentful. So you, you know, the walls do start to feel like they’re closing in. And that’s why I think society we’re at a point — we need whistleblowers so much. They’re often I, I like to say the ‘Fifth Estate.’ They’re they’re a lot of the folks who are actually exposing and holding people to account, but yet we don’t have the even most basic, psycho- psychosocial supports for these people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it feels like this kind of vicious cycle as well, too, that, you know, then because you’re under the psychological pressure and you, you know, begin to feel gaslit or what have you or you do take your life, then we see these cases where the employer or the organization can point at them and say, ‘Look, see, we don’t have to believe what they said. They were the ones having trouble. They were the one, you know, they were in mental distress. They were crazy.’ And so discount their reports even after, you know, their deaths. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, first of all, that’s not good logic. And secondly, I hope that the folks, the other folks that that message is directed to, which, of course, is the other employees can recognize how circular that logic is and how self-serving, and how it simply doesn’t reflect the truth. And again, that’s why it’s so important that those whistleblowers who are in a position to do so can be public and can come forward and say, ‘Look: I did this. I survived, and this is what the process looks like.’ No one sets out to be a whistleblower. No one. You know, this is not anyone’s life goal or career aspiration. It happens. You’re forced into it for all sorts of different reasons. And knowing that people have come before and have made it through to the other side is really important. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Totally agree. And I think one of the one of the hardest things for whistleblowers that results in these, very desperate situations in terms of whistleblowers taking their own lives, I think, is that whistleblowers start out not thinking that they’re whistleblowers at all. They’re just trying to expose wrongdoing. And then the world gets turned upside down and the wrongdoing is ignored and the spotlight gets turned on them, that they’re the problem. What makes it so difficult is that I think they have an abiding sense of, ‘There’s an injustice, there’s something wrong, and it hasn’t been addressed. And yet all of this energy, like enormous amounts of energy and resources which could have been used to address the problem, are now being focused on me as the problem.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think those are just- it’s so hard to reconcile that. And I think one of the best services that Poppy and I can offer is to describe the playbook to the whistleblower and say, ‘If you talk to me early on, I’m going to spell out for you how this is going to go.’ And then at least it takes some of the sting out of it. And it’s, it’s really quite ironic. Our clients are like, ‘You are completely prescient. Do you have a crystal ball? Like, how did you know this was going to happen?’ And we just said, unfortunately, this is just the path. And so if you know that that’s going to happen and you can try and plan for it, it does help whistleblowers to at least absorb those blows. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I think that, like you’re talking about the psychological journey of the whistleblower. And I think, you know, especially for Sergeant Kevin Steele, he… he really did you kind of see this arc of his, you know, disillusionment with his institution and that the place that he begins in is one of such faith in these, you know, pillars that he believed in and that were of, you know, fairness and accountability. And, you know, he’s just so kind of by the book, dude. And the betrayal that he experienced when he did try to report misconduct and having that not be taken seriously was incredibly crushing to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, I think with Sergeant Steele, it’s a particularly acute scenario because in addition to him feeling, you know, having the expectation that all of these policies and, you know, oaths that they took would be taken seriously. And to have the scales fall from your eyes is, you know, it’s a very disillusioning process. But I think what magnified it for him and amplified it, is that he became close with Valentino’s father and he was really traumatized by Valentino’s death, and this question of whether or not this was, you know, a suspicious death. Whether he died under particular circumstances. So I think there was also a level of guilt, because Valentino was on his team and someone that he should protect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is absolutely the same thing we see. I- we see this day in and day out with whistleblowers in terms of the journeys that they have. And I think that a lot of us have observed this that there’s sort of this culture, at least, at least in the United States, as to whistleblowing that they’re either heroes or villains. And I think a lot of us believe that one of the best things, psychologically, for whistleblowers is if we could normalize it. They don’t want to be either. And I think that that is probably one of the things that they get caught up in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is in this, in this sort of dilemma. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We saw with the MeToo movement that a lot of this is- the psychological journey can also involve gaslighting and starting to doubt yourself. I think that’s what we see with Sergeant Steele is that he believed all of these things to be true. And then his reality started to change. And then that really makes you start to doubt yourself. And, and the circling the wagons phenomenon that Poppy talked about just makes this worse, is that everybody else is trying to suggest that this is not how it happened. And you start to then that makes even more self-doubt, which can be a very vicious cycle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting. There’s some studies that talk a lot about what happens to whistleblowers. Because of the pressures they lose their friends, they lose their social network. And so the New England Journal of Medicine did a study on pharmaceutical whistleblowers who expose the pharmaceutical industry. You know, they’re seeing higher incidences of divorce, of depression, anxiety, substance abuse. I think these are all outward indicators of tools that- and the occasion of what happens when, you know, you expose something and then, instead of it being corrected, it gets covered up. And then you yourself, as the whistleblower, often become persona non grata. The retaliation is done by your employer as a way to send a signal to other whistleblowers, ‘You shouldn’t do this.’ So your sort of almost made, basically made an example of. So I think all of these are, you know, is an environment that’s just incredibly difficult. And it adds insult to injury. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You mentioned the MeToo movement, and I think one of the things that we have found in our reporting as well, is how, you know, discrimination, misogyny, racism also become tools to enforce the code of silence and to keep people from speaking up. I mean, I know as a woman, that feeling of like, oh, I’ve got to be cool to get along. You know, I’m not going to like, rock the boat or push back if somebody makes an inappropriate comment — you know, taken to a much more serious level, obviously, with Valentino Rodriguez. But does that translate to other contexts outside the prison as well? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. Unfortunately, we see this a lot. It is rarer than any of us would like to see female whistleblowers, to see whistleblowers of color. And so much of that has to do with that mentality you just mentioned. That, you know, ‘we’re trained to get along,’ and we’re trained that ‘to get along’ means to value the traditional workplace culture of white cis men. And that obviously is amplified in the prison context. But that’s true everywhere. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- this is my completely uneducated guess, but I do feel like we’re starting to see a shift there. And certainly starting to see more female whistleblowers just coming in the door. And I do wonder how much of that is the MeToo movement. I wonder how much of that is people just being fed up with that attitude. But it still is very much a problem. And, you know, as Mary said, we have this tradition of we either see whistleblowers as heroes or villains, but either way, it’s oftentimes this sort of mentality of, you know, the single man standing alone on the hilltop shouting, you know, shouting the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s not true. Women have been whistleblowers forever. People of color have been whistleblowers forever. They have found other ways to make sure that that information gets out. You know, some have been very public about it. Erin Brockovich is, you know, maybe the quintessential example on some level. But, and other people do it in different ways. They help their community. They make sure that the information gets out via a whisper network, what have you. There’s all sorts of strategies to make sure that the truth gets told. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when it comes to this sort of ‘in-group outgroup mentality’ of making sure that you were sort of getting along in a confined space, whether that’s a workplace, whether that’s a prison, whether that’s whatever it might be, there certainly are added incentives to put your head down, do your work, ignore what is oftentimes right in front of your face as a wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I agree, the power differential is something that is really significant, right? In terms of you see, a lot of studies have shown that women and people of color are more likely to leave an organization than to report. And I do think that MeToo started to show us a way that, if we can create a solidarity among whistleblowers, I think that’s one of the strongest way we can encourage, reporting. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I would love to see us have more avenues to find ways to bring whistleblowers together. So it isn’t, just that lone wolf as Poppy said. But that there are multiple people linking arms, saying that this happened to them as well. And then you really do have to pay, give it more credence than if it’s just one sole person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think within, you know, the California Department of Corrections and going back to the policy of their, you know, ban on the code of silence, there’s been an unintended consequence, at least according — or maybe it’s intended, I don’t know — but at least according to the correctional officers that we spoke to, which is that if you don’t report right away, you can then get in trouble when you report later. Like, if you see an incident happen, excessive use of force, maybe you’re fearful to come forward initially, and then you- you gather that internal fortitude and you decide to make that report, you can often then get disciplined for, you know, holding to the code of silence thus far. And it creates a disincentive to come forward rather than, you know, the stated purpose of this policy, which is to create an incentive to come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s such a challenge. You know, we have clients who come forward sometimes and tell us about information that’s many, many years old. And there’s lots of reasons why they might suddenly wake up one day and say, ‘Now’s the time. I have to tell someone.’ Of course, it’s probably better in terms of trying to solve problems, when people come to us with fresh information, we can usually do more with it. But that doesn’t mean that that’s a less valid whistleblower simply because they waited. It usually means that there’s something else going on in their lives that prevented them from coming forward first. And we need to recognize that in how we design our policies and how we think through this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, we’ve heard from a number of correctional officers since the podcast came out saying that just hearing these stories made them feel like, you know, they might have an opportunity to speak up. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And that’s, you know, really heartening, obviously, in terms of just the rewarding work of getting these voices out into the world. But I’ve also talked to correctional officers who have, you know, tried to get whistleblower protections, and often they want to do it before they blow the whistle. They want to know, like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be protected ahead of time. Like, where do I go to, you know, get my whistleblower card or whatever.’ \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And, you know, from my understanding, it really doesn’t work like that. Like it’s very based on, you know, retroactive retaliation. And if you can prove that you were retaliated against, maybe you can get some retroactive protection. But can either of you address that issue? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there really, it can be very difficult to prove retaliation. Sort of the statistics of the ability of someone to succeed in a retaliation claim in the United States are very dire. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> They’re not great. And I think part of that is because it’s very difficult to prove that you were retaliated against for speaking up as compared to some- any other reason that someone can pretextual come up with, right? Like, oh, you’re chronically late, even though your chronic lateness was something that everyone tolerated for years. But until you spoke up, then all of a sudden that becomes a problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there something that needs to change in the law to make that an easier argument to make, or to, you know, the lower the standard of proof that you have to reach in order to prove that retaliation happened? What are some fixes that you see for that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s interesting, in Europe there’s now something called the European Whistleblowing Directive. And one of the changes that they made that I would love to see being made across all of the various retaliation protections laws, is this burden- shifting the burden of proof. That the burden initially, and for too long, remains on the plaintiff. To have to prove that, you know, they were retaliated against because they spoke up. And if we can reverse- shift that burden of proof and put it on the employer, actually, to prove that, you know, they did do it for a legitimate reason, I think that would be one concrete way that we could improve the odds that people could succeed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the, you know, looking domestically, I think the SEC also provides a really excellent model here where the SEC takes very seriously any accusations of retaliation related to someone who has reported securities fraud to the, to the agency. And they take it very seriously and they, you know, will tell employers at every opportunity that they take it very seriously. And that public messaging has been extremely important and protective. And then oftentimes it then puts whistleblowers in the somewhat uncomfortable position of having to decide where they’re going to publicly declare to the company that they, in fact, did report to the SEC, because then that does provide them some level of protection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That only applies to some small subset of the whistle blowing world. But there’s no reason that has to be true. There’s lots of other ways to try to build off of that same level of protection that we see. There’s other agencies that are involved and whistle-blowing in all sorts of forms, we have- you know, OSHA is involved in many of these cases. There’s- we have lots of agencies here. So I think there’s lots of other strategies to try to build in more of a protection. But it does. It always starts with culture. Right? And that’s culture both from the government side of telling companies and telling organizations what’s important. And then of course, it starts on the company side. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I think the- the long tail of fear that correctional officers experience after- even after they leave… Like, they’ve retired for years, but they’re still afraid to speak up. They don’t know if their pension can be taken away. They don’t know what power the institution still has over them. There’s also, you know, obviously just their their friendship groups and their culture that they’re afraid of losing. But there’s just this very long tail of oppression, I would say, that they experience psychologically and that it’s not entirely dissipated when they leave the prison at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. And you know, so, so many times prisons, right, are and very small towns. And so even if you’re not working at the prison, you’re still- most other people in the town are going to be. And that then means there’s really no way to sort of escape that. But of course, you shouldn’t have to. You shouldn’t have to lose all your friends and community simply because you’re willing to take a stand and tell the truth. That should never be a consequence of telling the truth. And- but of course it acts as a disincentive for coming forward, for speaking out against the pack, for what have you, which can only be remedied by changing the culture, can only be remedied by encouraging people to see that as a good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Sukey, you’re right that the retaliation doesn’t stop when they leave the prison. And there’s sort of a long tail of retaliation, right? Which is often when you go to that next job, unfortunately that next employer will often call for a recommendation or a reference to your existing employer. And, we often see that even if they’re not doing it directly, there’s word of mouth that, ‘You don’t want this person. This is, this person is disloyal. They, you know, they’ve exposed us and created all this difficulty. They’re a troublemaker and you shouldn’t hire them.’ \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so that certainly, you know, in the case of my whistleblower client that was featured in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, that was really ultimately his undoing, right? Is that he ended up, because he couldn’t leave the, the part of Florida where he was practicing. He would get interviews and get to a certain place, and then in, in getting his next job position. And when it got to that reference point and they’d say like, ‘Oh, he seems great.’ And you get all these signals. And then all of a sudden when it came to closing the deal, they would never hire him. So that ends up in you draining your 401K, you now don’t have, you know, you’re no longer gainfully employed, and now you’re blocklisted or blacklisted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think that is one of the other problems that just makes it, again, incredibly insidious that… I always talk about there’s this ‘Scarlet W’ on your chest that’s emblazoned. And that you may want to put it down, you may even want to put down the mantle of whistleblower, but often you’re not allowed to. And that is a cross that you are bearing again and again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, one of the things that really struck me just doing this reporting is the disconnect between the formal institutional stance, which says, you know, ‘The code of silence is banned. And we want, you know, we take all reports of employee misconduct very seriously, and we want people to come forward.’ And then that what actually happens in response to that. And I’m just wondering if either of you can speak to… is there a policy change that can fix this? Or because there is this disconnect already between policy and action, you know, do we need a different intervention? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a cultural problem much more than a policy problem. Though the policies obviously are then tied together because if you know that the company’s policy is that they’re going to, you know, they’re going to take every whistleblower complaint with this huge grain of salt, they’re not going to start from the presumption that the whistleblower is correct. They’re not going to start from the presumption, which is usually true, that the whistleblower is reporting this because they love the company or the organization or, you know, the group. They’re doing it out of love. They’re doing it because they want it to be better. They’ve, you know, they found a problem and they want to fix the problem, and they want to do it before someone from the outside finds out about the problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That so often is what the energy is that our clients bring when they’re coming forward. And what they’re met with is this culture of silence there. You know, you talk into a black box, you never hear what happens again. All too often, our clients say to us that we are the first person to ever listen to them about what they’re talking about. And that’s sad because we are never someone’s first call. We really aren’t. They’re always trying to get some change to happen before they resort to calling a whistleblower attorney — as as they should be, quite honestly. And if smart organizations and smart companies would just listen to their whistleblowers, they would put us out of a job. But that’s good. That would be better for everybody. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I agree, and there’s some really great empirical data and research coming out of George Washington University and the University of Utah that really reinforces this idea that whistleblowers are actually your best risk management tool. They’re the canaries in the coal mine that actually help you see a problem before we’re all overtaken by noxious fumes. And this research really basically underscores that companies that actually see whistleblowers in this way as, as, you know, people who can help mitigate risks and deal with problems before they metastasize into something like a big public relations scandal… If you use them in this way, it actually allows companies to be more profitable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I think one of the biggest things that needs to happen is just an education on who whistleblowers really are. As Poppy said, whistleblowers are- not only are they not disloyal, they are your \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">most\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> loyal employees because it takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to be the type of employee who is going to tell you the hard truths at considerable potential risk to themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for coming into the studio and just lending your expertise and your empathy to this conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mary Inman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s been a real pleasure to be on this podcast. It’s a real testament that the only way we’re going to get change is, is to, you know, point to really great investigative journalists like this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Poppy Alexander: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. It’s, it’s a horrible topic, but it brings great joy to talk about it because it’s so important and so misunderstood, quite honestly, I think, so much about the process of whistleblowing. And so every opportunity to be able to talk about it and really go in depth as you are in this podcast series is just invaluable. And it’s invaluable for the future whistleblowers, for the next person who finds themself in an uncomfortable situation where they really need to speak up and they don’t know what it means and they don’t know how. You know, the education of learning what that process looks like is something we all need to work on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, that was Poppy Alexander and Mary Inman. They are also working right now with federal legislators to try and introduce a bill that would provide mental health support for whistleblowers. We have a link to Mary and Poppy’s website in our episode description, along with other resources for whistleblowers. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to On Our Watch at K-Q-E-D dot O-R-G. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was hosted by me, Sukey Lewis. It was edited by Jen Chien, who is also KQED’s Director of Podcasts. It was produced, scored, and cut by Chris Egusa. Final mixing by Christopher Beale. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our Podcast Operations Manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis, R. Taylor, Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsay, our Vice President of News, and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And thanks to all of you for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his son’s death, Valentino Rodriguez Sr. waited for the warden of New Folsom prison to call him. That call never came. In our season finale, we walk through the gates of New Folsom to ask the warden for answers. We also get a rare glimpse inside the world of correctional officer discipline and hear from Sgt. Kevin Steele in his own words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7467271989\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads-up that this episode references discriminatory language and discusses suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. We’ve also included resources for whistleblowers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After his son, Valentino Rodriguez, died in October 2020, Val Sr. had waited for someone from the prison to call him, to acknowledge his son’s passing. A few months went by, and when that call didn’t come, he sent off an email.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am Val’s dad. These are pictures of my wife and Val’s brother.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Attached to it were photos of Valentino on the day he graduated from the academy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember his graduation day, how proud he was. I remember the speech from that podium as clear as the day he was born.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The email was addressed to the head of CDCR, along with some of the people that Val Sr. felt were critical in what had happened to Valentino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It could have been avoided when he asked for help but was swept under the rug to protect those involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including his boss, Sergeant David Anderson…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His sergeant that was witness to so many abusive texts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The chief deputy warden, Gena Jones, and the warden, Jeff Lynch-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My son was also left with your betrayal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… the boss of the whole institution. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have not had so much as a knock on the door, an apology, or any acknowledgement of his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Val Sr. did get a response to this email from the head of CDCR at the time. She passed on her condolences and said the agency was investigating his son’s case, but there was only silence from the warden. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then, in March of last year, about eight months into our investigation, we got some news. We were gonna be able to go on a rare press tour at New Folsom Prison, and talk to the warden face to face. Val Sr. sent us a list of questions he wanted us to ask. Like, who had leaked information about the warden’s private meeting with Valentino? Why had the warden banned Kevin Steele from the prison? And why hadn’t he ever called? Julie, my reporting partner, also reached out to Valentino’s widow, Mimy Rodriguez, to tell her the news.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to the prison next week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We asked for a sit-down with the warden, and we were told no. Um, but then we were told that he’ll be there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I’m getting ready for that. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How… That’s exciting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got any questions for the warden?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanna know what was going through his head when he found out Val passed. I wanna know what he felt when he sat across from Valentino. How did you feel when you found out? Did you get sick? Did you throw up? I… these things, I just… they probably seem minuscule or silly, but I w-… I just wanna know… was it just another officer for him? I just wanna know. Did you care? Did it matter to you? Do you remember his face the way I do? Or his laugh, or his gap teeth, or his love for ketchup? Do you remember his reports? Do you remember how hard he worked to make you happy, the way he worked hard to make his parents happy? Or, are you just gonna disregard that and say, “He was a great officer,” and give me some generic answer? I want him to be honest, and I want him to respect the people that come in and out of that prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we prepared to walk through the gates of New Folsom Prison, we were quite literally now going to be following in the footsteps of Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele, and I kept thinking about their words to each other on the last day of Valentino’s life. “There are two sides over there.” Which side of the prison would we get to see? I’m Sukey Lewis, and this is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one mile, turn left onto Folsom Prison Road.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, we’re just passing past the sign for Folsom State Prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> we’re… it’s actually this lovely pastoral scene. You have this-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a beautiful spring day as Julie and I drive up the winding road in the Sierra Nevada foothills toward New Folsom Prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, frick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just I’m just… I don’t usually stress out, but I haven’t been in a prison for a while.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here we go, CSP-SAC, and yeah. You’re feeling it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I’m feeling it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie’s bracing herself to go into this place where we’ve been invited, but we’re not exactly welcome, and where everything we see is gonna be tightly controlled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, here they are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We park and then walk up to the outer security checkpoint of this huge facility. There’s a reporting team from the LA Times here today as well for the press tour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LA Times Reporter:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LA Times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sources have told us that the prison has been prepping for this for days, and the entourage that comes out to greet us is impressive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the biggest I’ve ever seen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a dozen people, who each introduce themselves, starting with the biggest of the bigwigs here today, the associate director for all of California’s high-security prisons, who then introduces the man we’ve been waiting so long to speak with.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Associate Director:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of ’em, and, uh, this is Jeff Warden’s prison, er, uh, Jeff Lynch’s prison. (laughing) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jeff Lynch, warden, CSP Sacramento.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Jeff Lynch, he’s a tall man with a broad chest, light brown hair. He looks a little like the actor Jeff Daniels, and today, he’s wearing a suit jacket, a pink shirt, and a tie. Down the line from him, we meet two associate wardens, two captains, a lieutenant, and people from healthcare and public relations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, cool, um, we may have to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> ask you your names again along the way. That’s a lot to remember.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tour Guide:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the, the plan is-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We walk past some staff residences and lower security areas that are empty right now and then under the eye of the tall, blue tower, where we know a guard sits with a Mini-14 rifle looking out over everything. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Chain link fence on either side, big mirrors overhead, and there’s two little, kind of, windows. This is the same process that correctional staff go through when they come to work every day. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once inside the main complex, off to my left, I see a gray cement building with those very narrow windows. On the side of it, there’s a letter and a number: B8.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, so that looks like the B8 unit… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unit where Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed in the day room. That’s not part of today’s tour. Instead, they’re taking us to what’s called the short-term restricted housing unit. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…And there’s short term restrictive housing kinda to the front and the left.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the new version of the SHU, or solitary confinement — the place where Dion Green was held after the murder and where he says officers were spreading rumors about him to get him killed. Julie’s walking next to the warden as they go inside.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think this prison is… is this prison dangerous any more than others?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It has days where it’s had dangerous events.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and then, it’s had many days where it hasn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s what we’re being shown: a calm day. There’s a class going on in a treatment room, where men talk to a counselor about regulating their emotions. But I notice, even as that class is going on, these men are chained to the chairs they sit in. Next, the warden shows us the solitary cages outside the unit. Officially, they’re called IEYs, or individual exercise yards, but incarcerated people refer to them as the dog cages. The entourage of CDCR staff and reporters chat and laugh behind me as I approach a person looking out through the fencing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a reporter with KQED Public Radio. Are you, um, down to talk to me today or no?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Depending on what.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just to ask you how your days is going and what your experience is here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’ll talk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Um, what’s your name?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, Patrick Anthony Bradley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bradley says he’s been at this prison for six years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re gonna paint the pretty picture like it’s all good, but it’s, it’s really not.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmm. What’s the, the picture that you would paint?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is, this is a terrible \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is terrible. Like, this is a terrible… it’s inhumane for anybody, for a, a, a patient, a inmate, a human being. Just conduct is disgusting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s kind of a strange scene. Like, I’m standing in between two worlds — the world Bradley lives in that’s bounded by the fence between us, a reality in his telling of corruption and darkness, and the world behind me represented by the warden and all the other prison officials standing just feet away, who repeatedly tell us their mission is safety and rehabilitation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They might, you know, clean, clean today, you know, make it look good, polish and all that, but it’s just a terrible place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm, yeah. Um, were you here when, the, the homicide happened in B8?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, probably.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s probably something you should be asking the feds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what I mean? So…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bradley raises his eyebrows meaningfully. I thank him for his time and turn around to try and get some more of my questions in front of the warden. One of my biggest questions was about use of force, what we’d seen in the data, and the whole reason we’d started investigating New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Lynch, I was gonna ask you. I know that their… like, use of force here at, um, CSP-SAC is a lot higher than any other prison in the state, and I was just wondering if you know kind of why that is or if it has something to do with the population here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re part of the high-security mission, which is a conglomerate of all of-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was expecting Lynch to give me some kind of explanation about how this prison is one of 10 high-security prisons, which means they’ve got people who’ve committed really serious crimes and have mental health issues. And he started with that, but then, Lynch totally surprised me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re probably pretty similar with the number of incidents for the mission that we belong in. If you-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No. It’s, like, 30% higher.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Than, uh, where?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All the other level fours.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, the, the data that, uh, we most recently looked at… Hey, Dana.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden calls over the then press secretary, Dana Simas.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data that we were looking at for, uh, the use of force?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I was just wan-… I was just wanting, uh, to see if he had th-… uh, understanding of, like, why it’s so much higher here than everywhere else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, that’s not really the case. Where are you seeing that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, in the data that CDCR gave me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, uh, you mean on the CompStat data?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, um, I would need to verify-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… ’cause I’ve looked at the data, and the data shows that, at SAC, the use of force rates are actually really comparable to other institutions that have this same level of population.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this tour, we double-checked our numbers and brought in help from a statistician in UC Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they found is that the disparity was actually even greater than I’d thought. Between 2009 and 2023, the last year we have data for, officers at this prison used force at a rate almost 40% higher than any other prison in the state. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of months, we followed up repeatedly with CDCR about these numbers. At first, a spokesperson said the agency couldn’t confirm our analysis. When we asked for their analysis showing that New Folsom was in line with other high-security prisons, they didn’t respond. When we asked how the warden could be unaware of what an outlier his institution was, they didn’t respond. When we asked why there were so many more of these troubling incidents that we talked about earlier in this series, like what happened to the men Kevin Steele interviewed in the hospital, they didn’t respond. But as we continued on this tour, the warden assured me…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We, we look at it all the time and are always, um, aware of a lot of the, uh, the incidents that happen here, and we’ve got policies we follow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I move on to some of my questions about protocols that had seemed to allow the B8 homicide to happen, starting with their housing protocol regarding documented enemies like Dion Green and Michael Brit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you comment on, like, why Michael Britt was housed with Dion Green in B8 when that stabbing happened?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Restricted housing in general, and I can’t comment on Michael Britt, um, but restricted housing in general has the ability to confine inmates in, in, uh, secure areas that if enemy concerns existed wouldn’t ordinarily be, um, exposed to each other.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His answer is kind of jargony, but what he’s saying is that really high-security housing units like B8 are set up so that enemies shouldn’t ever be able to get at each other, but he doesn’t address the failures that made that attack possible. And so, I follow up, trying to understand what happened after the attack. Why weren’t the three guys who’d tried to kill Brit separated either?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say a stabbing or an assault happens, and it’s coordinated between people, is it policy to then separate them from each other?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I don’t know that there’s an actual policy that says… Uh, are you saying between the enemies?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between in- inmates, so they are, like, coordinating, if they coordinate an assault on another inmate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know that there’s a policy that requires that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, um, but it-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That would fall under saf-… normal safety and security, um, classifications.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Dana Simas stepping in here again. She says, yes, maybe there’s not a specific policy that says this, but in general, yes, they separate crime partners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And how do you deal with that if they’re, like, you know, all high security or all, you know, um, need solitary housing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There could be a different section, could be separated amongst different tiers. It… couple of different ways you could probably do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All righty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CDCR declined to answer our follow-up questions about why Anthony Rodriguez, Cody Taylor, and Dion Green were not separated. But from what these officials are saying, it sure sounded like they never should have been in a position to murder Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But once again, it’s like we’re in different worlds, and it feels like the warden is saying that the world that I’ve seen — in incident reports I’ve read and heard about from numerous incarcerated people and correctional officers — just doesn’t exist. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s tough in a situation like this to get all the questions in that you wanna ask. It’s loud, and we each have a minder attached to us, but at one point during the tour, Julie is able to bring up Valentino with the warden.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have been talking to the father of, uh, Valentino Rodriguez Jr., who was a correctional officer here. And I know you probably can’t get into specifics, but I’m wondering if you could just tell me, as a person, how you felt when you heard that he had died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s, it’s sad when anybody passes away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know him personally?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie says the family, including Valentino’s dad, have questions for him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Probably wouldn’t be able to comment on any, um, particular cases.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, he never heard from you at the prison, he said. Is that normal? Like, if somebody passes away, would you normally reach out to the family? Or, is that not-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I’d prefer not to comment on-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… um, at this time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She asks the warden if he’ll sit down with us in a better setting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve been reporting on prisons for a long time. I try to be fair, and I feel it… like it’s unfair when we don’t hear your side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, but I think we can… whatever is fair within policy, we can do whatever we need to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll follow up with you on it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the moment, it seems like the warden might be willing to follow up with us later on. Then, after a walk through the restricted housing unit, they start to lead us back out toward the gates we came in through. I ask where the ISU is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The ISU is, uh, above B Facility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Above B Facility. So-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… up there in the hill, kind of out of sight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it’s, like, right over there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">150 yards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden points off vaguely toward one of the buildings. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much — this place where the police force of the institution is based, where Sergeant Kevin Steele spent six years and where he grew more and more concerned about staff misconduct being ignored. And the place where Valentino Rodriguez spent his weekends writing reports and booking evidence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. We got, we got a ton.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we pass back out through the checkpoint and under the blue tower, the warden seems to visibly relax the closer we get to the main entrance gate.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What to you is the most significant policy change that has happened? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my career? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden thinks about it as we walk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s been a lot of significant things, and it’s real easy to focus on what’s most current, which for us, over the past six months has been, uh, the, uh, the body worn cameras and the stationary cameras.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CDCR was actually ordered by a judge to implement body cams at certain other prisons as part of an ongoing class action lawsuit against the agency, and they started rolling them out here at New Folsom too. I’ve talked to incarcerated people who say the body cams can help, but they’re not an easy fix because the institution can refuse to review the footage. And they sometimes delete it long before they’re supposed to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve also talked to officers who say the cameras can help them justify their actions if they’re called into question. As we head toward the outer gate, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to ask the warden about Sergeant Kevin Steele, but I misunderstand how long the tour is. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nope. This is about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May have been a-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… misunderstanding. Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ll make sure you guys are all checked out on equipment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’ve got more time and suddenly we’re by the gate, so I turn to the warden. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know you had a, you had a pretty high profile, uh, officer suicide here with Kevin, officer, Sergeant Kevin Steele, and I’m just wondering kind of how you processed that and how you support people to process that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say it one more time. How I process and how what? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y- how, and how other, how you support other correctional staff when their colleague has committed suicide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We provide all the resources that we can. Um, how I process it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the sa-… It’s, it is sad when there’s any staff death, um, and a lot of the examples, I think back on time, you know, a lot of the s- not a lot, but the staff that I’ve been connected to, uh, particularly at this prison that have gone through it, I mean, it, it weighs on all of us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden says they provide many services to officers, including peer support, and that he really understands the importance of taking care of your mental health. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My, uh, my message has always been it’s hard to be a good partner, a good father, a good spouse or a good son or daughter if you’re not taking care of yourself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once again, I’m having this moment of disconnect between what the warden is saying and what I’ve heard from officers — that they can’t trust that peer support will stay private, that they have to take time off unpaid when they’re struggling, or pay out of pocket to attend PTSD seminars. And that when you call the state employee hotline to try and access therapy, you still have to wait weeks to get an appointment to talk to someone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know that, um, Sergeant Steele was suffering m- with his mental health? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew that he took some time off work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And do y- why was he banned from this institution? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know that’s something that I can, uh, comment on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can’t? Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I try one more time to ask the warden what he did when he found out that Steele had died, but Dana Simas steps in again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s an inappropriate question to comment on-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whoa…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… a specific person, specific case. Um, it’s, it’s not appropriate for us to do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has us check out our equipment and we say goodbye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, Mr. Lynch. I appreciate it. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Sounds of wind and walking]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What time is it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know it’s only noon. I thought it was gonna-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought we would be there forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought we would have more time.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The two and a half hours we were in there felt much longer and not long enough at the same time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting, like, just kind of standing out here, and you, like, look around, and you’ve got the beautiful oak trees in leaf-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and the green rolling hills, and the architecture of that opening gate, you know, while it’s, uh, you know, cement and, and somewhat brutalistic, it also has a little bit of aesthetic beauty to it, and, like, the deeper in you get, like, the less beauty there is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Standing back outside the gates, back in a world where no one is looking down on us with deadly weapons, where we aren’t surrounded by razor wire and concrete, I can feel something in me that’s been clenched… relax. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just, like, the s- gradual stripping away. Like, talking to correctional officers who talked about walking through this gate every day, and, that, like, each gate further in, the mental kind of armor that they would kind of have to put on more and more and more. Um, and then it’s like, you’re a, you’re a human being out here, and in there, you’re not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you’ve probably guessed, that sit down interview we’d asked for with the warden never happened. We also sent a detailed list of questions about the institutional response to Valentino’s allegations, but a spokesperson for CDCR declined to answer those questions and said that wardens can’t comment on personnel matters. But lucky for us, that was not the end of things, because while Warden Jeff Lynch didn’t have to answer our questions, he did have to answer someone else’s. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever, uh, meet with Officer Rodriguez? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. And where did you meet? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Warden Jeff Lynch testifying at an evidentiary hearing that was held in the summer of 2022. If you remember, some officers had gotten disciplined over the offensive group texts in Valentino’s phone, and two men were even fired… including Daniel Garland, the man who’d sent Valentino that video of his son at the gym threatening to slap him. Garland along with three other officers had appealed their discipline. At this hearing, an administrative law judge is gonna listen to that appeal and decide if their discipline should stand or be overturned. The warden is called as a witness for CDCR to talk about what Valentino had told him in that meeting the week before he died. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Heads up, this testimony references slurs, but we have bleeped them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He indicated he was referred to at times as a-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… as a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Um, he said, uh, the use of… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… the w- the word \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was used up there often. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Officer personnel matters are usually confidential, but we were able to get these recordings because of a new state-wide transparency law that unsealed records related to discriminatory behavior by law enforcement. This would give us a rare look inside this process, and we’d get to hear from some key figures in Valentino’s story about the events leading up to his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did he ever indicate if he had any physical manifestations as a result of these problems he was having with the other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think, uh, he had mentioned that, uh, he wasn’t sleeping well at home. He was throwing up a lot at work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Lynch says he asked Valentino to write up a statement with all his allegations. So far, this was all stuff we pretty much knew about. But then, the lawyer for the officers finally asks the warden about something we’d only heard about from Valentino’s wife Mimy — the allegations that the ISU squad, the police force for the prison, had been dirty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, he made quite a few allegations, did he not? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, a- not only, uh, just about the way he was treated in ISU, but other more serious allegations, correct? Including about officers in ISU planting drugs on inmates? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, objections. Relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s CDCR’s lawyer objecting. They don’t want to go down this road. I’m not totally sure why the officer’s lawyer brings this up either. This hearing is not about those allegations, but because she asks about it, we finally got this little window into the warden’s actions after he met with Valentino. The judge allows the question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judge:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll allow the question. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there being uncontrolled weapons in ISU?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uncontrolled weapons are weapons that have been seized, but not yet booked into evidence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you directed, um, I believe it was… Uh, I don’t know if he was a sergeant or lieutenant at that time, but \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And, um, I believe Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to search the ISU office?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A little later in the hearing, Officer Martin Fong, who’d been in the ISU and who’d gotten a pay cut for his part in some of the ugly group texts was also asked about this search. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We came into the office, normal morning, just as, you know, we’re just kinda w- warming up in the morning and then, uh-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it was the day before Valentino died. The ISU officers and the chief deputy warden, Gena Jones, came into the office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was kind of weird because usually \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> doesn’t pop in that early but it’s like, “Hey, whatever.” And she’s, she looks at me and Jordan, and she goes, “I need to talk to you and you.” I’m like, “Oh.” Like, “This is out of the ordinary” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fong says at first he thinks maybe they’re going to get some praise for a recent case, but then Jones pulls them out into the hallway.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just basically says, “Hey, I wanna, I want you to hear from me first, but your desk… Uh, I had Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> search your desk. There’s allegations, uh, that there was weapons and… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[inaudible]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> there’s phones and narcotics in your desk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another staff member had made these claims against them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “Why are they doing?” Like, “I have a target on my back now or what?” But they weren’t just trying to get me removed from the unit. They were, they were trying to get me fired, or, you know, like, that’s some serious allegations. And so that devastated me ’cause of it, it, it challenged my, or it pretty much trying to discredit my character and everything I’ve worked for. And I got emotional, and I broke down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A weapon and some metal were found in his desk. We don’t know exactly what this weapon looked like, but I want to be clear here that from the context, it seems like this isn’t a gun or a baton or a weapon officers would use, but what’s called by CDCR an “inmate manufactured weapon.” So a shiv or something like that, that would usually be stored in evidence after being confiscated. But this weapon, Fong says, had a different purpose. He kept it in his desk as a show-and-tell item. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have a lot of tours that came up there and there’s a shadow board that has weapons, but s- sometimes to actually hold and, and look at a weapon, it, it’s a tangible item. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden says, even though a weapon was found, he believed Fong’s explanation of why it was there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that you understood that Officer Fong was using it for some sort of training event?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was my understanding.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, and so, so based on your understanding, it was not improper for Officer Fong to have this weapon in his desk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, based upon what was reported to me, um, but I didn’t know the, the origin of the weapon either.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I ran this by the former sergeant who you heard from last episode who knew a lot about internal affairs. I wanted to see if this made sense to him — to have an improvised weapon in your desk for training purposes. He said it did not. If you wanted a weapon to use for training, you would check it out of evidence. There would be a paper trail. Ultimately, the search did not result in any reprimand or discipline for officers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, in this hearing, no one followed up to ask the warden our biggest questions. Why had he chosen this as the way to handle Valentino’s allegations in the first place? If substantiated, evidence of planted drugs or weapons could have massive implications, from tainted criminal cases to charges for the warden’s own cops. But the warden didn’t immediately call in internal affairs, special agents who might have set up a sting operation or pulled phone records. Instead, Lynch has his own in-house people, the direct supervisors of the officers in question, go in and do this strangely casual search of their desks. By making this choice, the warden, also whether knowingly or not, likely exposed Valentino as a whistleblower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours before Mimy Rodriguez got home and found her husband on the bathroom floor, one of the last texts he sent said, “It’s out now that I told on the team.” After Valentino died, and Val Sr. filed a complaint with internal affairs and handed over his son’s phone, a special agent did start looking into some things. Their investigation didn’t substantiate the claims of planted drugs and weapons, but it’s not clear that they really looked into those claims. The report does note one more thing about Valentino’s meeting with the warden and the subsequent search that makes no sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Internal Affairs asked the warden to turn over any notes or memos about these two events. The warden told them he couldn’t find any documentation of either event. \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listening through these hearings, we also got to finally hear from one of the people that Val Sr. held responsible for how Valentino had been treated in the ISU — Sergeant David Anderson, Valentino’s boss, the guy who’d been on some of the text threads and who Valentino said had threatened him. He’d been called to testify by the lawyer for the officers, and she asks him what was meant by that nickname they’d given Valentino: half-patch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was more of a term of endearment, um, like a brother or a friend, a close friend is the term that, uh, they used it in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Objection, speculation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judge:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sustained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawyer then asks Anderson if he heard other terms used — homophobic slurs, racial slurs, and his answer each time is-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not that I can recall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when CDCR’s lawyer cross-examines him, she confronts him with his prior testimony to internal affairs, in which he admitted hearing these terms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It must’ve slipped my mind. I apologize for that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So in fact, you heard Officer Garland use the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">–\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… in the ISU office? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And during that same office of internal affairs interview, you admitted to hearing Officer Garland use the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the office.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What page is that on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you could just close that and- if you don’t recall?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t recall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s one I… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, and if I could direct your attention to page 73. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">73?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m going to direct your attention to lines 13 through 19. Special Agent \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> says, “Earlier we talked about the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with an A at the end.” You respond, “Yeah.” He then says, “Did you hear staff use that?” You respond, “Yeah.” “Who did you hear?” And you respond, “Officer Garland.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, yes. Now that I’m reading this, it does, uh, I’m able to remember that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We still don’t know if the department imposed any discipline on Anderson. He could’ve been one of the people who got reprimanded in connection with Valentino’s case for failure to report misconduct, but if so… those details aren’t public.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We know from employment records that Anderson was promoted to lieutenant at New Folsom in July of 2022, the month after he gave this testimony. During this hearing, the lawyer for the officers also called each of them to speak in their own defense. And I’m gonna focus on Daniel Garland’s testimony, since you’ve heard the most about his actions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How long were you with the CDCR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just under 19 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, and, um, how did you get into corrections? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brothers were, uh, were inmates. My mother and my father were locked up, so I’ve always had some kind of connection to corrections. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Garland says getting a job as an officer changed his life, and this personal history gave him a unique empathy to do that job. But he says it was also hard work. He was exposed to terrible things and assaulted, and he and Valentino were there for each other in the harsh environment of the prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like a little brother. He was becoming… You know, he was becoming closer and like a little brother. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawyer says they’ve heard a lot about Garland’s words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How would you describe generally the way you speak?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I say, I say inappropriate things, and I say them in inappropriate times. But I’m, I’m, I’m usually doing it a- as hard as it is for people in here to understand, I’m usually doing it in an encouraging manner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says he didn’t even know it bothered Valentino until after he’d died, when someone else in the office said something to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sergeant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> made several comments about, “We killed Rodriguez.” And he made certain comments that specifically me and Jordan killed Rodriguez. And so we, we put in a, a complaint against him, and that was the first time that I had any idea of anything with Rodriguez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tape is redacted, but the sergeant he’s talking about here has to be Steele. We know Steele was really upset about Valentino’s death and blamed these guys who’d been so hard on him. That complaint that Garland and another officer filed against Steele didn’t go anywhere. Then the article about Valentino’s death and Garland’s text messages came out in the paper, the Sacramento Bee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What impact did these articles have on you a- at the time they came out?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- It destroyed me. It destroyed my character. It, uh… As soon as the articles come out, it just… My daughter, my daughter had to go to homeschooling. I mean, uh, it just destroyed everything. It destroyed my life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then his lawyer asks Garland a question that she asks each of the officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- If you were able to say something about this situation to Officer Rodriguez’s father in light of everything that’s gone on, what would you say to him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Objection. Relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I would just like to let him know that for the, for the time that he was in ISU, that he had a good time and he had fun and we, we all, we all had fun. We all enjoyed his son and that it wasn’t, it wasn’t what he was told. It’s not what… Rodriguez didn’t have a bad time in ISU. Rodriguez loved ISU. He loved working with us and he, he said the same things I said back and forth and I never got offended by him and I, I never felt he was offended. And I, I just wanna let his father know that we did respect his son and that we, we enjoyed his son and that I’m s- I’m really sorry for his loss. I just, I feel bad for him. I- I’m a father and it’s so- something you shouldn’t see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In closing, the officer’s lawyer argues that in this case, that’s basically just about bad language, dismissal and long pay cuts are too severe. They were all veteran officers with great reputations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The question is for these four gentlemen, should they either have their careers ended or be hampered, uh, for years financially and with, with the stigma of this discipline based on what were private communications, banter, blowing off steam, were words? They were just bad words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The attorney for CDCR goes last. He says any reasonable person looking over these messages would understand that they’re harmful and that they had accumulative effect.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This beat down at the office and over text that he took from these officers had its effect over time, and that’s why, that’s why it took a while until he reached his breaking point to start reporting it to people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, he points back to the officers’ own testimony.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Council’s question to the appellants about, you know, “What, what would you say to Rodriguez’s father if you had a chance to do so?” And it was intended to be emotional testimony, but I think it’s notable that not one of the appellants, not one of them indicated that they would tell him that they were sorry for anything that they did. In fact, several of them said that they would try to convince the, the father that they did nothing wrong — that they didn’t intend to do anything wrong. They treated ISU like their own junior high locker room. They, they bullied, uh, Rodriguez. They, they went after him. They called him horrible names, yet they s- they, they got on the stand and said, “I wouldn’t… I would not say anything to him indicating that I’m sorry for what I did.” A- And, and that right there is the biggest evidence that the likelihood of reoccurrence is high. Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s how the eight days of hearings came to a close. There was one other person who we’d hoped to hear in these recordings, but didn’t, the chief deputy warden, Gena Jones. She wasn’t called by either side, which seems strange. Jones is the person Valentino first broke down to when he felt he had to leave the prison, and she was directly in charge of the ISU. Since Valentino’s death, she has also been promoted. She is now a warden of the prison in Stockton, California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The judge issued his recommendation a little while later, which was adopted by the state personnel board, which is basically the HR department for the state. And we were able to get that decision through a public record’s request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. So, this is from… We got this last night from the state personnel board.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the decisions that they made about the appeals brought by, uh, Garland, Jordan, uh, Bettencourt and Fong.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie met up with Val Sr. to show him the documents.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing to know is that the state personnel board upheld all the decisions, so that means that Garland is still fired, and Jordan’s fired, and Fong and Bettencourt had their pay docked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, I’m glad that you s- you, you told me first before we went on, ’cause, uh, my heart was racing. So, that’s good that they upheld the decisions. Um, I’m interested to hear what, what they had to say. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I can imagine, you know, that, “We were just joking around with him,” or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it was in his son’s nature to forgive, to try and get along with people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s really easy for someone to look at the text messages and see that he’s being friendly at times with these same guys, even after he leaves, but th- that was his personality, you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s one of those things you can’t beat out of your kid-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… ’cause he’s just a nice person, you know? He was always tugging at me and saying, “Look what I did, dad,” you know? Uh, he always… Like, th- they call them guys apple polishers, you know? \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Yeah, that was just my son. He was just a little apple polisher. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I want their attorney to realize, that’s, that’s the kind of person he was. He was a, he was a little boy in a man’s shell, you know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following this hearing, these officers appealed their discipline to the state superior court, and that appeal is still pending. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But for Val Sr., this narrowing of the investigation, two officers fired for saying bad words, does not address the underlying machine that enabled that conduct.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everybody is just protecting themselves, you know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we were rolling out this podcast, we were also staying in touch with Val Sr. and one day he texted Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like he wrote me this morning saying something like, “Well, Steele promised me I’d know the truth and it would be hard.” I mean, uh, so, he’s got something new to tell us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what it is, or if it’s just reading it from Steele like that. I, I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Val Sr. had finally gotten a chance to read the book that Kevin Steele had been working on before he passed away, and so Julie and I met up with him to talk about it a few days later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, we really just wanted to check in with you and see, you know, what is… How you’re feeling, but also just, you know, you had a chance to read the book.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was highlighting things and I was like, “Man, could just… You could highlight the whole thing sometimes.” It’s-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele’s widow, Lily, shared the manuscript with him, and she also gave us permission to read some parts of it here. The first page is a list of titles Steele was considering. At the top…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Thin Line Blurs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Betrayal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The book begins with a line that’s very on brand for him. “This book is dedicated and faithfully devoted to the truth.” The dedication is heavy with Steele’s disillusionment and hurt. “Within this book, you will read the story about how corruption and criminality were treated as celebrities. Prowlers, bandits and punks were granted immunity for dirty deeds and acts of criminality, while the whistle-blowers and law-abiding staff were pursued, harassed and persecuted. This story was never intended to be told.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stories he tells are many of the stories that you have already heard throughout this podcast. He writes about meeting Ronny Price in the hospital with his teeth knocked out and his face smashed in after being tripped by officers, and how the incarcerated man died the next day of his injuries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele writes about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar and questions, “Did CDCR peace officers, the individuals who are commissioned and duty-bound to be professional, fair, honest and ethical, become complicit in the slaughter of an inmate?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he writes about his friend, Valentino Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was hard to read, and then every time I went back into it, it got a little easier to read.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were parts that Val Sr. found touching, like Steele’s description of how hard his son worked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Valentino was just trying to make his supervisors, the institution and his chosen profession flash, sparkle and glimmer. Valentino was happy and filled with pride when something he was working on gained positive recognition and attention.” And that, that is exactly the way he was when he was a, when he was a boy. He was the same, same way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there were parts like this one that made Val Sr. very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Valentino would often make comments to me that he was treated as the office bitch and given very little praise and gratitude.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear from the book that Valentino’s death is a turning point for Steel. He keeps waiting for the institution to respond with care, concern, and accountability, but that’s not what he sees. The day after Valentino died the warden wanted to talk to Steele, and here’s Val Sr. again reading what Steele wrote about this meeting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I remained standing in the middle of the office. I was still attempting to fully grasp the significance and magnitude of Valentino’s death as I was openly crying in plain view of Warden Lynch and Lieutenant Strohmaier.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden wanted to find out what Steele knew. Steele writes that he shared everything Valentino had told him, and then waited for the warden to react.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Without any hesitation, Warden Lynch calmly remained seated with his right leg crossed over his left leg and very casually said, ‘Well, you haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden could just be acknowledging that he’d already heard these same things from Valentino himself a few days earlier. But to Steele, this reaction is evidence of the warden’s callousness and preoccupation with self-protection. Steele began to view everything through this lens. The institution he’d have given his life for was starting to treat him as a threat. He writes that the friction in the ISU office was increasing. In one instance, he says that his boss told him, quote, that, “Some staff were starting to consider me as an ‘inmate lover’ as I was spending too much time talking to inmates.” He writes that another boss emailed him asking about his retirement plans. And someone else told him that his bosses were talking about him behind closed doors. “The main topic of discussion within these meetings was how to stimulate my departure without making it appear as workplace retaliation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I kind of could see how they were systematically picking him apart until his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Kevin Steele died, his manuscript was 104 pages, but it wasn’t finished. There were some things Val Sr. was expecting to see in those pages but didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe it’s my suspicions and they’re not confirmed there. You know? But he got, he got about as far into that book as um, I, I needed him to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We still have questions for Steele that aren’t answered in his book, like what had he and Valentino shared with each other about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar? What happened in that last call Steele had with internal affairs? And could things have turned out differently?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of Steele’s friends and colleagues have also struggled to understand his death and everything that led up to it, and some of them are speaking up now because they want answers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s why we’re here as well is to find the truth finally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is retired correctional officer Annette Eichhorn. She worked as a tower copy at New Folsom. She says Valentino and Steele’s deaths should be a wake up call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now two of them that are dead because to find the truth. That should shock the shit out of everybody-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… that’s still there. And I don’t understand how it’s not.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette came into our recording studio with her friend, Paul Crews, who also retired from the prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was a correctional officer the last almost 21 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul was a control booth officer. As you’ve heard throughout this podcast, we’ve often had to agree to confidentiality or anonymity for officers. But these two officers agreed to sit down with us and talk on the record because they wanna stand up for Steele.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s few people that we would be speaking out for.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Cause this is a guy that was always looking out for us, as… Not just “us” singular. “Us” plural and “us” as a department.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as Annette says, they want to try and find the truth among the sea of rumors that started going around after Steele’s picture was posted at the gate banning him from the institution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I went up to a few people and said, what is, what’s up with Steel? F him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette wasn’t sure why people at the prison had turned on Steele. Paul says he called Steele on the phone in early 2021, but he didn’t know Steele was out of the prison, or that he’d been banned. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He picked up the phone, so I contacted him, not knowing anything that was going on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul hadn’t been at work for months because he’d been rehabbing from an injury, but now he was supposed to go back to work and he was calling Steele because he was really struggling and he needed Steele to know something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “Kevin, this is what’s going on.” I… It was all about me on that conversation at that point. “I’m on this particular drug. I don’t think I should be in a control booth. I shouldn’t be doing anything with this job until I get me right.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul told Steele he’d had a meltdown and been put on psychiatric medication. Steele was the guy who drug tested officers at the prison, and so, Paul needed him to know that this medication would be showing up in his urine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Were you at that low point then when you called him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was at a low point, but I was at such a low point, my, my wife was looking at me like, “I need your, your safe key.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The key to the gun safe. Paul says his wife was worried that he might take his own life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “I’m there.” She says, “We don’t know.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hmmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said, “What do you mean we?” The kids didn’t know. So, “Sure. Have my damn keys,” \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, “you know, if that makes you feel happy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul told Steele what he was going through.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then he told me, he’s like, “Well, I’m… I haven’t been there since November.” I’m like, “November? What, what happened?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele had actually stopped working at the prison in December, and then gone to Missouri in January. After the notice banning him, Steele had started to suspect he was under investigation, but he didn’t know what for — and he told Paul he couldn’t talk about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was like, “All right. Well, that aside, are you mentally okay?” ‘Cause he didn’t sound right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To me, he didn’t sound right. And he said, “I’m just frustrated, you know?” I was like, “Okay. Well, I’ve always been that guy, somebody you can call and talk to no matter what. Um, I’d rather you talk than blow your head off. I just… We know too many people that that happened to.” And, um, he’s like, “No, I’m not there.” And I was like, “Okay.” And he kind of, like, told me, “Everything is gonna come out in the wash, but right now, I’m ou- out a job.” Well, I was like, “All right. Well, I’m gonna check on you every so often.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul says for some reason, talking to Steele helped him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My problem didn’t seem so big anymore. It was kind of like… In a weird way, it was kind of like a reset.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette was going through her own struggles with the department and would text and talk with Steele about what he was going through. She says he was crushed when he heard they were trying to make him look corrupt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re switching it to where, no Steele is helping this inmate with his attorney and, um, um, turning on his own people, and that’s why he, he, he had to go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette says Steele told her he wished he’d never opened his mouth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s like, “I shouldn’t have talked.” He’s all, “My life would have been so much better.” I was like, “Steele, you know you couldn’t.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You, you know you could not live with yourself if you just ignored Rodriguez.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over his years at the institution, Steele had seen so much, assaults and cover-ups and over and over again, he’d been told that, “There was a process in place. People would be held accountable. Just trust the system.” Now, he felt that system had turned on him. We can’t see the full internal affairs file on Steele, but we were able to get a summary report about what he was being investigated for and what the outcome was. Here are the allegations. Number one, circumventing the prison’s legal mail process by sending a scanned letter from an incarcerated person to their attorney. Number two, he allegedly met with an incarcerated person and lied that it was for an attorney visit. And number three, he, “Released a confidential memorandum to a member of the public after the Office of Internal Affairs ordered the sergeant not to communicate with that member of the public. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That last allegation against Steele was the easiest to decode. It was about Steele’s own memo — that explosive one that he sent to the warden that we read you earlier in this series. The member of the public that he sent it to, as we know, was Val Sr., who he’d already been told not to talk to. The second allegation that Steele met with an incarcerated person and lied about it being for an attorney visit didn’t go anywhere, and it couldn’t be substantiated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But for a long time, we weren’t sure what the first allegation was really about. Had Steele been helping someone get around the legal mail process and secretly communicate with their lawyers? And then we were leaked those tapes and memos, and we began to put two and two together. We found out that there were these two letters that Dion Green wrote to the warden. He was worried about his safety because word was spreading that he was a whistleblower. In one of the videos we got, Steele actually holds up one of these letters to the camera.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the other one, I told you that I’m going to, um, email to your attorney.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then that was at your request. It wasn’t something that I suggested or asked you to do? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what this is about. These letters seem like they were Green’s insurance policy in case something happened to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So on two occasions, Steele emailed copies of Green’s letters to both the warden and to Green’s attorney. But legal mail is still supposed to go through proper channels and the actual physical mail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But here’s the thing that makes this investigation so weird. You can see in Steele’s correspondence that this was not some sneaky thing he did. Both times, he explicitly tells the warden he’s doing it. It isn’t until months later that Internal Affairs starts investigating Steele for this. And that investigation was still going on when he died. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Paul and Annette that after Steele’s death, the agency finished that internal investigation and found that Steele had violated policy by sending those letters and forwarding the memo he wrote to Val Sr.. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They completed the Internal Affairs investigation after he died and imposed a 10% pay cut for 12 months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After he died?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After he died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How can they do that after he died? Are you serious?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What the fuck is wrong with these people? What the… This is how far they can go. They gotta nail that, literally nail the nail in the coffin on his name. That fucking pisses me off. Fuck them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I needed to hear that. We needed to… What the fuck is their narrative that they thought that they can do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s dirty as shit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s dirty as shit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The discipline deemed appropriate for Steele’s offenses — sending scanned letters over email to an attorney, and sending his own memo to Val Sr. — was a pay cut for a full year. This was greater than the discipline imposed on any of the officers who’d failed to protect Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But because he was dead, the discipline was suspended. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked the state’s Office of the Inspector General for prisons about Steele’s case because the timing of it, the nature of it really looks like retaliation. And it’s part of their job to investigate complaints of whistleblower retaliation. A spokesperson said they couldn’t comment on his case but that it was protocol for CDCR to complete investigations even after an officer’s death, and that, “The act of whistleblowing does not insulate a person from being subjected to a legitimate investigation into allegations that the whistleblower engaged in misconduct.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As far as we can tell, this is the only mark on his record — the only time the agency disciplined him for anything.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Steele’s disciplinary record, and his book, and even this podcast so far… don’t detail all of Steele’s efforts to expose misconduct in the agency. Some of those efforts we haven’t gone into. We don’t know the full picture\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is one more case that Steele got involved in that I want to tell you about briefly, because I think it shows how far Steele had traveled from the man who showed up to work early each morning, full of faith in his institution. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the month before his death Steele was in communication with an attorney, who under other circumstances he likely would have considered on the other side of things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would you mind just starting off by telling us who you are and what you do, Steve?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I’m Steve Glickman. I’m an attorney in Los Angeles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Glickman was suing CDCR on behalf of the family of a man who died in the prison. That death was reported as a suicide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had not a single clue that there was anything other than a suicide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Glickman says another lawyer gave him a tip — that he should get in contact with a man named Sgt. Kevin Steele. So he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a shocking, chilling conversation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele told Glickman he’d interviewed an incarcerated man who’d confessed it was actually a murder and that he had committed it. This was surprising to Glickman because that confession was not among the evidence that CDCR had turned over about the case, and they were supposed to turn over everything. On the phone, Steele told the lawyer that he’d part of gathering that evidence and noticed this key interview was missing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He complained to one of his supervisors and he learned that the inmate Clark, the one who had confessed to the murder, was actually working for the security, in- internal security office there at the prison. And, and so his feeling as he expressed to me was, is that’s why it was being covered up — because this guy was an informant for the, the prison system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says that Steele was scheduled to give a deposition in his lawsuit, but before that happened–\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was called actually by a newspaper reporter who told me that, uh, Steel had committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. So we never, we never were able to get his testimony under oath. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, what did you think when you got that call? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was shocked. I was shocked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The agency settled that suit for $250,000 earlier this year. Steele doesn’t mention this case in his manuscript, maybe because he hadn’t gotten to it yet,but the final pages show that he was researching the case law around whistleblowing, and what protections he might be entitled to. And what he discovered is that there were actually relatively few. And here is the fundamental catch–22 that correctional officers like Steele face: if there’s a policy against sharing confidential information and an officer shares it anyways, even if the purpose is to blow the whistle on misconduct, the officer can still be punished.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, on the day they join the academy, correctional officers also swear an oath… an oath to uphold the law. And so, what are they supposed to do if they come to believe that their own institution is breaking it?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lack of protections for whistleblowers is not a new problem for CDCR. 20 years ago, the state Senate called for hearings about CDCR’s failure to police itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Gloria Romero:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can the California Department of Corrections police itself? The answer, I believe, is no. But starting today, it must…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And a persistent code of silence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Gloria Romero:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Code of silence at the highest level of government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The testimony sounds eerily familiar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>D.J. Vodicka:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He yelled, “Hey, you big old snitch, you big old rat. Who you telling on now?” And I felt really threatened by that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a family member of an inmate. My husband is in prison. He’s currently at Ironwood. He was up at Pelican Bay, and guards tried to have him killed by putting an inmate in his cell. He was very, very, very badly hurt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Jackie Speier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s frightening to me is that there are correctional officers within the institution at all of our state prisons that feel they cannot come forward for fear of retaliation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mike Jimenez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, there are. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Jackie Speier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that should be of concern to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mike Jimenez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the impetus for these hearings was the suicide of a captain who’d reported concerns about a massive riot that officers delayed responding to. The captain was demoted and threatened by his colleagues, according to news reports. “My job has killed me,” the captain wrote in his suicide note. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After Valentino died and after Kevin Steele died, both Mimy Rodriguez and Lili Steele had a decision to make. In order to get husbands’ death benefits right away, they could sign a release form stating that their deaths were unrelated to their jobs. But neither widow could bring themselves to sign that piece of paper. Lili told me it would’ve felt like stabbing her husband in the back. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So instead, they filed worker’s compensation claims with the state. This was a difficult process, but Lili said this was her way of saying, “I know what you people did to him.” Initially those claims were denied, but after a fight they were granted. Both Kevin and Valentino’s deaths were found to be the result of mental injuries sustained in their profession as correctional officers for the State of California. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lili said when she got the call about that decision, she sobbed. She told me she was overcome with emotion to have someone acknowledge what had happened, and that they believed her. Mimy says she also remembers getting that call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just said, “Okay. Thank you.” And then I cried when I got off the phone. But I, I, I knew it was going on. Like, I knew that this was… had to do with his job. Oh, that’s all he talked about. The night that he passed, I remember when I was getting put in the back of the cop car, I remember yelling at the cop, like, telling her, like, “Quit your job. Like, this job is gonna cause you so much stress. Look what happened.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mimy says when she and Valentino first met, his job was one of the things she loved about him. She also had plans to go into the field herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a field that I had a lot of respect for, still have a lot of respect for, but it’s also something that is permanently engraved of “I know what happens here. I know what happened here.” And it’s hard not to look at it differently now and feel differently now. I didn’t realize it was gonna be like this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On paper, California’s $14 billion a year prison system is an institution that’s trying the Norway model — the cutting edge of progressive and humane policies that focuses on reintegration and emotional wellbeing. An institution that bans discrimination, that promises to protect the people in its custody, that forbids the code of silence. And yet, we’ve found the reality inside this system is very different from the promise. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our review of 80 cases of officer discrimination going back to 2015 found the type of abuse that Valentino experienced happened across institutions. The most common type of discrimination in these cases disclosed to us was sexual harassment. Yet on its own, even egregious misconduct often did not lead to firing. And this culture is important because sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly it enforces the code of silence and even more serious misconduct goes unreported. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Along with off-the-charts use of force at New Folsom Prison, our analysis of CDCR’s data found another troubling trend. Despite damning reports from the Office of the Inspector General of prisons, the rate officers used force across all high security prisons in the state between 2009 and last year increased by 137%. This gap between what the system promises and what it delivers is the gap that swallowed up incarcerated people like Ronnie Price and Luis Giovanny Aguilar. And this is the gap that Valentino Rodriguez and Kevin Steele fell into as well. The agency will not discuss their cases, and their names do not appear among the fallen officers memorialized on CDCR’s website, but they are not alone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In terms of overall numbers of correctional officers who’ve died by suicide like Steele, it’s hard to get an exact number. There are about 30,000 peace officers employed in California’s prison agency. A 2017 UC Berkeley survey of some officers found that one in 10 reported suicidal thoughts. But CDCR said they don’t track employee suicides out of respect for their privacy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The California Correctional Officers Union provided me with a list that they had gathered, informally by word of mouth, institution by institution. So it’s not a complete list, and it’s not even a list of names, but simply dates of death. There are 24 dates on this list — 24 current or former officers who died since the beginning of 2020. Since I got that list in May last year, I heard about six more officers and a former warden who died by suicide, bringing the number to 31; at least 31 peace officers who took their own lives since 2020. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The union contact who gave me that list said, “If these deaths were happening in any other profession, someone would be calling for an investigation,” and yet he can’t even get a solid count to understand the scope of the problem. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The number of officers who simply died too young, like Valentino, often due to stress, heart attacks, and substance use issues is likely even greater. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul, the retired correctional officer, told me among officers, it’s become a kind of dark joke. When someone leaves the profession, on the 5th anniversary of their retirement, they throw a party to celebrate that, unlike so many of their colleagues, they are still alive. Like a lot of officers, Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez signed up to work for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation because of the promise of good benefits, early retirement, a family of fellow officers. Now their actual families are left without them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My biggest regret is that that day he died, I just didn’t take him for a long ride with me and talk. We were, we were due for one, and I just… You know, you just don’t know. This, uh, opportunity there and you just don’t know. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if I woulda been able to save him. I, I know I could have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s one of the hardest things about being a parent. When they’re little, you can protect them from things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know where they’re going. You can keep them close. And then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They go out in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the podcast came out, Val Sr. has had good days and bad days. He hopes something big will come from this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think, um, most importantly, this is probably my last stand. Um, I don’t, I don’t know what else I can do. You know, I just always pray that, God willing, it’s, it’s for a, a good, a good thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it’ll be a relief in a way to come to the end of this project, but he’ll also miss it. It’s been a way for him to keep Valentino alive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll never stop, ever stop thinking about my son. No, he’s just too, uh… I just loved him too much.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve been listening to the final episode of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom from KQED. While this is the last episode of the series we will let you know if we get any more breakthroughs in our reporting. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to: onourwatch@kqed.org \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to the people who knew and loved Valentino Rodriguez and Kevin Steele for sharing their stories with us. And thanks to all the correctional officers who spoke to us for this series, whose voices you often did not hear on the podcast, but who informed us about the challenges of their profession. If you are a whistleblower, you can find support online including at TheLampLighterproject.org which is especially for law enforcement whistleblowers. And we’ve links to other resources in our episode description and on our website. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also want to thank the families of Ronnie Price and Luis Giovanny Aguilar for opening up to us about their loved ones. And huge gratitude to the incarcerated people who spoke to us under very difficult and dangerous circumstances, including Joel Uribe, Mario Gonzalez, Mario Valenzuela and many more. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauléon. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn, and Laura Fitzgerald — students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the past two years… so many journalists have helped with this series… We got research support from graduate students Elizabeth Santos, Cayla Mihalovich, Julietta Bisharyan, William Jenkins, Armon Owlia, Vera Watt, and Junyao Yang. Thanks also to UC Berkeley’s Jeremy Rue, Amanda Glazer and Olivia Qiu for their data analysis. And to George Levine of the LA Times. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The internal records highlighted in this podcast were obtained as part of The California Reporting project. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky for their editorial insights. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Promotion and engagement support from César Saldaña and Maha Sanad. Graphic design by Sophie Feller. Photography by Beth LaBerge, and videography by Kori Suzuki. Thank you to our in-house lawyers, Rebecca Hopkins and Bridget Barrett, along with Sarah Burns and Thomas Burke of Davis Wright Tremaine, who helped us sue CDCR so we could get the internal tapes you heard on this podcast. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Tovan-Lindsey our Vice President of News, And KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And thanks to all of you for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After his son’s death, Valentino Rodriguez Sr. waited for the warden of New Folsom prison to call him. That call never came. In our season finale, we walk through the gates of New Folsom to ask the warden for answers. We also get a rare glimpse inside the world of correctional officer discipline and hear from Sgt. Kevin Steele in his own words.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7467271989\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mental health resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Whistleblower resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.thelamplighterproject.org\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lamplighter Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://thesignalsnetwork.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Signals Network\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://empowr.us/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPOWR\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowersofamerica.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblowers of America\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistleblower.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Government Accountability Project\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.whistleblowers.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">National Whistleblower Center\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://whistlebloweraid.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whistleblower Aid\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads-up that this episode references discriminatory language and discusses suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. We’ve also included resources for whistleblowers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After his son, Valentino Rodriguez, died in October 2020, Val Sr. had waited for someone from the prison to call him, to acknowledge his son’s passing. A few months went by, and when that call didn’t come, he sent off an email.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am Val’s dad. These are pictures of my wife and Val’s brother.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Attached to it were photos of Valentino on the day he graduated from the academy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I remember his graduation day, how proud he was. I remember the speech from that podium as clear as the day he was born.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The email was addressed to the head of CDCR, along with some of the people that Val Sr. felt were critical in what had happened to Valentino.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It could have been avoided when he asked for help but was swept under the rug to protect those involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including his boss, Sergeant David Anderson…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His sergeant that was witness to so many abusive texts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The chief deputy warden, Gena Jones, and the warden, Jeff Lynch-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My son was also left with your betrayal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… the boss of the whole institution. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have not had so much as a knock on the door, an apology, or any acknowledgement of his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Val Sr. did get a response to this email from the head of CDCR at the time. She passed on her condolences and said the agency was investigating his son’s case, but there was only silence from the warden. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then, in March of last year, about eight months into our investigation, we got some news. We were gonna be able to go on a rare press tour at New Folsom Prison, and talk to the warden face to face. Val Sr. sent us a list of questions he wanted us to ask. Like, who had leaked information about the warden’s private meeting with Valentino? Why had the warden banned Kevin Steele from the prison? And why hadn’t he ever called? Julie, my reporting partner, also reached out to Valentino’s widow, Mimy Rodriguez, to tell her the news.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to the prison next week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We asked for a sit-down with the warden, and we were told no. Um, but then we were told that he’ll be there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I’m getting ready for that. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How… That’s exciting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got any questions for the warden?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanna know what was going through his head when he found out Val passed. I wanna know what he felt when he sat across from Valentino. How did you feel when you found out? Did you get sick? Did you throw up? I… these things, I just… they probably seem minuscule or silly, but I w-… I just wanna know… was it just another officer for him? I just wanna know. Did you care? Did it matter to you? Do you remember his face the way I do? Or his laugh, or his gap teeth, or his love for ketchup? Do you remember his reports? Do you remember how hard he worked to make you happy, the way he worked hard to make his parents happy? Or, are you just gonna disregard that and say, “He was a great officer,” and give me some generic answer? I want him to be honest, and I want him to respect the people that come in and out of that prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we prepared to walk through the gates of New Folsom Prison, we were quite literally now going to be following in the footsteps of Officer Valentino Rodriguez and Sergeant Kevin Steele, and I kept thinking about their words to each other on the last day of Valentino’s life. “There are two sides over there.” Which side of the prison would we get to see? I’m Sukey Lewis, and this is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In one mile, turn left onto Folsom Prison Road.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, we’re just passing past the sign for Folsom State Prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> we’re… it’s actually this lovely pastoral scene. You have this-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a beautiful spring day as Julie and I drive up the winding road in the Sierra Nevada foothills toward New Folsom Prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, frick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just I’m just… I don’t usually stress out, but I haven’t been in a prison for a while.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here we go, CSP-SAC, and yeah. You’re feeling it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, I’m feeling it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie’s bracing herself to go into this place where we’ve been invited, but we’re not exactly welcome, and where everything we see is gonna be tightly controlled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, here they are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We park and then walk up to the outer security checkpoint of this huge facility. There’s a reporting team from the LA Times here today as well for the press tour.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>LA Times Reporter:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LA Times.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sources have told us that the prison has been prepping for this for days, and the entourage that comes out to greet us is impressive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One of the biggest I’ve ever seen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a dozen people, who each introduce themselves, starting with the biggest of the bigwigs here today, the associate director for all of California’s high-security prisons, who then introduces the man we’ve been waiting so long to speak with.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Associate Director:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of ’em, and, uh, this is Jeff Warden’s prison, er, uh, Jeff Lynch’s prison. (laughing) \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jeff Lynch, warden, CSP Sacramento.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Jeff Lynch, he’s a tall man with a broad chest, light brown hair. He looks a little like the actor Jeff Daniels, and today, he’s wearing a suit jacket, a pink shirt, and a tie. Down the line from him, we meet two associate wardens, two captains, a lieutenant, and people from healthcare and public relations.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, cool, um, we may have to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> ask you your names again along the way. That’s a lot to remember.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tour Guide:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the, the plan is-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We walk past some staff residences and lower security areas that are empty right now and then under the eye of the tall, blue tower, where we know a guard sits with a Mini-14 rifle looking out over everything. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Chain link fence on either side, big mirrors overhead, and there’s two little, kind of, windows. This is the same process that correctional staff go through when they come to work every day. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once inside the main complex, off to my left, I see a gray cement building with those very narrow windows. On the side of it, there’s a letter and a number: B8.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, so that looks like the B8 unit… \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unit where Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed in the day room. That’s not part of today’s tour. Instead, they’re taking us to what’s called the short-term restricted housing unit. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…And there’s short term restrictive housing kinda to the front and the left.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the new version of the SHU, or solitary confinement — the place where Dion Green was held after the murder and where he says officers were spreading rumors about him to get him killed. Julie’s walking next to the warden as they go inside.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think this prison is… is this prison dangerous any more than others?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It has days where it’s had dangerous events.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, and then, it’s had many days where it hasn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s what we’re being shown: a calm day. There’s a class going on in a treatment room, where men talk to a counselor about regulating their emotions. But I notice, even as that class is going on, these men are chained to the chairs they sit in. Next, the warden shows us the solitary cages outside the unit. Officially, they’re called IEYs, or individual exercise yards, but incarcerated people refer to them as the dog cages. The entourage of CDCR staff and reporters chat and laugh behind me as I approach a person looking out through the fencing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a reporter with KQED Public Radio. Are you, um, down to talk to me today or no?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Depending on what.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just to ask you how your days is going and what your experience is here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’ll talk.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Um, what’s your name?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, Patrick Anthony Bradley.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bradley says he’s been at this prison for six years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re gonna paint the pretty picture like it’s all good, but it’s, it’s really not.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmm. What’s the, the picture that you would paint?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is, this is a terrible \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is terrible. Like, this is a terrible… it’s inhumane for anybody, for a, a, a patient, a inmate, a human being. Just conduct is disgusting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s kind of a strange scene. Like, I’m standing in between two worlds — the world Bradley lives in that’s bounded by the fence between us, a reality in his telling of corruption and darkness, and the world behind me represented by the warden and all the other prison officials standing just feet away, who repeatedly tell us their mission is safety and rehabilitation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They might, you know, clean, clean today, you know, make it look good, polish and all that, but it’s just a terrible place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm, yeah. Um, were you here when, the, the homicide happened in B8?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, probably.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s probably something you should be asking the feds.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patrick Anthony Bradley:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what I mean? So…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bradley raises his eyebrows meaningfully. I thank him for his time and turn around to try and get some more of my questions in front of the warden. One of my biggest questions was about use of force, what we’d seen in the data, and the whole reason we’d started investigating New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Lynch, I was gonna ask you. I know that their… like, use of force here at, um, CSP-SAC is a lot higher than any other prison in the state, and I was just wondering if you know kind of why that is or if it has something to do with the population here.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re part of the high-security mission, which is a conglomerate of all of-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was expecting Lynch to give me some kind of explanation about how this prison is one of 10 high-security prisons, which means they’ve got people who’ve committed really serious crimes and have mental health issues. And he started with that, but then, Lynch totally surprised me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re probably pretty similar with the number of incidents for the mission that we belong in. If you-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No. It’s, like, 30% higher.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Than, uh, where?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All the other level fours.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, the, the data that, uh, we most recently looked at… Hey, Dana.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden calls over the then press secretary, Dana Simas.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The data that we were looking at for, uh, the use of force?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I was just wan-… I was just wanting, uh, to see if he had th-… uh, understanding of, like, why it’s so much higher here than everywhere else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, that’s not really the case. Where are you seeing that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, in the data that CDCR gave me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, uh, you mean on the CompStat data?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, um, I would need to verify-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… ’cause I’ve looked at the data, and the data shows that, at SAC, the use of force rates are actually really comparable to other institutions that have this same level of population.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this tour, we double-checked our numbers and brought in help from a statistician in UC Berkeley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they found is that the disparity was actually even greater than I’d thought. Between 2009 and 2023, the last year we have data for, officers at this prison used force at a rate almost 40% higher than any other prison in the state. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of months, we followed up repeatedly with CDCR about these numbers. At first, a spokesperson said the agency couldn’t confirm our analysis. When we asked for their analysis showing that New Folsom was in line with other high-security prisons, they didn’t respond. When we asked how the warden could be unaware of what an outlier his institution was, they didn’t respond. When we asked why there were so many more of these troubling incidents that we talked about earlier in this series, like what happened to the men Kevin Steele interviewed in the hospital, they didn’t respond. But as we continued on this tour, the warden assured me…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We, we look at it all the time and are always, um, aware of a lot of the, uh, the incidents that happen here, and we’ve got policies we follow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I move on to some of my questions about protocols that had seemed to allow the B8 homicide to happen, starting with their housing protocol regarding documented enemies like Dion Green and Michael Brit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you comment on, like, why Michael Britt was housed with Dion Green in B8 when that stabbing happened?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Restricted housing in general, and I can’t comment on Michael Britt, um, but restricted housing in general has the ability to confine inmates in, in, uh, secure areas that if enemy concerns existed wouldn’t ordinarily be, um, exposed to each other.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His answer is kind of jargony, but what he’s saying is that really high-security housing units like B8 are set up so that enemies shouldn’t ever be able to get at each other, but he doesn’t address the failures that made that attack possible. And so, I follow up, trying to understand what happened after the attack. Why weren’t the three guys who’d tried to kill Brit separated either?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say a stabbing or an assault happens, and it’s coordinated between people, is it policy to then separate them from each other?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I don’t know that there’s an actual policy that says… Uh, are you saying between the enemies?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between in- inmates, so they are, like, coordinating, if they coordinate an assault on another inmate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know that there’s a policy that requires that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, um, but it-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That would fall under saf-… normal safety and security, um, classifications.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Dana Simas stepping in here again. She says, yes, maybe there’s not a specific policy that says this, but in general, yes, they separate crime partners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And how do you deal with that if they’re, like, you know, all high security or all, you know, um, need solitary housing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There could be a different section, could be separated amongst different tiers. It… couple of different ways you could probably do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All righty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CDCR declined to answer our follow-up questions about why Anthony Rodriguez, Cody Taylor, and Dion Green were not separated. But from what these officials are saying, it sure sounded like they never should have been in a position to murder Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But once again, it’s like we’re in different worlds, and it feels like the warden is saying that the world that I’ve seen — in incident reports I’ve read and heard about from numerous incarcerated people and correctional officers — just doesn’t exist. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s tough in a situation like this to get all the questions in that you wanna ask. It’s loud, and we each have a minder attached to us, but at one point during the tour, Julie is able to bring up Valentino with the warden.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have been talking to the father of, uh, Valentino Rodriguez Jr., who was a correctional officer here. And I know you probably can’t get into specifics, but I’m wondering if you could just tell me, as a person, how you felt when you heard that he had died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s, it’s sad when anybody passes away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know him personally?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie says the family, including Valentino’s dad, have questions for him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Probably wouldn’t be able to comment on any, um, particular cases.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, he never heard from you at the prison, he said. Is that normal? Like, if somebody passes away, would you normally reach out to the family? Or, is that not-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I’d prefer not to comment on-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… um, at this time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She asks the warden if he’ll sit down with us in a better setting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve been reporting on prisons for a long time. I try to be fair, and I feel it… like it’s unfair when we don’t hear your side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, but I think we can… whatever is fair within policy, we can do whatever we need to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll follow up with you on it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the moment, it seems like the warden might be willing to follow up with us later on. Then, after a walk through the restricted housing unit, they start to lead us back out toward the gates we came in through. I ask where the ISU is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The ISU is, uh, above B Facility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Above B Facility. So-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… up there in the hill, kind of out of sight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it’s, like, right over there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">150 yards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden points off vaguely toward one of the buildings. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much — this place where the police force of the institution is based, where Sergeant Kevin Steele spent six years and where he grew more and more concerned about staff misconduct being ignored. And the place where Valentino Rodriguez spent his weekends writing reports and booking evidence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. We got, we got a ton.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we pass back out through the checkpoint and under the blue tower, the warden seems to visibly relax the closer we get to the main entrance gate.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What to you is the most significant policy change that has happened? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my career? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden thinks about it as we walk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s been a lot of significant things, and it’s real easy to focus on what’s most current, which for us, over the past six months has been, uh, the, uh, the body worn cameras and the stationary cameras.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CDCR was actually ordered by a judge to implement body cams at certain other prisons as part of an ongoing class action lawsuit against the agency, and they started rolling them out here at New Folsom too. I’ve talked to incarcerated people who say the body cams can help, but they’re not an easy fix because the institution can refuse to review the footage. And they sometimes delete it long before they’re supposed to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve also talked to officers who say the cameras can help them justify their actions if they’re called into question. As we head toward the outer gate, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to ask the warden about Sergeant Kevin Steele, but I misunderstand how long the tour is. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nope. This is about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May have been a-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… misunderstanding. Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ll make sure you guys are all checked out on equipment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’ve got more time and suddenly we’re by the gate, so I turn to the warden. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know you had a, you had a pretty high profile, uh, officer suicide here with Kevin, officer, Sergeant Kevin Steele, and I’m just wondering kind of how you processed that and how you support people to process that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say it one more time. How I process and how what? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y- how, and how other, how you support other correctional staff when their colleague has committed suicide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We provide all the resources that we can. Um, how I process it \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is the sa-… It’s, it is sad when there’s any staff death, um, and a lot of the examples, I think back on time, you know, a lot of the s- not a lot, but the staff that I’ve been connected to, uh, particularly at this prison that have gone through it, I mean, it, it weighs on all of us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden says they provide many services to officers, including peer support, and that he really understands the importance of taking care of your mental health. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My, uh, my message has always been it’s hard to be a good partner, a good father, a good spouse or a good son or daughter if you’re not taking care of yourself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once again, I’m having this moment of disconnect between what the warden is saying and what I’ve heard from officers — that they can’t trust that peer support will stay private, that they have to take time off unpaid when they’re struggling, or pay out of pocket to attend PTSD seminars. And that when you call the state employee hotline to try and access therapy, you still have to wait weeks to get an appointment to talk to someone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you know that, um, Sergeant Steele was suffering m- with his mental health? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew that he took some time off work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And do y- why was he banned from this institution? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know that’s something that I can, uh, comment on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can’t? Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I try one more time to ask the warden what he did when he found out that Steele had died, but Dana Simas steps in again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s an inappropriate question to comment on-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whoa…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dana Simas:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… a specific person, specific case. Um, it’s, it’s not appropriate for us to do that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has us check out our equipment and we say goodbye. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you, Mr. Lynch. I appreciate it. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Nice to meet you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Sounds of wind and walking]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What time is it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know it’s only noon. I thought it was gonna-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought we would be there forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I thought we would have more time.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The two and a half hours we were in there felt much longer and not long enough at the same time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s interesting, like, just kind of standing out here, and you, like, look around, and you’ve got the beautiful oak trees in leaf-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and the green rolling hills, and the architecture of that opening gate, you know, while it’s, uh, you know, cement and, and somewhat brutalistic, it also has a little bit of aesthetic beauty to it, and, like, the deeper in you get, like, the less beauty there is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Standing back outside the gates, back in a world where no one is looking down on us with deadly weapons, where we aren’t surrounded by razor wire and concrete, I can feel something in me that’s been clenched… relax. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just, like, the s- gradual stripping away. Like, talking to correctional officers who talked about walking through this gate every day, and, that, like, each gate further in, the mental kind of armor that they would kind of have to put on more and more and more. Um, and then it’s like, you’re a, you’re a human being out here, and in there, you’re not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you’ve probably guessed, that sit down interview we’d asked for with the warden never happened. We also sent a detailed list of questions about the institutional response to Valentino’s allegations, but a spokesperson for CDCR declined to answer those questions and said that wardens can’t comment on personnel matters. But lucky for us, that was not the end of things, because while Warden Jeff Lynch didn’t have to answer our questions, he did have to answer someone else’s. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever, uh, meet with Officer Rodriguez? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. And where did you meet? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Warden Jeff Lynch testifying at an evidentiary hearing that was held in the summer of 2022. If you remember, some officers had gotten disciplined over the offensive group texts in Valentino’s phone, and two men were even fired… including Daniel Garland, the man who’d sent Valentino that video of his son at the gym threatening to slap him. Garland along with three other officers had appealed their discipline. At this hearing, an administrative law judge is gonna listen to that appeal and decide if their discipline should stand or be overturned. The warden is called as a witness for CDCR to talk about what Valentino had told him in that meeting the week before he died. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Heads up, this testimony references slurs, but we have bleeped them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He indicated he was referred to at times as a-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… as a \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Um, he said, uh, the use of… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… the w- the word \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> was used up there often. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Officer personnel matters are usually confidential, but we were able to get these recordings because of a new state-wide transparency law that unsealed records related to discriminatory behavior by law enforcement. This would give us a rare look inside this process, and we’d get to hear from some key figures in Valentino’s story about the events leading up to his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did he ever indicate if he had any physical manifestations as a result of these problems he was having with the other ISU staff? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think, uh, he had mentioned that, uh, he wasn’t sleeping well at home. He was throwing up a lot at work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warden Lynch says he asked Valentino to write up a statement with all his allegations. So far, this was all stuff we pretty much knew about. But then, the lawyer for the officers finally asks the warden about something we’d only heard about from Valentino’s wife Mimy — the allegations that the ISU squad, the police force for the prison, had been dirty. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, he made quite a few allegations, did he not? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, a- not only, uh, just about the way he was treated in ISU, but other more serious allegations, correct? Including about officers in ISU planting drugs on inmates? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, objections. Relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s CDCR’s lawyer objecting. They don’t want to go down this road. I’m not totally sure why the officer’s lawyer brings this up either. This hearing is not about those allegations, but because she asks about it, we finally got this little window into the warden’s actions after he met with Valentino. The judge allows the question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judge:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll allow the question. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there being uncontrolled weapons in ISU?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uncontrolled weapons are weapons that have been seized, but not yet booked into evidence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you directed, um, I believe it was… Uh, I don’t know if he was a sergeant or lieutenant at that time, but \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. And, um, I believe Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to search the ISU office?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A little later in the hearing, Officer Martin Fong, who’d been in the ISU and who’d gotten a pay cut for his part in some of the ugly group texts was also asked about this search. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We came into the office, normal morning, just as, you know, we’re just kinda w- warming up in the morning and then, uh-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it was the day before Valentino died. The ISU officers and the chief deputy warden, Gena Jones, came into the office. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was kind of weird because usually \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> doesn’t pop in that early but it’s like, “Hey, whatever.” And she’s, she looks at me and Jordan, and she goes, “I need to talk to you and you.” I’m like, “Oh.” Like, “This is out of the ordinary” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fong says at first he thinks maybe they’re going to get some praise for a recent case, but then Jones pulls them out into the hallway.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just basically says, “Hey, I wanna, I want you to hear from me first, but your desk… Uh, I had Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and Lieutenant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> search your desk. There’s allegations, uh, that there was weapons and… \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[inaudible]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> there’s phones and narcotics in your desk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another staff member had made these claims against them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “Why are they doing?” Like, “I have a target on my back now or what?” But they weren’t just trying to get me removed from the unit. They were, they were trying to get me fired, or, you know, like, that’s some serious allegations. And so that devastated me ’cause of it, it, it challenged my, or it pretty much trying to discredit my character and everything I’ve worked for. And I got emotional, and I broke down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A weapon and some metal were found in his desk. We don’t know exactly what this weapon looked like, but I want to be clear here that from the context, it seems like this isn’t a gun or a baton or a weapon officers would use, but what’s called by CDCR an “inmate manufactured weapon.” So a shiv or something like that, that would usually be stored in evidence after being confiscated. But this weapon, Fong says, had a different purpose. He kept it in his desk as a show-and-tell item. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Martin Fong:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have a lot of tours that came up there and there’s a shadow board that has weapons, but s- sometimes to actually hold and, and look at a weapon, it, it’s a tangible item. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden says, even though a weapon was found, he believed Fong’s explanation of why it was there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that you understood that Officer Fong was using it for some sort of training event?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was my understanding.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, and so, so based on your understanding, it was not improper for Officer Fong to have this weapon in his desk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Warden Jeff Lynch:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, based upon what was reported to me, um, but I didn’t know the, the origin of the weapon either.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I ran this by the former sergeant who you heard from last episode who knew a lot about internal affairs. I wanted to see if this made sense to him — to have an improvised weapon in your desk for training purposes. He said it did not. If you wanted a weapon to use for training, you would check it out of evidence. There would be a paper trail. Ultimately, the search did not result in any reprimand or discipline for officers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, in this hearing, no one followed up to ask the warden our biggest questions. Why had he chosen this as the way to handle Valentino’s allegations in the first place? If substantiated, evidence of planted drugs or weapons could have massive implications, from tainted criminal cases to charges for the warden’s own cops. But the warden didn’t immediately call in internal affairs, special agents who might have set up a sting operation or pulled phone records. Instead, Lynch has his own in-house people, the direct supervisors of the officers in question, go in and do this strangely casual search of their desks. By making this choice, the warden, also whether knowingly or not, likely exposed Valentino as a whistleblower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours before Mimy Rodriguez got home and found her husband on the bathroom floor, one of the last texts he sent said, “It’s out now that I told on the team.” After Valentino died, and Val Sr. filed a complaint with internal affairs and handed over his son’s phone, a special agent did start looking into some things. Their investigation didn’t substantiate the claims of planted drugs and weapons, but it’s not clear that they really looked into those claims. The report does note one more thing about Valentino’s meeting with the warden and the subsequent search that makes no sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Internal Affairs asked the warden to turn over any notes or memos about these two events. The warden told them he couldn’t find any documentation of either event. \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listening through these hearings, we also got to finally hear from one of the people that Val Sr. held responsible for how Valentino had been treated in the ISU — Sergeant David Anderson, Valentino’s boss, the guy who’d been on some of the text threads and who Valentino said had threatened him. He’d been called to testify by the lawyer for the officers, and she asks him what was meant by that nickname they’d given Valentino: half-patch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was more of a term of endearment, um, like a brother or a friend, a close friend is the term that, uh, they used it in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Objection, speculation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Judge:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sustained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawyer then asks Anderson if he heard other terms used — homophobic slurs, racial slurs, and his answer each time is-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not that I can recall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when CDCR’s lawyer cross-examines him, she confronts him with his prior testimony to internal affairs, in which he admitted hearing these terms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It must’ve slipped my mind. I apologize for that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So in fact, you heard Officer Garland use the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">–\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… in the ISU office? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And during that same office of internal affairs interview, you admitted to hearing Officer Garland use the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in the office.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What page is that on? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you could just close that and- if you don’t recall?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t recall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s one I… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, and if I could direct your attention to page 73. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">73?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 1:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m going to direct your attention to lines 13 through 19. Special Agent \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> says, “Earlier we talked about the term \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> with an A at the end.” You respond, “Yeah.” He then says, “Did you hear staff use that?” You respond, “Yeah.” “Who did you hear?” And you respond, “Officer Garland.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>David Anderson:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, yes. Now that I’m reading this, it does, uh, I’m able to remember that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We still don’t know if the department imposed any discipline on Anderson. He could’ve been one of the people who got reprimanded in connection with Valentino’s case for failure to report misconduct, but if so… those details aren’t public.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We know from employment records that Anderson was promoted to lieutenant at New Folsom in July of 2022, the month after he gave this testimony. During this hearing, the lawyer for the officers also called each of them to speak in their own defense. And I’m gonna focus on Daniel Garland’s testimony, since you’ve heard the most about his actions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How long were you with the CDCR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just under 19 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, and, um, how did you get into corrections? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brothers were, uh, were inmates. My mother and my father were locked up, so I’ve always had some kind of connection to corrections. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Garland says getting a job as an officer changed his life, and this personal history gave him a unique empathy to do that job. But he says it was also hard work. He was exposed to terrible things and assaulted, and he and Valentino were there for each other in the harsh environment of the prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like a little brother. He was becoming… You know, he was becoming closer and like a little brother. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lawyer says they’ve heard a lot about Garland’s words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How would you describe generally the way you speak?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I say, I say inappropriate things, and I say them in inappropriate times. But I’m, I’m, I’m usually doing it a- as hard as it is for people in here to understand, I’m usually doing it in an encouraging manner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says he didn’t even know it bothered Valentino until after he’d died, when someone else in the office said something to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sergeant \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[censored]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> made several comments about, “We killed Rodriguez.” And he made certain comments that specifically me and Jordan killed Rodriguez. And so we, we put in a, a complaint against him, and that was the first time that I had any idea of anything with Rodriguez. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tape is redacted, but the sergeant he’s talking about here has to be Steele. We know Steele was really upset about Valentino’s death and blamed these guys who’d been so hard on him. That complaint that Garland and another officer filed against Steele didn’t go anywhere. Then the article about Valentino’s death and Garland’s text messages came out in the paper, the Sacramento Bee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What impact did these articles have on you a- at the time they came out?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- It destroyed me. It destroyed my character. It, uh… As soon as the articles come out, it just… My daughter, my daughter had to go to homeschooling. I mean, uh, it just destroyed everything. It destroyed my life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then his lawyer asks Garland a question that she asks each of the officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I- If you were able to say something about this situation to Officer Rodriguez’s father in light of everything that’s gone on, what would you say to him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Objection. Relevance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Daniel Garland:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I would just like to let him know that for the, for the time that he was in ISU, that he had a good time and he had fun and we, we all, we all had fun. We all enjoyed his son and that it wasn’t, it wasn’t what he was told. It’s not what… Rodriguez didn’t have a bad time in ISU. Rodriguez loved ISU. He loved working with us and he, he said the same things I said back and forth and I never got offended by him and I, I never felt he was offended. And I, I just wanna let his father know that we did respect his son and that we, we enjoyed his son and that I’m s- I’m really sorry for his loss. I just, I feel bad for him. I- I’m a father and it’s so- something you shouldn’t see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In closing, the officer’s lawyer argues that in this case, that’s basically just about bad language, dismissal and long pay cuts are too severe. They were all veteran officers with great reputations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officers’ Lawyer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The question is for these four gentlemen, should they either have their careers ended or be hampered, uh, for years financially and with, with the stigma of this discipline based on what were private communications, banter, blowing off steam, were words? They were just bad words. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The attorney for CDCR goes last. He says any reasonable person looking over these messages would understand that they’re harmful and that they had accumulative effect.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This beat down at the office and over text that he took from these officers had its effect over time, and that’s why, that’s why it took a while until he reached his breaking point to start reporting it to people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, he points back to the officers’ own testimony.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>CDCR Lawyer 2:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Council’s question to the appellants about, you know, “What, what would you say to Rodriguez’s father if you had a chance to do so?” And it was intended to be emotional testimony, but I think it’s notable that not one of the appellants, not one of them indicated that they would tell him that they were sorry for anything that they did. In fact, several of them said that they would try to convince the, the father that they did nothing wrong — that they didn’t intend to do anything wrong. They treated ISU like their own junior high locker room. They, they bullied, uh, Rodriguez. They, they went after him. They called him horrible names, yet they s- they, they got on the stand and said, “I wouldn’t… I would not say anything to him indicating that I’m sorry for what I did.” A- And, and that right there is the biggest evidence that the likelihood of reoccurrence is high. Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s how the eight days of hearings came to a close. There was one other person who we’d hoped to hear in these recordings, but didn’t, the chief deputy warden, Gena Jones. She wasn’t called by either side, which seems strange. Jones is the person Valentino first broke down to when he felt he had to leave the prison, and she was directly in charge of the ISU. Since Valentino’s death, she has also been promoted. She is now a warden of the prison in Stockton, California.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The judge issued his recommendation a little while later, which was adopted by the state personnel board, which is basically the HR department for the state. And we were able to get that decision through a public record’s request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. So, this is from… We got this last night from the state personnel board.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the decisions that they made about the appeals brought by, uh, Garland, Jordan, uh, Bettencourt and Fong.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie met up with Val Sr. to show him the documents.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing to know is that the state personnel board upheld all the decisions, so that means that Garland is still fired, and Jordan’s fired, and Fong and Bettencourt had their pay docked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Well, I’m glad that you s- you, you told me first before we went on, ’cause, uh, my heart was racing. So, that’s good that they upheld the decisions. Um, I’m interested to hear what, what they had to say. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I can imagine, you know, that, “We were just joking around with him,” or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it was in his son’s nature to forgive, to try and get along with people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s really easy for someone to look at the text messages and see that he’s being friendly at times with these same guys, even after he leaves, but th- that was his personality, you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s one of those things you can’t beat out of your kid-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… ’cause he’s just a nice person, you know? He was always tugging at me and saying, “Look what I did, dad,” you know? Uh, he always… Like, th- they call them guys apple polishers, you know? \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Yeah, that was just my son. He was just a little apple polisher. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I want their attorney to realize, that’s, that’s the kind of person he was. He was a, he was a little boy in a man’s shell, you know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following this hearing, these officers appealed their discipline to the state superior court, and that appeal is still pending. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But for Val Sr., this narrowing of the investigation, two officers fired for saying bad words, does not address the underlying machine that enabled that conduct.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everybody is just protecting themselves, you know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we were rolling out this podcast, we were also staying in touch with Val Sr. and one day he texted Julie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s like he wrote me this morning saying something like, “Well, Steele promised me I’d know the truth and it would be hard.” I mean, uh, so, he’s got something new to tell us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Boy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what it is, or if it’s just reading it from Steele like that. I, I don’t know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Val Sr. had finally gotten a chance to read the book that Kevin Steele had been working on before he passed away, and so Julie and I met up with him to talk about it a few days later. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, we really just wanted to check in with you and see, you know, what is… How you’re feeling, but also just, you know, you had a chance to read the book.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was highlighting things and I was like, “Man, could just… You could highlight the whole thing sometimes.” It’s-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele’s widow, Lily, shared the manuscript with him, and she also gave us permission to read some parts of it here. The first page is a list of titles Steele was considering. At the top…\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Thin Line Blurs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Betrayal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The book begins with a line that’s very on brand for him. “This book is dedicated and faithfully devoted to the truth.” The dedication is heavy with Steele’s disillusionment and hurt. “Within this book, you will read the story about how corruption and criminality were treated as celebrities. Prowlers, bandits and punks were granted immunity for dirty deeds and acts of criminality, while the whistle-blowers and law-abiding staff were pursued, harassed and persecuted. This story was never intended to be told.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stories he tells are many of the stories that you have already heard throughout this podcast. He writes about meeting Ronny Price in the hospital with his teeth knocked out and his face smashed in after being tripped by officers, and how the incarcerated man died the next day of his injuries.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele writes about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar and questions, “Did CDCR peace officers, the individuals who are commissioned and duty-bound to be professional, fair, honest and ethical, become complicit in the slaughter of an inmate?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he writes about his friend, Valentino Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was hard to read, and then every time I went back into it, it got a little easier to read.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were parts that Val Sr. found touching, like Steele’s description of how hard his son worked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Valentino was just trying to make his supervisors, the institution and his chosen profession flash, sparkle and glimmer. Valentino was happy and filled with pride when something he was working on gained positive recognition and attention.” And that, that is exactly the way he was when he was a, when he was a boy. He was the same, same way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there were parts like this one that made Val Sr. very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Valentino would often make comments to me that he was treated as the office bitch and given very little praise and gratitude.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear from the book that Valentino’s death is a turning point for Steel. He keeps waiting for the institution to respond with care, concern, and accountability, but that’s not what he sees. The day after Valentino died the warden wanted to talk to Steele, and here’s Val Sr. again reading what Steele wrote about this meeting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I remained standing in the middle of the office. I was still attempting to fully grasp the significance and magnitude of Valentino’s death as I was openly crying in plain view of Warden Lynch and Lieutenant Strohmaier.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden wanted to find out what Steele knew. Steele writes that he shared everything Valentino had told him, and then waited for the warden to react.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Without any hesitation, Warden Lynch calmly remained seated with his right leg crossed over his left leg and very casually said, ‘Well, you haven’t told me anything I didn’t already know.'”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The warden could just be acknowledging that he’d already heard these same things from Valentino himself a few days earlier. But to Steele, this reaction is evidence of the warden’s callousness and preoccupation with self-protection. Steele began to view everything through this lens. The institution he’d have given his life for was starting to treat him as a threat. He writes that the friction in the ISU office was increasing. In one instance, he says that his boss told him, quote, that, “Some staff were starting to consider me as an ‘inmate lover’ as I was spending too much time talking to inmates.” He writes that another boss emailed him asking about his retirement plans. And someone else told him that his bosses were talking about him behind closed doors. “The main topic of discussion within these meetings was how to stimulate my departure without making it appear as workplace retaliation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I kind of could see how they were systematically picking him apart until his death.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Kevin Steele died, his manuscript was 104 pages, but it wasn’t finished. There were some things Val Sr. was expecting to see in those pages but didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maybe it’s my suspicions and they’re not confirmed there. You know? But he got, he got about as far into that book as um, I, I needed him to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We still have questions for Steele that aren’t answered in his book, like what had he and Valentino shared with each other about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar? What happened in that last call Steele had with internal affairs? And could things have turned out differently?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many of Steele’s friends and colleagues have also struggled to understand his death and everything that led up to it, and some of them are speaking up now because they want answers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s why we’re here as well is to find the truth finally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is retired correctional officer Annette Eichhorn. She worked as a tower copy at New Folsom. She says Valentino and Steele’s deaths should be a wake up call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now two of them that are dead because to find the truth. That should shock the shit out of everybody-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… that’s still there. And I don’t understand how it’s not.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette came into our recording studio with her friend, Paul Crews, who also retired from the prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was a correctional officer the last almost 21 years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul was a control booth officer. As you’ve heard throughout this podcast, we’ve often had to agree to confidentiality or anonymity for officers. But these two officers agreed to sit down with us and talk on the record because they wanna stand up for Steele.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s few people that we would be speaking out for.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘Cause this is a guy that was always looking out for us, as… Not just “us” singular. “Us” plural and “us” as a department.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And as Annette says, they want to try and find the truth among the sea of rumors that started going around after Steele’s picture was posted at the gate banning him from the institution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I went up to a few people and said, what is, what’s up with Steel? F him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette wasn’t sure why people at the prison had turned on Steele. Paul says he called Steele on the phone in early 2021, but he didn’t know Steele was out of the prison, or that he’d been banned. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He picked up the phone, so I contacted him, not knowing anything that was going on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul hadn’t been at work for months because he’d been rehabbing from an injury, but now he was supposed to go back to work and he was calling Steele because he was really struggling and he needed Steele to know something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “Kevin, this is what’s going on.” I… It was all about me on that conversation at that point. “I’m on this particular drug. I don’t think I should be in a control booth. I shouldn’t be doing anything with this job until I get me right.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul told Steele he’d had a meltdown and been put on psychiatric medication. Steele was the guy who drug tested officers at the prison, and so, Paul needed him to know that this medication would be showing up in his urine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Were you at that low point then when you called him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was, I was at a low point, but I was at such a low point, my, my wife was looking at me like, “I need your, your safe key.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The key to the gun safe. Paul says his wife was worried that he might take his own life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, “I’m there.” She says, “We don’t know.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hmmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said, “What do you mean we?” The kids didn’t know. So, “Sure. Have my damn keys,” \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, “you know, if that makes you feel happy.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul told Steele what he was going through.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then he told me, he’s like, “Well, I’m… I haven’t been there since November.” I’m like, “November? What, what happened?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele had actually stopped working at the prison in December, and then gone to Missouri in January. After the notice banning him, Steele had started to suspect he was under investigation, but he didn’t know what for — and he told Paul he couldn’t talk about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was like, “All right. Well, that aside, are you mentally okay?” ‘Cause he didn’t sound right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To me, he didn’t sound right. And he said, “I’m just frustrated, you know?” I was like, “Okay. Well, I’ve always been that guy, somebody you can call and talk to no matter what. Um, I’d rather you talk than blow your head off. I just… We know too many people that that happened to.” And, um, he’s like, “No, I’m not there.” And I was like, “Okay.” And he kind of, like, told me, “Everything is gonna come out in the wash, but right now, I’m ou- out a job.” Well, I was like, “All right. Well, I’m gonna check on you every so often.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul says for some reason, talking to Steele helped him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My problem didn’t seem so big anymore. It was kind of like… In a weird way, it was kind of like a reset.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette was going through her own struggles with the department and would text and talk with Steele about what he was going through. She says he was crushed when he heard they were trying to make him look corrupt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re switching it to where, no Steele is helping this inmate with his attorney and, um, um, turning on his own people, and that’s why he, he, he had to go. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Annette says Steele told her he wished he’d never opened his mouth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s like, “I shouldn’t have talked.” He’s all, “My life would have been so much better.” I was like, “Steele, you know you couldn’t.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“You, you know you could not live with yourself if you just ignored Rodriguez.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over his years at the institution, Steele had seen so much, assaults and cover-ups and over and over again, he’d been told that, “There was a process in place. People would be held accountable. Just trust the system.” Now, he felt that system had turned on him. We can’t see the full internal affairs file on Steele, but we were able to get a summary report about what he was being investigated for and what the outcome was. Here are the allegations. Number one, circumventing the prison’s legal mail process by sending a scanned letter from an incarcerated person to their attorney. Number two, he allegedly met with an incarcerated person and lied that it was for an attorney visit. And number three, he, “Released a confidential memorandum to a member of the public after the Office of Internal Affairs ordered the sergeant not to communicate with that member of the public. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That last allegation against Steele was the easiest to decode. It was about Steele’s own memo — that explosive one that he sent to the warden that we read you earlier in this series. The member of the public that he sent it to, as we know, was Val Sr., who he’d already been told not to talk to. The second allegation that Steele met with an incarcerated person and lied about it being for an attorney visit didn’t go anywhere, and it couldn’t be substantiated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But for a long time, we weren’t sure what the first allegation was really about. Had Steele been helping someone get around the legal mail process and secretly communicate with their lawyers? And then we were leaked those tapes and memos, and we began to put two and two together. We found out that there were these two letters that Dion Green wrote to the warden. He was worried about his safety because word was spreading that he was a whistleblower. In one of the videos we got, Steele actually holds up one of these letters to the camera.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the other one, I told you that I’m going to, um, email to your attorney.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then that was at your request. It wasn’t something that I suggested or asked you to do? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what this is about. These letters seem like they were Green’s insurance policy in case something happened to him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So on two occasions, Steele emailed copies of Green’s letters to both the warden and to Green’s attorney. But legal mail is still supposed to go through proper channels and the actual physical mail. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But here’s the thing that makes this investigation so weird. You can see in Steele’s correspondence that this was not some sneaky thing he did. Both times, he explicitly tells the warden he’s doing it. It isn’t until months later that Internal Affairs starts investigating Steele for this. And that investigation was still going on when he died. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Paul and Annette that after Steele’s death, the agency finished that internal investigation and found that Steele had violated policy by sending those letters and forwarding the memo he wrote to Val Sr.. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They completed the Internal Affairs investigation after he died and imposed a 10% pay cut for 12 months.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After he died?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After he died.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How can they do that after he died? Are you serious?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What the fuck is wrong with these people? What the… This is how far they can go. They gotta nail that, literally nail the nail in the coffin on his name. That fucking pisses me off. Fuck them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I needed to hear that. We needed to… What the fuck is their narrative that they thought that they can do that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Paul Crews:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s dirty as shit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichhorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s dirty as shit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The discipline deemed appropriate for Steele’s offenses — sending scanned letters over email to an attorney, and sending his own memo to Val Sr. — was a pay cut for a full year. This was greater than the discipline imposed on any of the officers who’d failed to protect Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But because he was dead, the discipline was suspended. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked the state’s Office of the Inspector General for prisons about Steele’s case because the timing of it, the nature of it really looks like retaliation. And it’s part of their job to investigate complaints of whistleblower retaliation. A spokesperson said they couldn’t comment on his case but that it was protocol for CDCR to complete investigations even after an officer’s death, and that, “The act of whistleblowing does not insulate a person from being subjected to a legitimate investigation into allegations that the whistleblower engaged in misconduct.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As far as we can tell, this is the only mark on his record — the only time the agency disciplined him for anything.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Steele’s disciplinary record, and his book, and even this podcast so far… don’t detail all of Steele’s efforts to expose misconduct in the agency. Some of those efforts we haven’t gone into. We don’t know the full picture\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is one more case that Steele got involved in that I want to tell you about briefly, because I think it shows how far Steele had traveled from the man who showed up to work early each morning, full of faith in his institution. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the month before his death Steele was in communication with an attorney, who under other circumstances he likely would have considered on the other side of things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would you mind just starting off by telling us who you are and what you do, Steve?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I’m Steve Glickman. I’m an attorney in Los Angeles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Glickman was suing CDCR on behalf of the family of a man who died in the prison. That death was reported as a suicide. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had not a single clue that there was anything other than a suicide.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Glickman says another lawyer gave him a tip — that he should get in contact with a man named Sgt. Kevin Steele. So he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a shocking, chilling conversation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele told Glickman he’d interviewed an incarcerated man who’d confessed it was actually a murder and that he had committed it. This was surprising to Glickman because that confession was not among the evidence that CDCR had turned over about the case, and they were supposed to turn over everything. On the phone, Steele told the lawyer that he’d part of gathering that evidence and noticed this key interview was missing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He complained to one of his supervisors and he learned that the inmate Clark, the one who had confessed to the murder, was actually working for the security, in- internal security office there at the prison. And, and so his feeling as he expressed to me was, is that’s why it was being covered up — because this guy was an informant for the, the prison system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says that Steele was scheduled to give a deposition in his lawsuit, but before that happened–\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was called actually by a newspaper reporter who told me that, uh, Steel had committed suicide under suspicious circumstances. So we never, we never were able to get his testimony under oath. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, what did you think when you got that call? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steve Glickman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was shocked. I was shocked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The agency settled that suit for $250,000 earlier this year. Steele doesn’t mention this case in his manuscript, maybe because he hadn’t gotten to it yet,but the final pages show that he was researching the case law around whistleblowing, and what protections he might be entitled to. And what he discovered is that there were actually relatively few. And here is the fundamental catch–22 that correctional officers like Steele face: if there’s a policy against sharing confidential information and an officer shares it anyways, even if the purpose is to blow the whistle on misconduct, the officer can still be punished.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, on the day they join the academy, correctional officers also swear an oath… an oath to uphold the law. And so, what are they supposed to do if they come to believe that their own institution is breaking it?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The lack of protections for whistleblowers is not a new problem for CDCR. 20 years ago, the state Senate called for hearings about CDCR’s failure to police itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Gloria Romero:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can the California Department of Corrections police itself? The answer, I believe, is no. But starting today, it must…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And a persistent code of silence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Gloria Romero:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Code of silence at the highest level of government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The testimony sounds eerily familiar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>D.J. Vodicka:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He yelled, “Hey, you big old snitch, you big old rat. Who you telling on now?” And I felt really threatened by that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a family member of an inmate. My husband is in prison. He’s currently at Ironwood. He was up at Pelican Bay, and guards tried to have him killed by putting an inmate in his cell. He was very, very, very badly hurt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Jackie Speier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s frightening to me is that there are correctional officers within the institution at all of our state prisons that feel they cannot come forward for fear of retaliation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mike Jimenez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, there are. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sen. Jackie Speier:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that should be of concern to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mike Jimenez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the impetus for these hearings was the suicide of a captain who’d reported concerns about a massive riot that officers delayed responding to. The captain was demoted and threatened by his colleagues, according to news reports. “My job has killed me,” the captain wrote in his suicide note. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After Valentino died and after Kevin Steele died, both Mimy Rodriguez and Lili Steele had a decision to make. In order to get husbands’ death benefits right away, they could sign a release form stating that their deaths were unrelated to their jobs. But neither widow could bring themselves to sign that piece of paper. Lili told me it would’ve felt like stabbing her husband in the back. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So instead, they filed worker’s compensation claims with the state. This was a difficult process, but Lili said this was her way of saying, “I know what you people did to him.” Initially those claims were denied, but after a fight they were granted. Both Kevin and Valentino’s deaths were found to be the result of mental injuries sustained in their profession as correctional officers for the State of California. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lili said when she got the call about that decision, she sobbed. She told me she was overcome with emotion to have someone acknowledge what had happened, and that they believed her. Mimy says she also remembers getting that call.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just said, “Okay. Thank you.” And then I cried when I got off the phone. But I, I, I knew it was going on. Like, I knew that this was… had to do with his job. Oh, that’s all he talked about. The night that he passed, I remember when I was getting put in the back of the cop car, I remember yelling at the cop, like, telling her, like, “Quit your job. Like, this job is gonna cause you so much stress. Look what happened.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mimy says when she and Valentino first met, his job was one of the things she loved about him. She also had plans to go into the field herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a field that I had a lot of respect for, still have a lot of respect for, but it’s also something that is permanently engraved of “I know what happens here. I know what happened here.” And it’s hard not to look at it differently now and feel differently now. I didn’t realize it was gonna be like this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On paper, California’s $14 billion a year prison system is an institution that’s trying the Norway model — the cutting edge of progressive and humane policies that focuses on reintegration and emotional wellbeing. An institution that bans discrimination, that promises to protect the people in its custody, that forbids the code of silence. And yet, we’ve found the reality inside this system is very different from the promise. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our review of 80 cases of officer discrimination going back to 2015 found the type of abuse that Valentino experienced happened across institutions. The most common type of discrimination in these cases disclosed to us was sexual harassment. Yet on its own, even egregious misconduct often did not lead to firing. And this culture is important because sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly it enforces the code of silence and even more serious misconduct goes unreported. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Along with off-the-charts use of force at New Folsom Prison, our analysis of CDCR’s data found another troubling trend. Despite damning reports from the Office of the Inspector General of prisons, the rate officers used force across all high security prisons in the state between 2009 and last year increased by 137%. This gap between what the system promises and what it delivers is the gap that swallowed up incarcerated people like Ronnie Price and Luis Giovanny Aguilar. And this is the gap that Valentino Rodriguez and Kevin Steele fell into as well. The agency will not discuss their cases, and their names do not appear among the fallen officers memorialized on CDCR’s website, but they are not alone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In terms of overall numbers of correctional officers who’ve died by suicide like Steele, it’s hard to get an exact number. There are about 30,000 peace officers employed in California’s prison agency. A 2017 UC Berkeley survey of some officers found that one in 10 reported suicidal thoughts. But CDCR said they don’t track employee suicides out of respect for their privacy.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The California Correctional Officers Union provided me with a list that they had gathered, informally by word of mouth, institution by institution. So it’s not a complete list, and it’s not even a list of names, but simply dates of death. There are 24 dates on this list — 24 current or former officers who died since the beginning of 2020. Since I got that list in May last year, I heard about six more officers and a former warden who died by suicide, bringing the number to 31; at least 31 peace officers who took their own lives since 2020. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The union contact who gave me that list said, “If these deaths were happening in any other profession, someone would be calling for an investigation,” and yet he can’t even get a solid count to understand the scope of the problem. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The number of officers who simply died too young, like Valentino, often due to stress, heart attacks, and substance use issues is likely even greater. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Paul, the retired correctional officer, told me among officers, it’s become a kind of dark joke. When someone leaves the profession, on the 5th anniversary of their retirement, they throw a party to celebrate that, unlike so many of their colleagues, they are still alive. Like a lot of officers, Kevin Steele and Valentino Rodriguez signed up to work for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation because of the promise of good benefits, early retirement, a family of fellow officers. Now their actual families are left without them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My biggest regret is that that day he died, I just didn’t take him for a long ride with me and talk. We were, we were due for one, and I just… You know, you just don’t know. This, uh, opportunity there and you just don’t know. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if I woulda been able to save him. I, I know I could have. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that’s one of the hardest things about being a parent. When they’re little, you can protect them from things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know where they’re going. You can keep them close. And then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They go out in the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the podcast came out, Val Sr. has had good days and bad days. He hopes something big will come from this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think, um, most importantly, this is probably my last stand. Um, I don’t, I don’t know what else I can do. You know, I just always pray that, God willing, it’s, it’s for a, a good, a good thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says it’ll be a relief in a way to come to the end of this project, but he’ll also miss it. It’s been a way for him to keep Valentino alive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr.:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll never stop, ever stop thinking about my son. No, he’s just too, uh… I just loved him too much.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve been listening to the final episode of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom from KQED. While this is the last episode of the series we will let you know if we get any more breakthroughs in our reporting. Please continue to send tips or feedback about the series to: onourwatch@kqed.org \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to the people who knew and loved Valentino Rodriguez and Kevin Steele for sharing their stories with us. And thanks to all the correctional officers who spoke to us for this series, whose voices you often did not hear on the podcast, but who informed us about the challenges of their profession. If you are a whistleblower, you can find support online including at TheLampLighterproject.org which is especially for law enforcement whistleblowers. And we’ve links to other resources in our episode description and on our website. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also want to thank the families of Ronnie Price and Luis Giovanny Aguilar for opening up to us about their loved ones. And huge gratitude to the incarcerated people who spoke to us under very difficult and dangerous circumstances, including Joel Uribe, Mario Gonzalez, Mario Valenzuela and many more. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauléon. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn, and Laura Fitzgerald — students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the past two years… so many journalists have helped with this series… We got research support from graduate students Elizabeth Santos, Cayla Mihalovich, Julietta Bisharyan, William Jenkins, Armon Owlia, Vera Watt, and Junyao Yang. Thanks also to UC Berkeley’s Jeremy Rue, Amanda Glazer and Olivia Qiu for their data analysis. And to George Levine of the LA Times. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The internal records highlighted in this podcast were obtained as part of The California Reporting project. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky for their editorial insights. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Promotion and engagement support from César Saldaña and Maha Sanad. Graphic design by Sophie Feller. Photography by Beth LaBerge, and videography by Kori Suzuki. Thank you to our in-house lawyers, Rebecca Hopkins and Bridget Barrett, along with Sarah Burns and Thomas Burke of Davis Wright Tremaine, who helped us sue CDCR so we could get the internal tapes you heard on this podcast. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you to Katie Sprenger, our podcast operations manager, our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise Otis R. Taylor Jr., Ethan Tovan-Lindsey our Vice President of News, And KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And thanks to all of you for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We get to listen in on confidential interviews conducted by Sgt. Kevin Steele before his death. Plus, we finally get to see surveillance footage from inside the B8 unit that sheds new light on the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Editor’s note: After this episode first aired on April 2, 2024, CDCR finally located Valentino Rodriguez’s supplemental report about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar that we reference in this episode. Their public records team was initially unable to find it. However, the agency said the report was exempt from disclosure.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5469603434\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes descriptions of violence and references a homicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, is it powered on? Can you hear it going? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the day after Julie and I met with our confidential source, and we’re back in the office with our editor, Victoria. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not, it’s not reading it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re absolutely reeling from what we’ve been given: memos, internal prison emails, and these video CDs that have Sergeant Kevin Steele’s own handwriting on them. It’s key evidence that Steele had saved, according to our source, both to protect himself and because he’d become so concerned that his own law enforcement agency might try to destroy it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But wait, did you put a disc in it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No. No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Try putting a disc in it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wouldn’t do anything? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it was just dead. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at first, the most important videos won’t play. It turns out to watch the practice run and the homicide, we need some special software. So, Julie, Victoria and I huddle in front of Julie’s computer and we try another disc: the one labeled “Taylor.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. So let’s try-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is reading it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s try Taylor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s- \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Wait, hold on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh Lord. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looks like it’s gonna- \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we find out that Cody Taylor, the guy who was so afraid of having this interview come out, is the one who started almost everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looks like it’s gonna play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. This is Sergeant Steele in the room. It is now about almost 8:30 on Friday, July the third. I’m also in the room with inmate Taylor. Is that your name?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video opens with a familiar scene: Steele holding up his black military watch to the camera to record the time. At this point, it’s been almost seven months since the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. Taylor has already pled guilty to the murder and taken his 102 year sentence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I came in here, I told you what we were gonna talk about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me itemize that. We’re gonna talk about a letter that you sent. We’re gonna talk about some things that you know, and we’re also gonna talk about some things that you’ve noticed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, correct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, and also you asked me before I started recording, you said, “Hey, I wanna tell you the real reason why I’m here.” Did you not say that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele reads Taylor his rights as he sits in a cage about the size of a phone booth. He’s a white guy wearing a sleeveless undershirt. You can see a large tattoo of a woman’s face in the center of his upper chest, and another tattoo that’s harder to make out snaking down the left side of his face. Steele holds up a handwritten document to the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the letter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And my signature.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s undated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele has been asked by his boss, a lieutenant in the ISU, to find out more about this letter — this letter that Cody Taylor sent to the warden of New Folsom Prison, making some pretty big allegations. Allegations that up until now, Taylor says he’s kept quiet about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…speculations. I just never, you know, I’ve never admitted it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just used the word “admitted it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like that you’ve always known that there are things that are unknown-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unknown.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… or in the shadows. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, of course. Of course. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so what you’re saying is, you know that you have direct information to validate those- that speculation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have direct information. If, if the video evidence is still there, that’s more than enough on both occasions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, we go back inside the day room one final time. To look at what this video evidence shows about the claims of each of the murderers. To find out how Steele had looked at this case, and if his obsession had gone too far. And to ask who should answer for the death of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Musical break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get further into this evidence, I just wanted to let you know that KQED agreed to pay some costs so the confidential source could bring us these materials. It’s not something we usually do, but in this case, we decided it was appropriate. We needed to safeguard the evidence, protect our source, and finish our investigation in time. Now let’s get back to Steele’s interview with Cody Taylor about the letter he sent, which was addressed to Warden Jeff Lynch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… or do you need to look at it again to review it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I, I, I pretty much know what it’s about. Um, would you like me to summarize it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele he sent this letter because he’s fed up with how he’s been treated since the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cell search daily, which isn’t policy. Um, you know, the little bit of property I do have, you know, um, destroyed on a daily basis. Uh, personal, uh, hygiene and, and food items spread out sometimes — it’s happened twice. Um, shoe prints on my bed, the list goes on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he thinks it’s retaliation — that the murder made the prison look bad. And he says there’s been a lot of speculation about officers lending them a helping hand, which he is now ready to talk about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll be willing to take a lie detector test. Um, ’cause everything that I’m saying and have said in that letter is 1000% honest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor explains, going back to the assault on Michael Britt two months before the murder, they had an understanding with the officers in the unit. Britt, if you remember, was Dion Green’s enemy, who he’d already tried to kill at a different prison once before. Yet prison officials put Britt and Green in the same housing section and let them all have day room together \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While walking out, the sergeant and the lieutenant said, “Hey man, you’re on your own, cuz. Have fun with these guys.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said that to Britt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Said that to Britt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by them saying that, are you, is your inference that they knew what was about to happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, because the sergeant asked me if this could not happen today because he’s trying to go home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant said, could this not happen today because he’s going home?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I said, it’s only business, big dog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says the officers let them carry on with their business: attacking Michael Britt. Just a side note, we didn’t get a video of the Britt incident, so it’s the one that’s the hardest to analyze, but we were leaked some still images that show Taylor and Rodriguez stabbing Britt as Green looks on from a nearby chair. A still image taken a minute and a half later shows the two attackers standing in the middle of the day room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reports say the control booth officer shot those foam batons, but he didn’t use lethal force. Then about eight weeks after they tried to kill Britt, there was the practice run. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We tested everything out a week prior. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele how he was in the day room, got out of his cuffs, slipped the black boxes, ran up the stairs, got the knives from Dion Green’s cell, and came back down. All of which the tower officer saw, but didn’t do anything about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how do you know that they knew that you had weapons? How would you know that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, not necessarily weapons, but he asked me what I went up there and grabbed. When he opened up the thing, he’s like, “Why’d you do that? Why’d you go up there and grab it?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’d you tell him? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said, “Man, just relax. It’s all good.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He goes-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially, Taylor says the plan was to murder Aguilar that day — the day of the practice run. They knew he’d have to walk through the day room on his way back from a morning group, but ultimately he and Anthony Rodriguez decided to wait until a later day — a day when they could get him in the day room alone, not under an officer escort.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, just outta respect for the staff because they were, you know, looking out for us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele asks Taylor about one of those ways that staff was supposedly looking out for them, that Taylor talked about in his letter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said, and I I’m gonna quote you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quote.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It says, “Keys were given to us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keys were given to you by who?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Real keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Real cuff. Cuff keys.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Real long cuff keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not homemade, not manufacturer keys. They’re the real deal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Broken off handcuff keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele later interviewed a different man who’d been in the B8 unit. This guy told him that, “Everyone knew the cops were working with those guys, they could run around without getting shot.” And he told Steele that cops had given Green a real cuff key and that it was being used to make copies. In the video with Steele, Taylor says, the day of the murder where they went after Luis Giovanny Aguilar, staff once again, knew what was gonna happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m not exaggerating when I tell you this. Not only all staff knew, but cer- I believe certain staff left the buildings ’cause they didn’t want to be involved, I believe. Because they were transferring to another institution and they were like, “Hey man, we’re I’m this, this my up my transfer. I’m not trying to be involved.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you say transfer, ’cause they’re trying to transfer to Mule Creek?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mule Creek Prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had told me that just right before this today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right before. And he goes, “I’m not gonna be involved because,” um… Or no, “I couldn’t be involved in the fun because I’m trying to get a transfer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of those details in Taylor’s story that to me has the granularity and messiness of truth. It’s such an odd thing to make up, and it’s something that Steele was later able to confirm. Two officers in the unit had transferred to Mule Creek State Prison shortly after. Steele continues going over the letter and Taylor explains how they’d also made this agreement with officers not to double lock their cuffs so that they could get out of the black boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele to go back and look at the video of the murder. While he says he hasn’t seen it himself, he thinks a moment was caught on tape that will prove his point. As they were going through the security protocol at his cell door, the officer who was cuffing him made a mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m coming outta my door and he accidentally double locks my right foot. That being said, my left lock is p- is still not double locked. Um, but my right one is. I look, I look to the right and I tell him, “Hey, you fucked up. That shit is double locked.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor claims the officer kneeled down outside his door and undid the double lock on his right ankle cuff. But Taylor says the day of the murder, they did have one new factor to worry about. They didn’t know the guy in the control booth or tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve already had these conversations with the previous tower with Britt. Everything was good. He wasn’t gonna kill us. Right? But there was a new cop in there. So I made sure I said, look man, you know, we’re half-ass doing you guys a favor. You know, this guy assaulted you and shit. You know, we have our own- word for word. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have our own reasons too, but can you make sure, uh, your tower doesn’t kill us? He goes, um, I don’t really know him, but I’m gonna talk to him right now. You should be good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor had told me a lot of the same things that he told Steele. Some of these details I didn’t include in the last episode because I couldn’t verify them. Like the officers trying to transfer, or the supposed footage of an officer kneeling down at his door. But now that we had these memos and videos, these were things we could check. Near the end of the tape, Steele brings the conversation back to Taylor’s motivation for sending his letter to the warden. What does he hope to get out of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The real reason, the impetus, the reason that you wrote this is, again, about your housing placement, the treatment, and the fact that you, your, your real longing is to go to Salinas Valley unencumbered with anything from here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just want to move on. I just, you know, I feel that I took one on the chin. You know, I-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This appears to be what he’s proposing. He’ll continue to keep quiet about officers’ involvement in the murder in exchange for suspending his solitary confinement, or SHU term, and transferring him to Salinas Valley State Prison where he says he’ll be safer with members of his own gang. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to move all this behind me-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and start over right there. Um, but I feel that I shouldn’t remain in the SHU, be treated as I’m being treated. And, and after, you know what? Initially, hey, I, I didn’t say shit, man. I didn’t say shit to nobody. And, and I’m, if anything, I should be treated like a king for me remaining silent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he doesn’t want anything, money or anything else, and he says he’ll even sign a non-disclosure agreement if that would help. Because his point is not to get staff in trouble. If he wanted to do that, he’d have gone about this in a totally different way. He’d have filed a formal complaint, told his family who worked in law enforcement or called the press. But he wanted to see if he could work this out directly with the warden. So he sent that letter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My co-defendants don’t even know about that letter. Nobody knows about that letter besides me. My co-defendants- I don’t speak to Mr. Green no more, but Rodriguez doesn’t even know about that letter. Nobody-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now Taylor says he’s at a boiling point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you fools didn’t even do an investigat- Excuse me, I don’t know that, but I’m just assuming you guys didn’t even do an investigation into your officers. They might have been redirected, but I’m sure nobody’s gotten fired. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, that’s, that’s a, that’s a coverup in itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor is right about one thing, at the time of this interview. From what we can see, Internal Affairs hasn’t started investigating this incident and no one has been fired. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who do you want to see this video? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the warden. Just the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. I’m gonna go ahead and conclude. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not totally clear to me what to make of Taylor’s motives here. Okay, so he’s not trying to get out of criminal charges, but does he really believe he’s going to strike a deal with the warden? And if so, why turn to Kevin Steele — a rule follower — to be his blackmail delivery guy? On the other hand, if he’s just lying to stir up shit for officers, what does he hope to get out of it? An investigation that’s only gonna bring a whole bunch more scrutiny and danger down on him? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I have another question about this interview from the prison’s side of things. Why was Steele the one assigned to do it in the first place? There were clearly already rumors going around about this murder among witnesses in the unit. A different letter alleging it was a setup had already been mailed to the District Attorney’s office within weeks of the murder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if you’re the warden, why assign this to someone in-house? For simple optics reasons, it seems like getting headquarters to review would be the cleanest course of action. CDCR says they cannot comment on this case, and that it’s part of an ongoing investigation involving outside law enforcement. But whatever the warden thought he was doing by sending Steele in to do this interview, and whatever Taylor thought he was doing walking into this interview, those choices start a chain reaction that likely neither prison officials nor Cody Taylor wanted. An investigation that winds up in the lap of the FBI and a lawsuit brought against prison officials by the mother of Luis Giovanny Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens next in the chain reaction set off by Taylor’s letter is that Steele wants to find corroboration. After that first interview with Taylor, in emails to his bosses, including the warden, Steele shares what he’s uncovering. He sounds activated and eager to move on Taylor’s claims. He says he’s already talked to Green about some of these issues with the murder, and he asks permission to try and talk to Anthony Rodriguez, the third murder suspect who took part in the stabbing with Taylor. It doesn’t appear that Anthony Rodriguez ever agreed to that, but someone else did agree to go on tape with Steele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead and introduce yourself please.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Green J22161. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this video, Dion Green is now the one in the cage and Steele starts off the same as he did with Taylor by noting the time and date. It’s July 17th, 2020, and reading him his rights. This is Steele’s first recorded interview with Green, but he acknowledges that they have talked about the murder before while handling stuff for court. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in a roundabout way, you told me that it would’ve never happened had staff not participated in that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we listened in on this interview, hoping to understand this next phase of Steele’s investigation, and what Green had said to Steele that had convinced him that officers had a hand in the murder, we realized that many of those conversations had already happened off camera, and this set up a very odd dynamic in this interview. For example, Steele brings out a pair of handcuffs to get Green to demonstrate the double locking mechanism, but it’s clear this is a replay for the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I brought these very same cuffs down last week and I asked you a simple question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you remember that question? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked you whether I can get these cuffs open if they’re double locked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele double locks the cuffs and hands Green, a flat metal shim. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you get those open with that shim? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I already know that I can’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In case you missed that, he says, “I already know that I can’t.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green is very soft spoken throughout this interview. He says he sometimes hesitates because he has Parkinson’s and because going on the record is dangerous. Steele, meanwhile, is a man in constant motion. A man now animated by this mission to find the truth about this murder. And what these two very different styles lead to are these exchanges where Green hesitates, and instead of waiting for him to respond, Steele jumps in — helping him and clearly leading him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would think that you guys making the weapons and cutting the- the desks, it would seem to me that that would require a lot of effort on your part. It would make a lot of noise. And possibly it would require some extra stuff that maybe you don’t have access to. What do you think on that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, of course, I mean-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele brings up the noise of making the weapons and Green picks up on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You have to be able to hear that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scraping, you mean the grinding or-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Verbal scraping noise] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">you know, the, you know, you’ve seen the weapons that was used. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the way I ran this by an officer who said that on its own, this isn’t a credible piece of evidence. A lot of these units are really loud and the sound of making the weapons could easily be missed by officers. But Steele doesn’t push back or point out how noisy the unit is. It seems like he just accepts what Green’s saying and moves on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was there any, any um, extra things that were provided to enable you to cut the, the Steele from the desk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, only way when we can get or use… they provided, and that was the clipper heads and stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re talking about the tool used to make the knives the head of a hair clipper. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you say they, who are you talking about? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Staff brought you clipper heads? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To your cell? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it’s like Steele already knows the answers he’s looking for. Clearly they have talked about this before. Now that’s likely part of why Steele is asking these questions like this: to prompt a reluctant witness to share things he’s said before, but now to do it for the record. But the end result is that there are these huge moments where it feels like Steele is testifying himself rather than eliciting answers from Green. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if I’m understanding you, you’re saying if it can happen to Aguilar, it can happen to you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. At any time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taken a step further, you’re saying that staff could facilitate you being in the wrong place at the wrong time? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we watched this recording, I was also listening for things that Green had told me, which you heard about last episode. But Green does not mention Aguilar being a child molester or that the killing was ordered by the lieutenant of the B8 housing unit, Eric Baker. He doesn’t say anything about the drugs he told me that an officer brought to his cell to give to Taylor and Rodriguez’s payment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story that Green tells Steele first is actually the closest to how Taylor and Rodriguez have described the incident. Not a hit ordered by the officers, but an assault that they facilitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We could not have killed this man. He would be alive today if it wasn’t for the, the assistance and the help of your staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He tells Steele that officers agreed to make Aguilar — who was associated with an enemy gang, who was known to be disrespectful and assault staff — available to them in the ways we’ve talked about before. There’d be no kill shot and no double locking the cuffs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think there’s a possibility that the officer made a mistake twice when he, when he didn’t double lock those cuffs?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s not no damn mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not a mistake. Not twice in a row? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not. You, you are a professional.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your job-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you don’t think it’s a mistake or an oversight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With, with with, with us… the caliber of men that we are… I go back to this: the caliber men- of who I am and my two brothers, and the hits that we have put down…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are the number one security threat in B8. We are. So to not secure us… to not secure us?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… is a problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, Steele asks Green if there’s anything he’d like to say to the people who this video is for: the warden and the chief deputy warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What would you wanna say to them? If anything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green rocks forward in his seat slightly. There’s a little open slot in the side of the cage that he peers through to look into the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, um, I’m asking for my safety. My livelihood is, you know, I’m asking for, you know, to be placed nowhere in the state of California. Nowhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this interview, Steele and Green will record at least three more interviews. Unfortunately, we don’t have all those recordings, but we do know that Steele came to believe much of Green’s story. And I think part of that is because he began to feel responsible for him. At the very, very beginning of this first video, Steele starts the tape rolling while Green is in the middle of saying something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just want me just to take your word? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do. I know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele puts his word on the line to convince Green to put his life on the line. And even if Green’s motives aren’t pure, that danger is real. In the months to come, confidential information about Green’s testimony and Taylor’s letter is leaked out to officers and word spreads that he talked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That I’m a whistleblower rat for ex- exposing this ongoing corruption of staff and that I need to be taken out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a clip from one of those later interviews that we did get. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you say calling you a whistleblower, when, what does that term mean to you? Whistleblower?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, whistleblower to me means- okay in terms of, you know, uh, Snowden, you know Snowden?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Edward Snowden who leaked secrets about the NSA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it can take on a bad connotation sometimes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it is again, a government program intended to expose corruption. That’s what it’s designed for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says he’s being called this for a different reason.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The purpose is only one purpose. That purpose is to get me hurt very badly. To get me killed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming across this exchange was such a meta moment for me. These two men discussing the meaning of the term “whistleblower,” the term that came to define Sergeant Kevin Steele, but did not protect him. And the term that has marked Dion Green as well. While it’s possible that Steele got too close to Green to see him clearly, Green’s testimony is not the only evidence Steele had to go on. Now it is not the only evidence that we have to go on either. We finally did figure out how to play the surveillance videos of Luis Giovanny Aguilar’s murder and the practice run, and we found an expert to help us decode them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted to start by having Julie show you the video of what has been called the Practice Run.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A couple weeks after we got these videos and memos about the Aguilar homicide, we met up with another confidential source. I was on Zoom and Julie was in the studio. This man is a retired sergeant who knows a lot about internal affairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just- Yeah, the practice run.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there’s no sound. You know that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He watches it play. The video leaked to us is pretty short. Four minutes and 22 seconds. When it starts, Taylor and Rodriguez are already sitting at the individual desks in the day room. Rodriguez is on the left and Taylor is on the right. You don’t see how Taylor escapes his restraints because when the video starts, he’s clearly already gotten out of the handcuffs, which are supposed to be attached to a chain around his waist, and the ankle shackles that are supposed to be fixing him to the chair. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor sweeps his right leg out to shake off the ankle chain and then runs around the desk and up the stairs leading to Green’s cell. He kind of trips at the top of the stairs, recovers, and then grabs something — the knives — from under the door. He tucks them into the open front of his white prison jumpsuit. As he runs back down the stairs, he adjusts the knives in his waistband and then sits back down in his chair. Anthony Rodriguez gives him a big smile and kind of bounces up and down in his seat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor starts putting his restraints back on. The first time watching it through, the sergeant is pretty unconvinced that staff would’ve necessarily noticed the action in the unit. Just a note, this sergeant didn’t want us to use his voice. So the voice you’re gonna hear is actually one of our colleagues repeating exactly what the confidential source said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you watch the inmates, one of them is clearly the lookout. So if staff are involved, why is he so intent on identifying whether or not staff are in the picture, whether or not staff are coming?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says if the control booth officer was paying attention the way they were supposed to, these guys shouldn’t have been able to do this. But he said that complicity is not the only explanation for the security failure. It could also be laziness or incompetence, but he wants to see it again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This time we ask him to check out these two moments that happen at the very edge of what the camera captures.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the moments where you can see staff interacting with Taylor and Rodriguez. Taylor has just sat back down in his chair and he’s starting to get his restraints back on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s somebody that comes to the window of the rotunda, which you can also see in the video. Let’s see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie plays the first clip where an officer appears at the window of the rotunda. That’s the central area outside the housing section. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what it looks like to me, if I wanna be skeptical, it looks like he’s- so, he’s got his hands on the window and then he goes like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is like cuffs, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie zooms in so the sergeant can see the officer in the rotunda who looks like he’s holding up two fists next to each other, kind of pantomiming the gesture for cuffs. And Rodriguez holds up his hands showing, yeah, he’s still in restraints. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. He is like, “Look, yeah, I’m good.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer disappears from the window. So maybe he had a question about whether they were in their cuffs or not, but he’s satisfied by what he sees. Then almost as soon as he disappears, another officer steps into view in the control booth. The sergeant starts manipulating the video himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just zoomed in on the tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He pushes play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh shit, he’s giving hand signals. Do you see his hands? He’s giving hand signals. That’s weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer in the control booth is clearly doing something with his hands. It could be that this guy just talks with his hands a lot. But the sergeant says what’s giving him pause is that hand signals are a common way for incarcerated people to talk to each other on the yard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem I have is that there’s clearly a control booth cop up there, somebody up there. And what I really don’t like is how he’s communicating with the inmates. There’s something very familiar about what he’s doing with those inmates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the tail end of this back and forth, as the control booth officer disappears from view, Taylor adjusts the front of his jumpsuit and then he draws the waist chain of the shackles back over his head. Then he pulls the objects out of his waistband, bends over and slips them in his left sock. In all it takes three and a half minutes for him to put his ankle shackles and his handcuffs back on. The sergeant rewinds the video and watches it again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s running up the stairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s no way he should have been up the stairs. There’s no way he should have been able to do what he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says this video is not the full picture. He wishes he could see what happened in the minutes before it starts and in the minutes after. But he says, bottom line, the video is proof officers did not do what they were supposed to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What should have happened? There should have been a button press. There should have been alarm, there should have been people coming in. They should have been extracted from there. There should be, there’s all kinds of things that should have happened. So do I think he saw the dude was unshackled? A hundred percent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This matches Taylor’s version of events: that an officer saw he’d gotten something from Green’s cell, asked him what he was doing, and Taylor told him not to worry about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here’s what stands out to me. If officers had gone in and checked if they’d found the weapons concealed on Taylor’s body and confiscated them, Taylor and Rodriguez would not have had those knives a week later and so may not have been able to go forward with the attack at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, it’s pretty ugly. It’s supposed to be the most secured housing unit in the entire state of California. This is terrible. This is such a disgrace. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Should I do one camera angle at a time or is it better to do it this way?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do the one, the left hand view where you can see Taylor coming out of his cell first.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next we showed the sergeant the video of the murder itself. When it starts, Luis Giovanny Aguilar is already in the day room. This is something that Taylor, Green and Rodriguez all say was prearranged with officers. A group of three officers approach Taylor cell on the second tier of the housing unit. The officers wave at the control booth to open the cell door and you can see Taylor from behind. He’s in a white prison jumpsuit kneeling with his back to the doorway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Should we zoom in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, if you can. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An officer named Demond Sykes gets down to secure Taylor’s ankle shackles. Sykes reaches for something in his belt and the sergeant explains that’s him going for his keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the only reason he’d be pulling his cuff key is to use the end of the cuff key as the double lock.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The cuffs automatically single lock when you ratchet them closed. To engage the double lock, you have to do one more step: use the end of the cuff key to push this little pin into the side of the cuffs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, he’s just double locked him ’cause you see him go to his belt and then come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then, as they step out of the cell, Taylor turns to his right and says something to Sykes, the officer who just secured his cuffs. Then Taylor kneels down again this time outside the cell on the tier. I tell the sergeant that this is a moment that Taylor told Steele was evidence that staff were involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says this moment shows they- that accidentally Sykes double locked his right cuff and he came out of his cell and he goes to Sykes, “Are we double locking today?” Because if he’s double locked he can’t get out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Sykes gets back down on his knees and goes, “Oops, my bad.” And un-double-locks just the right hand cuffed — the left hand one was not double locked already — and then they proceed with the rest of the escort.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant rewinds and zooms in comparing the first time Officer Sykes locks the ankle cuffs with the second time he goes down to adjust them. The innocent explanation is that Taylor said the cuffs were too tight and Sykes loosened them. But even so, the cuffs should still have been double locked after loosening them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, it lends more credence and more credit to the fact that he was taking off the double lock. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They bring Taylor down the stairs and have him kneel on this chair that’s in the middle of the day room. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why is he on the chair? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s the black boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officers are putting those black boxes on that cover the keyhole of his ankle cuffs. Then they chain him to one of the fixed day room chairs. Next they go through the whole security protocol with Anthony Rodriguez. Put the black boxes on him and chain him to a seat two desks away from Taylor. Then the officers file out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then just, yeah, like watch, watch through for- from there, like them getting out and the kind of choreography of everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immediately Rodriguez and Taylor start messing with their restraints. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re, they’re looking at the control booth an awful lot. Like, to me they’re looking to see if anybody’s coming. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It takes almost two minutes for them to get out of their restraints. But again, if someone in the control booth was paying attention, that’s quite a bit of time to miss that these guys are up to something. Then both Taylor and Rodriguez are out. The next moment looks synchronized from the motion of them placing their right hands on the desks, standing up, running up the stairs. This time, Rodriguez is the one who gets something from Green’s cell. Rodriguez comes back down. They both hit the bottom of the staircase with Taylor in front. He kind of steps toward the control booth and the door with this big grin on his face. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who’s he smiling at?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was someone at the door. They, the, the control booth officer began to open the door as he’s coming down the stairs. So Taylor kind of goes before he has a knife or anything, kind of makes that motion towards the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a key moment that passes in a flash. But it’s important because it’s another opportunity for officers to step in before anything happens. But then, almost as quickly as it opens, the door closes again. Officers do not rush in. Rodriguez hands something to Taylor and they run over and begin stabbing Aguilar. At this point, policy requires that officers act immediately to stop a deadly threat. But they still have to decide how to act based on the situation. What the control booth officer does is fire the first of those foam or rubber projectiles. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh gosh, a rubber round just came out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked the sergeant if this seems late to him, he goes back in and looks at the timestamps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So six seconds between the time the rubber round comes out and do I think that’s late? No. Here’s part of the problem. Part of the problem is that up until they get to him, they’re just out of restraints. And I can promise you that every control cop in the world is gonna sit there and second guess using any sort of force at that point. Because they’re gonna say to you, this is what the department’s gonna say to me. “Where was the threat?” And you’re gonna go, well, they were outta their handcuffs. They were running around the building. “Okay, where was the threat?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says six seconds as a response time is understandable, but what is less understandable is what happens from this point on. The sergeant says even if this officer didn’t have the mini 14 rifle — the deadly force option — slung on his body, which they’re supposed to, it would’ve been close by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He could have very easily grabbed the mini. You can’t make that decision for him. That’s the challenge. You know, if he, I, if I had almost, you know, 20 years in the department, I’d have picked up the mini and unloaded it on those guys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he says that’s him with his experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what he would’ve done. And the same thing for the sergeant standing at the door and the sergeant standing at the door. I saw him making radio calls pretty much immediat- well, immediately while he was there I would’ve gone in a lot sooner than he did. But that’s me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says the officers should have gone in as soon as they had the numbers to go in — at least four officers at the door. On the video, the two men continue to rapidly and repeatedly stab Aguilar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like there’s multiple opportunities, you know, to do it. See this guy’s just stabbing him. I put a bullet in him already. I mean he’s clearly making stabbing motions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At one point they even stop stabbing him, kind of hiding behind the desks and then Taylor eggs on Rodriguez and Rodriguez goes back and continues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then he goes back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like Rodriguez finishes stabbing Aguilar. He stands up with his back to the control booth and Taylor steps forward and lands a last kick on Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When he gets up to kick him. Yeah, he, he gets shot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can see Taylor recoil as he gets hit by one of those foam rounds. Aguilar doesn’t appear to be moving anymore. Rodriguez throws the knife toward the door and lies down on his stomach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they don’t have an agreement with the officer to not shoot them dead. They have reason to believe that, that at some point during this he likely could \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And should, I mean all things… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, they should be dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watching it, it feels like a long time. As second after second it moves forward to its awful conclusion. But looking at the timestamp from the moment the stabbing itself began until they stopped, it was little more than a minute. After we watch the videos, I ask the sergeant about Taylor’s testimony to Steele. To me, those details he offered are the most compelling evidence I’ve seen so far that officers knew the attack was going to happen, and I wanted to see what he made of Taylor’s motive for coming forward — the deal he was trying to strike with the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only, the only person that would think they could get that is someone who’s already worked with dirty staff. That’s the only, that’s the only reason, ’cause he knows it’s gotta be strings pulled. Like, hey, like if he honestly thinks that he did what he did then, then he honestly thinks that he can get that too. So, you know, just, it just leds a whole lot of credibility to his story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor, Rodriguez and Green all say that staff knew an attack was going to happen on December 12th, 2019. I’ve spoken to additional witnesses who were incarcerated in the unit who also say that staff knew it was going to happen. The sergeant says he still has a hard time believing that officers ordered the hit. And he says they may not have even known it was gonna be deadly. But-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s no doubt in my mind staff knew it was going to happen. I mean, I’ve been on the yard, okay? And I’ve had what happens is staff start to develop rapport with inmates and inmates will tell, um, the staff like, “Hey, you probably don’t wanna come to work tomorrow.” It happens all the time. All the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So in law enforcement, yeah, we, we don’t do coincidence. And certainly if there is a coincidence, it’s not a whole whole entire scenario. So the fact that you have not once, not twice, but three times, these two guys got out of their cell and were able to do the same thing with weapons is not a coincidence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Tinkerbell again, the retired correctional officer who you heard from last episode. She says, at the very least, this pattern, the Britt incident, the practice run, and the homicide points to negligence on the part of officers. She says higher ups knew there were issues even running a day room in this high security unit. And there were issues with these three guys in particular.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether you have any humanity or not, we are paid to do a job. And if you don’t do their job and somebody gets killed, you should not sleep well at night. And if you say and do shit to instigate that, or further it, or fail to stop it when you knew or had prior knowledge, then shame on you. You are no better than the people that you are earning your retirement from. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tinkerbell says she knew Steele was looking into things, talking to the suspects.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was conducting an internal investigation that Internal Affairs refused to do. And when Internal Affairs had it, they covered it up or closed it out because they did not want any part of this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Tinkerbell that internal affairs did eventually look into the murder and some of the officers who were on duty that day did get disciplined, but there were some serious problems with that investigation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we’d gotten a chance to see the videos and the other evidence we were leaked. I had started trying to make contact with the officers named in the lawsuit, brought by Aguilar’s mom. The Attorney General’s office that’s representing them declined my request for an interview and referred me back to CDCR. CDCR has declined to comment on the case. But I also started emailing and calling some officers individually. I left a message for Demond Sykes, the guy who Taylor says didn’t double lock him, but he didn’t get back to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also reached out to a number of officers on Facebook, including Eric Baker, the man who was the lieutenant of the B8 housing unit in 2019 when the murder happened, and the guy who Dion Green says was behind everything. Surprisingly Baker responded by calling me up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, would you mind if I record it or does that make you uncomfortable? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He didn’t want me to record the call, but he did agree to speak to me on the record, and I recorded my side of the phone call. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have talked to other officers, other law enforcement, other investigators who say that the pattern of these three guys working together, getting outta their cuffs multiple times in the same unit in the space of a couple months, like how does that happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker asked, how do people do these kinds of things all the time in prison? Criminal, he said, is a word that comes to mind, along with time and ingenuity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. What is your take on why they weren’t disciplined when they got outta their cuffs for the practice run? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said he was unaware of any practice run and that if staff had seen Rodriguez and Taylor out of their cuffs, there would have been a report. There was no report, so it couldn’t have happened the way I’d heard it did. Now, Anthony Rodriguez said Baker didn’t know anything about the murder ahead of time, but Green had told me Baker had orchestrated things. So I felt like I had to ask Baker about Green’s allegations directly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like I don’t, I just doesn’t need to be like super confrontational. I just wanna get your take on it. Um, but you know, the “shot caller” Dion Green, you know, said that you were, you know, basically behind this whole thing that you participated with him and ordered him to do this. Can you speak to that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker did not directly respond to this question, and I was a bit flustered, but he kind of scoffed at the idea I was even asking it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am asking you as a person to say, did you have anything to do with it, and did you work with Dion Green to- so I just want a straightforward answer from you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker said, I should already have my answer. He says the Office of Internal Affairs did a 19 month investigation and that they didn’t find he’d done anything wrong. But again, he didn’t directly respond to the allegation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so are you, are you refusing to deny that you had anything to do with it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said he couldn’t answer my question because the case was in active litigation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I understand why you can’t answer. I am just also wanted to give you the opportunity to answer if you so choose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, he told me he didn’t need to clear the air, saying that him talking to me doesn’t determine the future of his career, his past or his present. And he pointed out that in the years since the murder, he’s actually been promoted. He’s a captain now. That, he said, should tell me something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my conversation with him, Baker did bring up one concrete piece of evidence — his proof that officers had nothing to do with the murder. It’s a phone call made by Anthony Rodriguez on a recorded line to a loved one in which Rodriguez said officers weren’t a part of the murder and he wasn’t gonna get somebody fired over something that wasn’t true. Baker’s point was if staff had put him up to it, why would Rodriguez deny it in this casual call? So I asked Anthony Rodriguez about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said those words before, yes, I most definitely have said those words before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked why he’d say that. If officers really did help facilitate the murder the way he told me they did, why not say so? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wasn’t willing, willing to review all that stuff because at the time I had been there for a long time and I never had problems with these officers and I didn’t, I didn’t feel that I should, I should, uh, you know, be the reason to get them in trouble. You know what I mean? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Rodriguez said the story that he told me was the truth. And that that is the same thing he said under oath when he gave his deposition and the lawsuit brought by Luis Giovanny Aguilar’s mother Ma Rosario. He says he killed Aguilar over a slight on the yard. And that officers, while they didn’t order it or even know how serious the attack was going to be, did help him and Taylor carry it out. Rodriguez maintained that officers didn’t double lock the cuffs and that they agreed not to shoot them dead. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What strikes me is that regardless of which version of events you believe, there are just so many moments where this whole thing could have gone another way… and Aguilar would still be alive. If prison leaders had separated Taylor Rodriguez and Green following their attempted murder of Michael Britt. If officers had responded the day of the practice run and searched Taylor for weapons. If officers had double locked their cuffs. If officers had run through the doors before Rodriguez and Taylor got to Aguilar. If the control booth cop had fired his mini 14 to stop the attack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in September of 2022, when I spoke to Aguilar’s mother Ma Rosario over Zoom, she said something that really stuck with me. She said, it didn’t matter if officers ordered the hit or just looked the other way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hay un dicho que dice, que dice “tanto peca el que mata la vaca como el que le agarra la pata.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario says, there’s this saying in Mexico that translates to, “He who kills the cow sins as much as he who grabs its leg.” Even though the officers did not hold the knives that killed her son, she holds them responsible for his death. The bottom line for her is that this happened, on their watch, and they did nothing to stop it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo sé que no soy la única madre que tiene un hijo precio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I know I’m not the only mother that had a son in prison,” she says. “There are other mothers like me who hope to see their sons again one day only to find out that they’ve been unjustly killed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y que este memento le digamos que se lo mataron injustamente.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario’s lawsuit against prison officials is ongoing. As far as we know the FBI are still investigating too. So those cases may provide more answers. But among the remaining mysteries of this case is one central to our story that we wanted to try and unravel. What happened to the investigative report that Officer Valentino Rodriguez wrote about the murder just before he left New Folsom Prison on stress leave. The report that his father, Val Sr., had so many questions about. In response to our requests for any reports on the murder written by Valentino, CDCR said, “We can’t locate any written reports by Valentino Rodriguez.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is very puzzling. Text messages on Valentino’s phone show he was actually working on two reports about the murder. One was an investigative memo explaining how the murder was related to gang activity. The other was a supplemental report to go with the disciplinary reports that were issued to each of the three suspects. We simply don’t know what happened to the investigative memo. It’s possible that Valentino didn’t complete it, but the other report, the supplemental, was actually leaked to us by a confidential source. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That report is also referenced in Dion Green’s public court documents. So we know that report was submitted and was in CDCR’s files in December of 2020. Why the agency’s public records team can’t find it now is a mystery. Tinkerbell says she looked at Valentino’s report and it was really well written, but-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you knew what you were reading, it didn’t, something just wasn’t connecting. It was like, this doesn’t make sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino’s supplemental report suggests that Aguilar’s killing was motivated by a dispute between two rival prison gangs: the independent riders, or IR, and the 2-5ers. Just a side note, these are smaller, less organized gangs that more recently have been trying to get power and notoriety in California prisons. Killing can be one of the ways to do that. The report notes that the weapons that were retrieved from the scene had markings on them: 666, along with the initials IR on one, and G Satan — Green’s moniker — written on the handle of the other. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It also said that Taylor participated in the killing as an initiation into the IR gang. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t believe any of this was for initiation. Um, I believe that they had said some shit on the tier about Aguilar and they didn’t like him and they wanted to murder someone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I talked to Taylor, he also said it had nothing to do with an initiation. Tinkerbell says Steele came to believe that that supplemental report didn’t totally make sense because it was written to serve another purpose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so Kevin said the reason that is because they told him what to write and to make sure it had a gang nexus. And I’m like, “Why would they do that?” And then he said, “To take pressure off of staff.” And I was like, okay. So staff involvement for this? Okay, I don’t know, it’s, that’s a, it’s a big bag of worms to open up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We don’t know if Valentino ever spoke with the warden about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar or about his reports. But there were those cryptic text messages with Steele on the last day of Valentino’s life — about the two sides of New Folsom — in which Steele talked about running the race, and Valentino said he wanted his name left out of “everything.” And that it “took a lot out of me to relive the truth.” Tinkerbell says Steele felt like he should have walked with Valentino into that meeting with the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was feeling, taking on responsibility that he should have done more to help Rodriguez. So he felt responsible. He took on responsibility that wasn’t his.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele also felt responsible for the investigation into the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But that was another responsibility that wasn’t his to bear. He was not an internal affairs investigator. He didn’t have the authority to interview officers or track down every lead. It was his job and his explicit obligation to pass on any allegations or evidence of misconduct to higher ups. The Chief Deputy Warden, Gina Jones and the Warden Jeff Lynch. And from all the evidence we have been able to review, it appears that this is what he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened to the case after it got handed up the chain? While that internal investigation was not released to us, we have been able to get a peek around the edges, and what we can see raises serious questions. First of all, what took so long? Internal emails that we got show that New Folsom officials delayed asking internal affairs to investigate, then the special agent assigned to the case also stalled conducting the investigation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An oversight agency did not conclude that that delay was intentional, but said the special agent also “failed to conduct effective interviews and didn’t talk to a crucial witness.” It’s not clear which witness they are talking about. But we do know they never got that final interview with Kevin Steele. The interview that a special agent called him about on the last day of his life. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Tinkerbell that internal affairs investigation did result in the discipline of three officers. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The guy who didn’t fire his mini 14 or didn’t- said he didn’t have his mini 14 on him — who was the Tower guard — he got a 5% salary reduction for three months. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This incident was over 60 seconds long. I don’t wanna hear that. That’s such bullshit. He failed to act: violation. I cannot wrap my head around it. What else happened to the other officers? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell her there was one officer who failed to respond to alarms both during the stabbing of Michael Britt and then again during the Aguilar homicide. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he got a 5% salary reduction for 12 months. Um, the third person who was disciplined, who got the highest discipline, was the one who took a video of the video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was an officer who’d used his phone to take a video of the surveillance footage of the homicide, and then he’d shared it. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what he got disciplined for — not for failing to protect the inmates or failing to respond or, you know, letting people outta their cuffs or any of that. It was for the video, um, for sharing the video. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, like, I just don’t understand how, I don’t understand how they haven’t been prosecuted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well also like, we just kind of found out, like through our investigation that they were not like- none of the officers were interviewed about this, um, by OIA until after Kevin was dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are fucking kidding me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a murder in the institution where all of these people failed to fucking respond. There was two, two for sure incidents and then a fucking dry run. There was videos of all of this that Kevin gave and that they didn’t fuck-ing interview anybody? Oh, Jesus Christ. Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has to pause for a moment to collect herself. She looks through her phone and reads out a message from Steele.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How to kill a cop. I know. Alone, betrayed, enveloped in corruption.” These are like some of the, the texts that Steele sent me, like he was just… “Broken, betrayal, double crossed and sold out.” These are things that Kevin sent me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tinkerbell says, what Steele did — coming forward — was incredibly hard to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you know how much courage it must have taken Kevin and Val to go to them and try to expose the wrongdoing? Do you know how much courage that must have taken?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the years, she says she’s witnessed and heard about a lot of things that troubled her, but she was afraid to come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s so many people that want to say something, but the fear… As a parent, right? What are some of our biggest fears? Our kids going to prison, us getting a call that something happened to them, finding out they have a medical issue that’s not curable. That fear has got nothing on the daily fear that you, you deal with walking into an institution if you’re viewed in a bad light. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She said she’s talking to us now because she doesn’t want what happened to Steele and what happened to Valentino to happen to anyone else. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still afraid. She is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am, you know, willing to subject myself, when people find out or if people find out — I know it’s not if I know it’s a matter of when — that I’m just a two-faced inmate-loving rat piece of shit who’s trying to get good officers in trouble. And my view is that if they were good officers, they wouldn’t have done criminal activity. So don’t you put that on me. I didn’t make those decisions. I made the decision to not come forward with a lot of the information that I had because I was so afraid for my safety, my family’s safety, and my livelihood after.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since we aired her voice in that last episode three weeks ago, Tinkerbell has gotten a lot of calls and texts from people who recognized her voice. She’s also been called a dirty cop, publicly, by someone she doesn’t even know. But she still said we could use her voice in this episode. And she said she hopes other people can find the courage to do the right thing and come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But my journey is the exact sames as Kevin’s in regards to we want people held accountable. And at the time, Val, Val was still’s motivation. Okay? Val and Kevin are a part of my motivation, but they’re not my sole motivation. My motivation is I want this to stop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up next time in our final episode, Julie and I walk through the gates of New Folsom prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t usually stress out, but I haven’t been in a prison for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh here we go, CSP-Sac.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You feeling it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m feeling it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we speak to two correctional officers who did wanna go on the record with us, because like Tinkerbell, they’ve seen too many of their fellow officers pay a price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, two of them that are dead. Because to find the truth. That should shock the shit out of everybody that’s still there. And I don’t understand how it’s not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re listening to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauléon. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fuda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR and KQED’s Ted Goldberg. And thank you to Alan Lurie of BOA Security who walked me through the mechanics of the transport boxes and the handcuffs.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional Music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor Jr, Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We get to listen in on confidential interviews conducted by Sgt. Kevin Steele before his death. Plus, we finally get to see surveillance footage from inside the B8 unit that sheds new light on the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Editor’s note: After this episode first aired on April 2, 2024, CDCR finally located Valentino Rodriguez’s supplemental report about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar that we reference in this episode. Their public records team was initially unable to find it. However, the agency said the report was exempt from disclosure.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC5469603434\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes descriptions of violence and references a homicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, is it powered on? Can you hear it going? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the day after Julie and I met with our confidential source, and we’re back in the office with our editor, Victoria. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not, it’s not reading it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re absolutely reeling from what we’ve been given: memos, internal prison emails, and these video CDs that have Sergeant Kevin Steele’s own handwriting on them. It’s key evidence that Steele had saved, according to our source, both to protect himself and because he’d become so concerned that his own law enforcement agency might try to destroy it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But wait, did you put a disc in it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No. No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Try putting a disc in it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It wouldn’t do anything? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, it was just dead. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at first, the most important videos won’t play. It turns out to watch the practice run and the homicide, we need some special software. So, Julie, Victoria and I huddle in front of Julie’s computer and we try another disc: the one labeled “Taylor.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. So let’s try-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is reading it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s try Taylor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s- \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Wait, hold on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauléon:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh Lord. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looks like it’s gonna- \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we find out that Cody Taylor, the guy who was so afraid of having this interview come out, is the one who started almost everything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looks like it’s gonna play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. This is Sergeant Steele in the room. It is now about almost 8:30 on Friday, July the third. I’m also in the room with inmate Taylor. Is that your name?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video opens with a familiar scene: Steele holding up his black military watch to the camera to record the time. At this point, it’s been almost seven months since the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. Taylor has already pled guilty to the murder and taken his 102 year sentence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I came in here, I told you what we were gonna talk about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me itemize that. We’re gonna talk about a letter that you sent. We’re gonna talk about some things that you know, and we’re also gonna talk about some things that you’ve noticed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, correct. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, and also you asked me before I started recording, you said, “Hey, I wanna tell you the real reason why I’m here.” Did you not say that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele reads Taylor his rights as he sits in a cage about the size of a phone booth. He’s a white guy wearing a sleeveless undershirt. You can see a large tattoo of a woman’s face in the center of his upper chest, and another tattoo that’s harder to make out snaking down the left side of his face. Steele holds up a handwritten document to the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the letter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And my signature.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s undated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele has been asked by his boss, a lieutenant in the ISU, to find out more about this letter — this letter that Cody Taylor sent to the warden of New Folsom Prison, making some pretty big allegations. Allegations that up until now, Taylor says he’s kept quiet about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…speculations. I just never, you know, I’ve never admitted it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just used the word “admitted it.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like that you’ve always known that there are things that are unknown-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unknown.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… or in the shadows. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, of course. Of course. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so what you’re saying is, you know that you have direct information to validate those- that speculation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have direct information. If, if the video evidence is still there, that’s more than enough on both occasions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, we go back inside the day room one final time. To look at what this video evidence shows about the claims of each of the murderers. To find out how Steele had looked at this case, and if his obsession had gone too far. And to ask who should answer for the death of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Musical break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get further into this evidence, I just wanted to let you know that KQED agreed to pay some costs so the confidential source could bring us these materials. It’s not something we usually do, but in this case, we decided it was appropriate. We needed to safeguard the evidence, protect our source, and finish our investigation in time. Now let’s get back to Steele’s interview with Cody Taylor about the letter he sent, which was addressed to Warden Jeff Lynch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… or do you need to look at it again to review it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, I, I, I pretty much know what it’s about. Um, would you like me to summarize it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele he sent this letter because he’s fed up with how he’s been treated since the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cell search daily, which isn’t policy. Um, you know, the little bit of property I do have, you know, um, destroyed on a daily basis. Uh, personal, uh, hygiene and, and food items spread out sometimes — it’s happened twice. Um, shoe prints on my bed, the list goes on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he thinks it’s retaliation — that the murder made the prison look bad. And he says there’s been a lot of speculation about officers lending them a helping hand, which he is now ready to talk about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll be willing to take a lie detector test. Um, ’cause everything that I’m saying and have said in that letter is 1000% honest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor explains, going back to the assault on Michael Britt two months before the murder, they had an understanding with the officers in the unit. Britt, if you remember, was Dion Green’s enemy, who he’d already tried to kill at a different prison once before. Yet prison officials put Britt and Green in the same housing section and let them all have day room together \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While walking out, the sergeant and the lieutenant said, “Hey man, you’re on your own, cuz. Have fun with these guys.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said that to Britt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Said that to Britt. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by them saying that, are you, is your inference that they knew what was about to happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, because the sergeant asked me if this could not happen today because he’s trying to go home. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant said, could this not happen today because he’s going home?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. And I said, it’s only business, big dog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says the officers let them carry on with their business: attacking Michael Britt. Just a side note, we didn’t get a video of the Britt incident, so it’s the one that’s the hardest to analyze, but we were leaked some still images that show Taylor and Rodriguez stabbing Britt as Green looks on from a nearby chair. A still image taken a minute and a half later shows the two attackers standing in the middle of the day room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reports say the control booth officer shot those foam batons, but he didn’t use lethal force. Then about eight weeks after they tried to kill Britt, there was the practice run. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We tested everything out a week prior. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele how he was in the day room, got out of his cuffs, slipped the black boxes, ran up the stairs, got the knives from Dion Green’s cell, and came back down. All of which the tower officer saw, but didn’t do anything about. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how do you know that they knew that you had weapons? How would you know that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, not necessarily weapons, but he asked me what I went up there and grabbed. When he opened up the thing, he’s like, “Why’d you do that? Why’d you go up there and grab it?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’d you tell him? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said, “Man, just relax. It’s all good.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He goes-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially, Taylor says the plan was to murder Aguilar that day — the day of the practice run. They knew he’d have to walk through the day room on his way back from a morning group, but ultimately he and Anthony Rodriguez decided to wait until a later day — a day when they could get him in the day room alone, not under an officer escort.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, just outta respect for the staff because they were, you know, looking out for us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele asks Taylor about one of those ways that staff was supposedly looking out for them, that Taylor talked about in his letter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said, and I I’m gonna quote you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quote.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It says, “Keys were given to us.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keys were given to you by who?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Real keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Real cuff. Cuff keys.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Real long cuff keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Not homemade, not manufacturer keys. They’re the real deal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Broken off handcuff keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele later interviewed a different man who’d been in the B8 unit. This guy told him that, “Everyone knew the cops were working with those guys, they could run around without getting shot.” And he told Steele that cops had given Green a real cuff key and that it was being used to make copies. In the video with Steele, Taylor says, the day of the murder where they went after Luis Giovanny Aguilar, staff once again, knew what was gonna happen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m not exaggerating when I tell you this. Not only all staff knew, but cer- I believe certain staff left the buildings ’cause they didn’t want to be involved, I believe. Because they were transferring to another institution and they were like, “Hey man, we’re I’m this, this my up my transfer. I’m not trying to be involved.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when you say transfer, ’cause they’re trying to transfer to Mule Creek?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mule Creek Prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had told me that just right before this today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right before. And he goes, “I’m not gonna be involved because,” um… Or no, “I couldn’t be involved in the fun because I’m trying to get a transfer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of those details in Taylor’s story that to me has the granularity and messiness of truth. It’s such an odd thing to make up, and it’s something that Steele was later able to confirm. Two officers in the unit had transferred to Mule Creek State Prison shortly after. Steele continues going over the letter and Taylor explains how they’d also made this agreement with officers not to double lock their cuffs so that they could get out of the black boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor tells Steele to go back and look at the video of the murder. While he says he hasn’t seen it himself, he thinks a moment was caught on tape that will prove his point. As they were going through the security protocol at his cell door, the officer who was cuffing him made a mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m coming outta my door and he accidentally double locks my right foot. That being said, my left lock is p- is still not double locked. Um, but my right one is. I look, I look to the right and I tell him, “Hey, you fucked up. That shit is double locked.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor claims the officer kneeled down outside his door and undid the double lock on his right ankle cuff. But Taylor says the day of the murder, they did have one new factor to worry about. They didn’t know the guy in the control booth or tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve already had these conversations with the previous tower with Britt. Everything was good. He wasn’t gonna kill us. Right? But there was a new cop in there. So I made sure I said, look man, you know, we’re half-ass doing you guys a favor. You know, this guy assaulted you and shit. You know, we have our own- word for word. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We have our own reasons too, but can you make sure, uh, your tower doesn’t kill us? He goes, um, I don’t really know him, but I’m gonna talk to him right now. You should be good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor had told me a lot of the same things that he told Steele. Some of these details I didn’t include in the last episode because I couldn’t verify them. Like the officers trying to transfer, or the supposed footage of an officer kneeling down at his door. But now that we had these memos and videos, these were things we could check. Near the end of the tape, Steele brings the conversation back to Taylor’s motivation for sending his letter to the warden. What does he hope to get out of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The real reason, the impetus, the reason that you wrote this is, again, about your housing placement, the treatment, and the fact that you, your, your real longing is to go to Salinas Valley unencumbered with anything from here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just want to move on. I just, you know, I feel that I took one on the chin. You know, I-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This appears to be what he’s proposing. He’ll continue to keep quiet about officers’ involvement in the murder in exchange for suspending his solitary confinement, or SHU term, and transferring him to Salinas Valley State Prison where he says he’ll be safer with members of his own gang. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to move all this behind me-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… and start over right there. Um, but I feel that I shouldn’t remain in the SHU, be treated as I’m being treated. And, and after, you know what? Initially, hey, I, I didn’t say shit, man. I didn’t say shit to nobody. And, and I’m, if anything, I should be treated like a king for me remaining silent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he doesn’t want anything, money or anything else, and he says he’ll even sign a non-disclosure agreement if that would help. Because his point is not to get staff in trouble. If he wanted to do that, he’d have gone about this in a totally different way. He’d have filed a formal complaint, told his family who worked in law enforcement or called the press. But he wanted to see if he could work this out directly with the warden. So he sent that letter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My co-defendants don’t even know about that letter. Nobody knows about that letter besides me. My co-defendants- I don’t speak to Mr. Green no more, but Rodriguez doesn’t even know about that letter. Nobody-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now Taylor says he’s at a boiling point.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And you fools didn’t even do an investigat- Excuse me, I don’t know that, but I’m just assuming you guys didn’t even do an investigation into your officers. They might have been redirected, but I’m sure nobody’s gotten fired. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, that’s, that’s a, that’s a coverup in itself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor is right about one thing, at the time of this interview. From what we can see, Internal Affairs hasn’t started investigating this incident and no one has been fired. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who do you want to see this video? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the warden. Just the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. I’m gonna go ahead and conclude. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not totally clear to me what to make of Taylor’s motives here. Okay, so he’s not trying to get out of criminal charges, but does he really believe he’s going to strike a deal with the warden? And if so, why turn to Kevin Steele — a rule follower — to be his blackmail delivery guy? On the other hand, if he’s just lying to stir up shit for officers, what does he hope to get out of it? An investigation that’s only gonna bring a whole bunch more scrutiny and danger down on him? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I have another question about this interview from the prison’s side of things. Why was Steele the one assigned to do it in the first place? There were clearly already rumors going around about this murder among witnesses in the unit. A different letter alleging it was a setup had already been mailed to the District Attorney’s office within weeks of the murder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if you’re the warden, why assign this to someone in-house? For simple optics reasons, it seems like getting headquarters to review would be the cleanest course of action. CDCR says they cannot comment on this case, and that it’s part of an ongoing investigation involving outside law enforcement. But whatever the warden thought he was doing by sending Steele in to do this interview, and whatever Taylor thought he was doing walking into this interview, those choices start a chain reaction that likely neither prison officials nor Cody Taylor wanted. An investigation that winds up in the lap of the FBI and a lawsuit brought against prison officials by the mother of Luis Giovanny Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens next in the chain reaction set off by Taylor’s letter is that Steele wants to find corroboration. After that first interview with Taylor, in emails to his bosses, including the warden, Steele shares what he’s uncovering. He sounds activated and eager to move on Taylor’s claims. He says he’s already talked to Green about some of these issues with the murder, and he asks permission to try and talk to Anthony Rodriguez, the third murder suspect who took part in the stabbing with Taylor. It doesn’t appear that Anthony Rodriguez ever agreed to that, but someone else did agree to go on tape with Steele. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Go ahead and introduce yourself please.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Green J22161. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this video, Dion Green is now the one in the cage and Steele starts off the same as he did with Taylor by noting the time and date. It’s July 17th, 2020, and reading him his rights. This is Steele’s first recorded interview with Green, but he acknowledges that they have talked about the murder before while handling stuff for court. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in a roundabout way, you told me that it would’ve never happened had staff not participated in that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we listened in on this interview, hoping to understand this next phase of Steele’s investigation, and what Green had said to Steele that had convinced him that officers had a hand in the murder, we realized that many of those conversations had already happened off camera, and this set up a very odd dynamic in this interview. For example, Steele brings out a pair of handcuffs to get Green to demonstrate the double locking mechanism, but it’s clear this is a replay for the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I brought these very same cuffs down last week and I asked you a simple question.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes sir. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you remember that question? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes sir.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked you whether I can get these cuffs open if they’re double locked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele double locks the cuffs and hands Green, a flat metal shim. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you get those open with that shim? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I already know that I can’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In case you missed that, he says, “I already know that I can’t.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music] \u003c/span>\u003c/i> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green is very soft spoken throughout this interview. He says he sometimes hesitates because he has Parkinson’s and because going on the record is dangerous. Steele, meanwhile, is a man in constant motion. A man now animated by this mission to find the truth about this murder. And what these two very different styles lead to are these exchanges where Green hesitates, and instead of waiting for him to respond, Steele jumps in — helping him and clearly leading him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would think that you guys making the weapons and cutting the- the desks, it would seem to me that that would require a lot of effort on your part. It would make a lot of noise. And possibly it would require some extra stuff that maybe you don’t have access to. What do you think on that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, of course, I mean-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele brings up the noise of making the weapons and Green picks up on it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You have to be able to hear that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scraping, you mean the grinding or-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know the \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Verbal scraping noise] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">you know, the, you know, you’ve seen the weapons that was used. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the way I ran this by an officer who said that on its own, this isn’t a credible piece of evidence. A lot of these units are really loud and the sound of making the weapons could easily be missed by officers. But Steele doesn’t push back or point out how noisy the unit is. It seems like he just accepts what Green’s saying and moves on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Was there any, any um, extra things that were provided to enable you to cut the, the Steele from the desk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, only way when we can get or use… they provided, and that was the clipper heads and stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re talking about the tool used to make the knives the head of a hair clipper. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you say they, who are you talking about? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Staff brought you clipper heads? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To your cell? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it’s like Steele already knows the answers he’s looking for. Clearly they have talked about this before. Now that’s likely part of why Steele is asking these questions like this: to prompt a reluctant witness to share things he’s said before, but now to do it for the record. But the end result is that there are these huge moments where it feels like Steele is testifying himself rather than eliciting answers from Green. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if I’m understanding you, you’re saying if it can happen to Aguilar, it can happen to you? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. At any time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taken a step further, you’re saying that staff could facilitate you being in the wrong place at the wrong time? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As we watched this recording, I was also listening for things that Green had told me, which you heard about last episode. But Green does not mention Aguilar being a child molester or that the killing was ordered by the lieutenant of the B8 housing unit, Eric Baker. He doesn’t say anything about the drugs he told me that an officer brought to his cell to give to Taylor and Rodriguez’s payment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The story that Green tells Steele first is actually the closest to how Taylor and Rodriguez have described the incident. Not a hit ordered by the officers, but an assault that they facilitated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We could not have killed this man. He would be alive today if it wasn’t for the, the assistance and the help of your staff. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He tells Steele that officers agreed to make Aguilar — who was associated with an enemy gang, who was known to be disrespectful and assault staff — available to them in the ways we’ve talked about before. There’d be no kill shot and no double locking the cuffs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think there’s a possibility that the officer made a mistake twice when he, when he didn’t double lock those cuffs?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s not no damn mistake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not a mistake. Not twice in a row? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not. You, you are a professional.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your job-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you don’t think it’s a mistake or an oversight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With, with with, with us… the caliber of men that we are… I go back to this: the caliber men- of who I am and my two brothers, and the hits that we have put down…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are the number one security threat in B8. We are. So to not secure us… to not secure us?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… is a problem. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, Steele asks Green if there’s anything he’d like to say to the people who this video is for: the warden and the chief deputy warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What would you wanna say to them? If anything. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green rocks forward in his seat slightly. There’s a little open slot in the side of the cage that he peers through to look into the camera. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, um, I’m asking for my safety. My livelihood is, you know, I’m asking for, you know, to be placed nowhere in the state of California. Nowhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this interview, Steele and Green will record at least three more interviews. Unfortunately, we don’t have all those recordings, but we do know that Steele came to believe much of Green’s story. And I think part of that is because he began to feel responsible for him. At the very, very beginning of this first video, Steele starts the tape rolling while Green is in the middle of saying something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just want me just to take your word? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do. I know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele puts his word on the line to convince Green to put his life on the line. And even if Green’s motives aren’t pure, that danger is real. In the months to come, confidential information about Green’s testimony and Taylor’s letter is leaked out to officers and word spreads that he talked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That I’m a whistleblower rat for ex- exposing this ongoing corruption of staff and that I need to be taken out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a clip from one of those later interviews that we did get. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you say calling you a whistleblower, when, what does that term mean to you? Whistleblower?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, whistleblower to me means- okay in terms of, you know, uh, Snowden, you know Snowden?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. Yes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Edward Snowden who leaked secrets about the NSA. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it can take on a bad connotation sometimes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it is again, a government program intended to expose corruption. That’s what it’s designed for. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says he’s being called this for a different reason.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The purpose is only one purpose. That purpose is to get me hurt very badly. To get me killed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming across this exchange was such a meta moment for me. These two men discussing the meaning of the term “whistleblower,” the term that came to define Sergeant Kevin Steele, but did not protect him. And the term that has marked Dion Green as well. While it’s possible that Steele got too close to Green to see him clearly, Green’s testimony is not the only evidence Steele had to go on. Now it is not the only evidence that we have to go on either. We finally did figure out how to play the surveillance videos of Luis Giovanny Aguilar’s murder and the practice run, and we found an expert to help us decode them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted to start by having Julie show you the video of what has been called the Practice Run.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A couple weeks after we got these videos and memos about the Aguilar homicide, we met up with another confidential source. I was on Zoom and Julie was in the studio. This man is a retired sergeant who knows a lot about internal affairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just- Yeah, the practice run.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there’s no sound. You know that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He watches it play. The video leaked to us is pretty short. Four minutes and 22 seconds. When it starts, Taylor and Rodriguez are already sitting at the individual desks in the day room. Rodriguez is on the left and Taylor is on the right. You don’t see how Taylor escapes his restraints because when the video starts, he’s clearly already gotten out of the handcuffs, which are supposed to be attached to a chain around his waist, and the ankle shackles that are supposed to be fixing him to the chair. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor sweeps his right leg out to shake off the ankle chain and then runs around the desk and up the stairs leading to Green’s cell. He kind of trips at the top of the stairs, recovers, and then grabs something — the knives — from under the door. He tucks them into the open front of his white prison jumpsuit. As he runs back down the stairs, he adjusts the knives in his waistband and then sits back down in his chair. Anthony Rodriguez gives him a big smile and kind of bounces up and down in his seat. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor starts putting his restraints back on. The first time watching it through, the sergeant is pretty unconvinced that staff would’ve necessarily noticed the action in the unit. Just a note, this sergeant didn’t want us to use his voice. So the voice you’re gonna hear is actually one of our colleagues repeating exactly what the confidential source said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you watch the inmates, one of them is clearly the lookout. So if staff are involved, why is he so intent on identifying whether or not staff are in the picture, whether or not staff are coming?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says if the control booth officer was paying attention the way they were supposed to, these guys shouldn’t have been able to do this. But he said that complicity is not the only explanation for the security failure. It could also be laziness or incompetence, but he wants to see it again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This time we ask him to check out these two moments that happen at the very edge of what the camera captures.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the moments where you can see staff interacting with Taylor and Rodriguez. Taylor has just sat back down in his chair and he’s starting to get his restraints back on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s somebody that comes to the window of the rotunda, which you can also see in the video. Let’s see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie plays the first clip where an officer appears at the window of the rotunda. That’s the central area outside the housing section. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what it looks like to me, if I wanna be skeptical, it looks like he’s- so, he’s got his hands on the window and then he goes like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">this\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which is like cuffs, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Julie zooms in so the sergeant can see the officer in the rotunda who looks like he’s holding up two fists next to each other, kind of pantomiming the gesture for cuffs. And Rodriguez holds up his hands showing, yeah, he’s still in restraints. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. He is like, “Look, yeah, I’m good.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmhmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer disappears from the window. So maybe he had a question about whether they were in their cuffs or not, but he’s satisfied by what he sees. Then almost as soon as he disappears, another officer steps into view in the control booth. The sergeant starts manipulating the video himself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just zoomed in on the tower. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He pushes play. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh shit, he’s giving hand signals. Do you see his hands? He’s giving hand signals. That’s weird. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officer in the control booth is clearly doing something with his hands. It could be that this guy just talks with his hands a lot. But the sergeant says what’s giving him pause is that hand signals are a common way for incarcerated people to talk to each other on the yard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The problem I have is that there’s clearly a control booth cop up there, somebody up there. And what I really don’t like is how he’s communicating with the inmates. There’s something very familiar about what he’s doing with those inmates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the tail end of this back and forth, as the control booth officer disappears from view, Taylor adjusts the front of his jumpsuit and then he draws the waist chain of the shackles back over his head. Then he pulls the objects out of his waistband, bends over and slips them in his left sock. In all it takes three and a half minutes for him to put his ankle shackles and his handcuffs back on. The sergeant rewinds the video and watches it again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s running up the stairs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s no way he should have been up the stairs. There’s no way he should have been able to do what he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says this video is not the full picture. He wishes he could see what happened in the minutes before it starts and in the minutes after. But he says, bottom line, the video is proof officers did not do what they were supposed to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What should have happened? There should have been a button press. There should have been alarm, there should have been people coming in. They should have been extracted from there. There should be, there’s all kinds of things that should have happened. So do I think he saw the dude was unshackled? A hundred percent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This matches Taylor’s version of events: that an officer saw he’d gotten something from Green’s cell, asked him what he was doing, and Taylor told him not to worry about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here’s what stands out to me. If officers had gone in and checked if they’d found the weapons concealed on Taylor’s body and confiscated them, Taylor and Rodriguez would not have had those knives a week later and so may not have been able to go forward with the attack at all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So yeah, it’s pretty ugly. It’s supposed to be the most secured housing unit in the entire state of California. This is terrible. This is such a disgrace. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Should I do one camera angle at a time or is it better to do it this way?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So do the one, the left hand view where you can see Taylor coming out of his cell first.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Next we showed the sergeant the video of the murder itself. When it starts, Luis Giovanny Aguilar is already in the day room. This is something that Taylor, Green and Rodriguez all say was prearranged with officers. A group of three officers approach Taylor cell on the second tier of the housing unit. The officers wave at the control booth to open the cell door and you can see Taylor from behind. He’s in a white prison jumpsuit kneeling with his back to the doorway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Should we zoom in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, if you can. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An officer named Demond Sykes gets down to secure Taylor’s ankle shackles. Sykes reaches for something in his belt and the sergeant explains that’s him going for his keys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the only reason he’d be pulling his cuff key is to use the end of the cuff key as the double lock.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The cuffs automatically single lock when you ratchet them closed. To engage the double lock, you have to do one more step: use the end of the cuff key to push this little pin into the side of the cuffs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was like, he’s just double locked him ’cause you see him go to his belt and then come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then, as they step out of the cell, Taylor turns to his right and says something to Sykes, the officer who just secured his cuffs. Then Taylor kneels down again this time outside the cell on the tier. I tell the sergeant that this is a moment that Taylor told Steele was evidence that staff were involved.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says this moment shows they- that accidentally Sykes double locked his right cuff and he came out of his cell and he goes to Sykes, “Are we double locking today?” Because if he’s double locked he can’t get out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Sykes gets back down on his knees and goes, “Oops, my bad.” And un-double-locks just the right hand cuffed — the left hand one was not double locked already — and then they proceed with the rest of the escort.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant rewinds and zooms in comparing the first time Officer Sykes locks the ankle cuffs with the second time he goes down to adjust them. The innocent explanation is that Taylor said the cuffs were too tight and Sykes loosened them. But even so, the cuffs should still have been double locked after loosening them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, it lends more credence and more credit to the fact that he was taking off the double lock. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They bring Taylor down the stairs and have him kneel on this chair that’s in the middle of the day room. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why is he on the chair? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s the black boxes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officers are putting those black boxes on that cover the keyhole of his ankle cuffs. Then they chain him to one of the fixed day room chairs. Next they go through the whole security protocol with Anthony Rodriguez. Put the black boxes on him and chain him to a seat two desks away from Taylor. Then the officers file out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then just, yeah, like watch, watch through for- from there, like them getting out and the kind of choreography of everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immediately Rodriguez and Taylor start messing with their restraints. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re, they’re looking at the control booth an awful lot. Like, to me they’re looking to see if anybody’s coming. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It takes almost two minutes for them to get out of their restraints. But again, if someone in the control booth was paying attention, that’s quite a bit of time to miss that these guys are up to something. Then both Taylor and Rodriguez are out. The next moment looks synchronized from the motion of them placing their right hands on the desks, standing up, running up the stairs. This time, Rodriguez is the one who gets something from Green’s cell. Rodriguez comes back down. They both hit the bottom of the staircase with Taylor in front. He kind of steps toward the control booth and the door with this big grin on his face. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who’s he smiling at?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was someone at the door. They, the, the control booth officer began to open the door as he’s coming down the stairs. So Taylor kind of goes before he has a knife or anything, kind of makes that motion towards the door. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a key moment that passes in a flash. But it’s important because it’s another opportunity for officers to step in before anything happens. But then, almost as quickly as it opens, the door closes again. Officers do not rush in. Rodriguez hands something to Taylor and they run over and begin stabbing Aguilar. At this point, policy requires that officers act immediately to stop a deadly threat. But they still have to decide how to act based on the situation. What the control booth officer does is fire the first of those foam or rubber projectiles. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh gosh, a rubber round just came out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked the sergeant if this seems late to him, he goes back in and looks at the timestamps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So six seconds between the time the rubber round comes out and do I think that’s late? No. Here’s part of the problem. Part of the problem is that up until they get to him, they’re just out of restraints. And I can promise you that every control cop in the world is gonna sit there and second guess using any sort of force at that point. Because they’re gonna say to you, this is what the department’s gonna say to me. “Where was the threat?” And you’re gonna go, well, they were outta their handcuffs. They were running around the building. “Okay, where was the threat?” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says six seconds as a response time is understandable, but what is less understandable is what happens from this point on. The sergeant says even if this officer didn’t have the mini 14 rifle — the deadly force option — slung on his body, which they’re supposed to, it would’ve been close by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He could have very easily grabbed the mini. You can’t make that decision for him. That’s the challenge. You know, if he, I, if I had almost, you know, 20 years in the department, I’d have picked up the mini and unloaded it on those guys. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he says that’s him with his experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t know what he would’ve done. And the same thing for the sergeant standing at the door and the sergeant standing at the door. I saw him making radio calls pretty much immediat- well, immediately while he was there I would’ve gone in a lot sooner than he did. But that’s me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sergeant says the officers should have gone in as soon as they had the numbers to go in — at least four officers at the door. On the video, the two men continue to rapidly and repeatedly stab Aguilar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like there’s multiple opportunities, you know, to do it. See this guy’s just stabbing him. I put a bullet in him already. I mean he’s clearly making stabbing motions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At one point they even stop stabbing him, kind of hiding behind the desks and then Taylor eggs on Rodriguez and Rodriguez goes back and continues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then he goes back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like Rodriguez finishes stabbing Aguilar. He stands up with his back to the control booth and Taylor steps forward and lands a last kick on Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When he gets up to kick him. Yeah, he, he gets shot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can see Taylor recoil as he gets hit by one of those foam rounds. Aguilar doesn’t appear to be moving anymore. Rodriguez throws the knife toward the door and lies down on his stomach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they don’t have an agreement with the officer to not shoot them dead. They have reason to believe that, that at some point during this he likely could \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And should, I mean all things… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, they should be dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Watching it, it feels like a long time. As second after second it moves forward to its awful conclusion. But looking at the timestamp from the moment the stabbing itself began until they stopped, it was little more than a minute. After we watch the videos, I ask the sergeant about Taylor’s testimony to Steele. To me, those details he offered are the most compelling evidence I’ve seen so far that officers knew the attack was going to happen, and I wanted to see what he made of Taylor’s motive for coming forward — the deal he was trying to strike with the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only, the only person that would think they could get that is someone who’s already worked with dirty staff. That’s the only, that’s the only reason, ’cause he knows it’s gotta be strings pulled. Like, hey, like if he honestly thinks that he did what he did then, then he honestly thinks that he can get that too. So, you know, just, it just leds a whole lot of credibility to his story. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor, Rodriguez and Green all say that staff knew an attack was going to happen on December 12th, 2019. I’ve spoken to additional witnesses who were incarcerated in the unit who also say that staff knew it was going to happen. The sergeant says he still has a hard time believing that officers ordered the hit. And he says they may not have even known it was gonna be deadly. But-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous Sergeant:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s no doubt in my mind staff knew it was going to happen. I mean, I’ve been on the yard, okay? And I’ve had what happens is staff start to develop rapport with inmates and inmates will tell, um, the staff like, “Hey, you probably don’t wanna come to work tomorrow.” It happens all the time. All the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So in law enforcement, yeah, we, we don’t do coincidence. And certainly if there is a coincidence, it’s not a whole whole entire scenario. So the fact that you have not once, not twice, but three times, these two guys got out of their cell and were able to do the same thing with weapons is not a coincidence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Tinkerbell again, the retired correctional officer who you heard from last episode. She says, at the very least, this pattern, the Britt incident, the practice run, and the homicide points to negligence on the part of officers. She says higher ups knew there were issues even running a day room in this high security unit. And there were issues with these three guys in particular.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether you have any humanity or not, we are paid to do a job. And if you don’t do their job and somebody gets killed, you should not sleep well at night. And if you say and do shit to instigate that, or further it, or fail to stop it when you knew or had prior knowledge, then shame on you. You are no better than the people that you are earning your retirement from. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tinkerbell says she knew Steele was looking into things, talking to the suspects.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was conducting an internal investigation that Internal Affairs refused to do. And when Internal Affairs had it, they covered it up or closed it out because they did not want any part of this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Tinkerbell that internal affairs did eventually look into the murder and some of the officers who were on duty that day did get disciplined, but there were some serious problems with that investigation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we’d gotten a chance to see the videos and the other evidence we were leaked. I had started trying to make contact with the officers named in the lawsuit, brought by Aguilar’s mom. The Attorney General’s office that’s representing them declined my request for an interview and referred me back to CDCR. CDCR has declined to comment on the case. But I also started emailing and calling some officers individually. I left a message for Demond Sykes, the guy who Taylor says didn’t double lock him, but he didn’t get back to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I also reached out to a number of officers on Facebook, including Eric Baker, the man who was the lieutenant of the B8 housing unit in 2019 when the murder happened, and the guy who Dion Green says was behind everything. Surprisingly Baker responded by calling me up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, would you mind if I record it or does that make you uncomfortable? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He didn’t want me to record the call, but he did agree to speak to me on the record, and I recorded my side of the phone call. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have talked to other officers, other law enforcement, other investigators who say that the pattern of these three guys working together, getting outta their cuffs multiple times in the same unit in the space of a couple months, like how does that happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker asked, how do people do these kinds of things all the time in prison? Criminal, he said, is a word that comes to mind, along with time and ingenuity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. What is your take on why they weren’t disciplined when they got outta their cuffs for the practice run? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said he was unaware of any practice run and that if staff had seen Rodriguez and Taylor out of their cuffs, there would have been a report. There was no report, so it couldn’t have happened the way I’d heard it did. Now, Anthony Rodriguez said Baker didn’t know anything about the murder ahead of time, but Green had told me Baker had orchestrated things. So I felt like I had to ask Baker about Green’s allegations directly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like I don’t, I just doesn’t need to be like super confrontational. I just wanna get your take on it. Um, but you know, the “shot caller” Dion Green, you know, said that you were, you know, basically behind this whole thing that you participated with him and ordered him to do this. Can you speak to that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker did not directly respond to this question, and I was a bit flustered, but he kind of scoffed at the idea I was even asking it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am asking you as a person to say, did you have anything to do with it, and did you work with Dion Green to- so I just want a straightforward answer from you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Baker said, I should already have my answer. He says the Office of Internal Affairs did a 19 month investigation and that they didn’t find he’d done anything wrong. But again, he didn’t directly respond to the allegation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so are you, are you refusing to deny that you had anything to do with it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said he couldn’t answer my question because the case was in active litigation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I understand why you can’t answer. I am just also wanted to give you the opportunity to answer if you so choose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, he told me he didn’t need to clear the air, saying that him talking to me doesn’t determine the future of his career, his past or his present. And he pointed out that in the years since the murder, he’s actually been promoted. He’s a captain now. That, he said, should tell me something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During my conversation with him, Baker did bring up one concrete piece of evidence — his proof that officers had nothing to do with the murder. It’s a phone call made by Anthony Rodriguez on a recorded line to a loved one in which Rodriguez said officers weren’t a part of the murder and he wasn’t gonna get somebody fired over something that wasn’t true. Baker’s point was if staff had put him up to it, why would Rodriguez deny it in this casual call? So I asked Anthony Rodriguez about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I said those words before, yes, I most definitely have said those words before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I asked why he’d say that. If officers really did help facilitate the murder the way he told me they did, why not say so? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wasn’t willing, willing to review all that stuff because at the time I had been there for a long time and I never had problems with these officers and I didn’t, I didn’t feel that I should, I should, uh, you know, be the reason to get them in trouble. You know what I mean? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Rodriguez said the story that he told me was the truth. And that that is the same thing he said under oath when he gave his deposition and the lawsuit brought by Luis Giovanny Aguilar’s mother Ma Rosario. He says he killed Aguilar over a slight on the yard. And that officers, while they didn’t order it or even know how serious the attack was going to be, did help him and Taylor carry it out. Rodriguez maintained that officers didn’t double lock the cuffs and that they agreed not to shoot them dead. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What strikes me is that regardless of which version of events you believe, there are just so many moments where this whole thing could have gone another way… and Aguilar would still be alive. If prison leaders had separated Taylor Rodriguez and Green following their attempted murder of Michael Britt. If officers had responded the day of the practice run and searched Taylor for weapons. If officers had double locked their cuffs. If officers had run through the doors before Rodriguez and Taylor got to Aguilar. If the control booth cop had fired his mini 14 to stop the attack.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in September of 2022, when I spoke to Aguilar’s mother Ma Rosario over Zoom, she said something that really stuck with me. She said, it didn’t matter if officers ordered the hit or just looked the other way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hay un dicho que dice, que dice “tanto peca el que mata la vaca como el que le agarra la pata.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario says, there’s this saying in Mexico that translates to, “He who kills the cow sins as much as he who grabs its leg.” Even though the officers did not hold the knives that killed her son, she holds them responsible for his death. The bottom line for her is that this happened, on their watch, and they did nothing to stop it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo sé que no soy la única madre que tiene un hijo precio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“I know I’m not the only mother that had a son in prison,” she says. “There are other mothers like me who hope to see their sons again one day only to find out that they’ve been unjustly killed.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y que este memento le digamos que se lo mataron injustamente.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario’s lawsuit against prison officials is ongoing. As far as we know the FBI are still investigating too. So those cases may provide more answers. But among the remaining mysteries of this case is one central to our story that we wanted to try and unravel. What happened to the investigative report that Officer Valentino Rodriguez wrote about the murder just before he left New Folsom Prison on stress leave. The report that his father, Val Sr., had so many questions about. In response to our requests for any reports on the murder written by Valentino, CDCR said, “We can’t locate any written reports by Valentino Rodriguez.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is very puzzling. Text messages on Valentino’s phone show he was actually working on two reports about the murder. One was an investigative memo explaining how the murder was related to gang activity. The other was a supplemental report to go with the disciplinary reports that were issued to each of the three suspects. We simply don’t know what happened to the investigative memo. It’s possible that Valentino didn’t complete it, but the other report, the supplemental, was actually leaked to us by a confidential source. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That report is also referenced in Dion Green’s public court documents. So we know that report was submitted and was in CDCR’s files in December of 2020. Why the agency’s public records team can’t find it now is a mystery. Tinkerbell says she looked at Valentino’s report and it was really well written, but-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you knew what you were reading, it didn’t, something just wasn’t connecting. It was like, this doesn’t make sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino’s supplemental report suggests that Aguilar’s killing was motivated by a dispute between two rival prison gangs: the independent riders, or IR, and the 2-5ers. Just a side note, these are smaller, less organized gangs that more recently have been trying to get power and notoriety in California prisons. Killing can be one of the ways to do that. The report notes that the weapons that were retrieved from the scene had markings on them: 666, along with the initials IR on one, and G Satan — Green’s moniker — written on the handle of the other. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It also said that Taylor participated in the killing as an initiation into the IR gang. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t believe any of this was for initiation. Um, I believe that they had said some shit on the tier about Aguilar and they didn’t like him and they wanted to murder someone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I talked to Taylor, he also said it had nothing to do with an initiation. Tinkerbell says Steele came to believe that that supplemental report didn’t totally make sense because it was written to serve another purpose. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so Kevin said the reason that is because they told him what to write and to make sure it had a gang nexus. And I’m like, “Why would they do that?” And then he said, “To take pressure off of staff.” And I was like, okay. So staff involvement for this? Okay, I don’t know, it’s, that’s a, it’s a big bag of worms to open up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We don’t know if Valentino ever spoke with the warden about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar or about his reports. But there were those cryptic text messages with Steele on the last day of Valentino’s life — about the two sides of New Folsom — in which Steele talked about running the race, and Valentino said he wanted his name left out of “everything.” And that it “took a lot out of me to relive the truth.” Tinkerbell says Steele felt like he should have walked with Valentino into that meeting with the warden. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was feeling, taking on responsibility that he should have done more to help Rodriguez. So he felt responsible. He took on responsibility that wasn’t his.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steele also felt responsible for the investigation into the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. But that was another responsibility that wasn’t his to bear. He was not an internal affairs investigator. He didn’t have the authority to interview officers or track down every lead. It was his job and his explicit obligation to pass on any allegations or evidence of misconduct to higher ups. The Chief Deputy Warden, Gina Jones and the Warden Jeff Lynch. And from all the evidence we have been able to review, it appears that this is what he did. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened to the case after it got handed up the chain? While that internal investigation was not released to us, we have been able to get a peek around the edges, and what we can see raises serious questions. First of all, what took so long? Internal emails that we got show that New Folsom officials delayed asking internal affairs to investigate, then the special agent assigned to the case also stalled conducting the investigation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An oversight agency did not conclude that that delay was intentional, but said the special agent also “failed to conduct effective interviews and didn’t talk to a crucial witness.” It’s not clear which witness they are talking about. But we do know they never got that final interview with Kevin Steele. The interview that a special agent called him about on the last day of his life. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell Tinkerbell that internal affairs investigation did result in the discipline of three officers. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The guy who didn’t fire his mini 14 or didn’t- said he didn’t have his mini 14 on him — who was the Tower guard — he got a 5% salary reduction for three months. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This incident was over 60 seconds long. I don’t wanna hear that. That’s such bullshit. He failed to act: violation. I cannot wrap my head around it. What else happened to the other officers? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tell her there was one officer who failed to respond to alarms both during the stabbing of Michael Britt and then again during the Aguilar homicide. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he got a 5% salary reduction for 12 months. Um, the third person who was disciplined, who got the highest discipline, was the one who took a video of the video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was an officer who’d used his phone to take a video of the surveillance footage of the homicide, and then he’d shared it. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what he got disciplined for — not for failing to protect the inmates or failing to respond or, you know, letting people outta their cuffs or any of that. It was for the video, um, for sharing the video. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, like, I just don’t understand how, I don’t understand how they haven’t been prosecuted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well also like, we just kind of found out, like through our investigation that they were not like- none of the officers were interviewed about this, um, by OIA until after Kevin was dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are fucking kidding me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a murder in the institution where all of these people failed to fucking respond. There was two, two for sure incidents and then a fucking dry run. There was videos of all of this that Kevin gave and that they didn’t fuck-ing interview anybody? Oh, Jesus Christ. Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has to pause for a moment to collect herself. She looks through her phone and reads out a message from Steele.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“How to kill a cop. I know. Alone, betrayed, enveloped in corruption.” These are like some of the, the texts that Steele sent me, like he was just… “Broken, betrayal, double crossed and sold out.” These are things that Kevin sent me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Tinkerbell says, what Steele did — coming forward — was incredibly hard to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you know how much courage it must have taken Kevin and Val to go to them and try to expose the wrongdoing? Do you know how much courage that must have taken?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the years, she says she’s witnessed and heard about a lot of things that troubled her, but she was afraid to come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s so many people that want to say something, but the fear… As a parent, right? What are some of our biggest fears? Our kids going to prison, us getting a call that something happened to them, finding out they have a medical issue that’s not curable. That fear has got nothing on the daily fear that you, you deal with walking into an institution if you’re viewed in a bad light. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She said she’s talking to us now because she doesn’t want what happened to Steele and what happened to Valentino to happen to anyone else. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t still afraid. She is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am, you know, willing to subject myself, when people find out or if people find out — I know it’s not if I know it’s a matter of when — that I’m just a two-faced inmate-loving rat piece of shit who’s trying to get good officers in trouble. And my view is that if they were good officers, they wouldn’t have done criminal activity. So don’t you put that on me. I didn’t make those decisions. I made the decision to not come forward with a lot of the information that I had because I was so afraid for my safety, my family’s safety, and my livelihood after.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since we aired her voice in that last episode three weeks ago, Tinkerbell has gotten a lot of calls and texts from people who recognized her voice. She’s also been called a dirty cop, publicly, by someone she doesn’t even know. But she still said we could use her voice in this episode. And she said she hopes other people can find the courage to do the right thing and come forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But my journey is the exact sames as Kevin’s in regards to we want people held accountable. And at the time, Val, Val was still’s motivation. Okay? Val and Kevin are a part of my motivation, but they’re not my sole motivation. My motivation is I want this to stop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming up next time in our final episode, Julie and I walk through the gates of New Folsom prison. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t usually stress out, but I haven’t been in a prison for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh here we go, CSP-Sac.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You feeling it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m feeling it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we speak to two correctional officers who did wanna go on the record with us, because like Tinkerbell, they’ve seen too many of their fellow officers pay a price.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Annette Eichorn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, two of them that are dead. Because to find the truth. That should shock the shit out of everybody that’s still there. And I don’t understand how it’s not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re listening to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season Two: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauléon. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fuda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR and KQED’s Ted Goldberg. And thank you to Alan Lurie of BOA Security who walked me through the mechanics of the transport boxes and the handcuffs.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional Music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor Jr, Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "6-the-day-room-s2-new-folsom",
"title": "6. The Day Room | S2: New Folsom",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The team digs deep into the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar—the murder in the day room that Officer Valentino Rodriguez was tasked to write a report about, and that had consumed Sgt. Kevin Steele up until the last day of his life. We track down each of the men who took part in the stabbing to find out: did officers also play a role?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9838235524\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes graphic descriptions of violence, homicide, and briefly references a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey, did you wanna start with the first question?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing we were gonna say is that we understand it can be difficult and emotional, so if there’s some point where you need to take a break or you don’t wanna talk, that’s, that’s okay. If there’s any questions that you’re not comfortable with.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Si te cuesta hablar de esto díganos, podemos tomar una descanso.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In September of 2022, one of the show’s producers, Steven Rascon, and I got on a Zoom call with this woman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok. Mi nombre es este “eme a” rosario Buena Zaragoza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario is the mother of Luis Giovanny Aguilar the, man whose murder in the day room at New Folsom Prison is at the heart of our story, the same man on the video that Officer Valentino Rodriguez showed his father at the Christmas party — a brutal stabbing that seemed to go on and on, while the officer in the control booth only fired those foam bullets. Questions about this murder and whether officers had set it up had also consumed Sgt. Kevin Steele up until the last day of his life. And we knew at this point, almost three years later, the FBI was also still looking into this case, just like we were. We hoped the woman on this Zoom call could help us understand a bit about the victim at the center of all this, her son.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y cómo fue tu relación con Luis Giovanny?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Muy bonita para mi muy bonita la relación de mi hijo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had a very beautiful relationship. He was very sweet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo adoraba mi hijo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I adored him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Claudia Bohorquez, Ma Rosario’s attorney, who’s helping Ma Rosario sue New Folsom officials and is translating for her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Estoy en Tijuana…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario had moved back to Tijuana from Los Angeles after she split up with Luis Giovanny’s dad, but her son stayed living in LA.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuando mi hijo fue a la cárcel… pues me sentí mal. Me puse a llorar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When my son went to jail, I felt horrible. I got sick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The police report says in 2009, Luis Giovanny got in an argument with his girlfriend, and he hit her. She was holding their one-year-old daughter. Luis Giovanny, who was 19 at the time, swung again, missing his girlfriend and giving his daughter a bloody nose. He took a plea deal and was sent to prison. He got out in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me quería desmayar cuando lo vi…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted to faint when I saw him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Out of prison and now in his late 20s, he came to see his mom in Tijuana.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Porque fue una impresión ver a mi bebe tan grandote tan guapo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a very strong impact for me to see my baby now a grown man, and so handsome.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo lo miraba muy feliz y yo tengo esa foto muy feliz…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She holds up a picture from that visit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y una foto donde me dio una abrazo, fuerte fuerte.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re side by side, hugging each other tightly, their faces pressed against each other. Luis Giovanny looks young, with a buzzed haircut and mustache. It was the last time she saw him. After his visit, Luis Giovanny went back to The States, and before too long, again got arrested, this time for stealing a car and trying to flee police. Claudia, the attorney, says this whole thing was based on a misunderstanding. It was his uncle’s car, and he took it without asking. But with his prior record, he was sent back to prison for four years. And of course, he wasn’t sent to just any prison. He ended up in the most dangerous prison in the state, locked up in an incredibly high-security unit with men who’d been convicted of the most serious crimes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Todo ese tiempo yo no pude hablar con él, solo por cartas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t talk to him, I could only communicate with him through letters. I could not speak to him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario tells us her son didn’t want her to worry about him, so in his letters, he didn’t really talk about his life in prison, but he would send artwork.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sí, él lo dibujó.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s amazing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over Zoom, she shows us some pictures he drew.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A little closer too. Isn’t that amazing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A la pantalla…cerca\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including a detailed, almost photorealistic black-and-white portrait of his grandfather, Ma Rosario’s father, a man with strong cheekbones, wearing a cowboy hat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s so good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The last letter she received from him was in early December, 2019. Eight days later, she says she was out looking for a Christmas tree. When she got home, she noticed that she had missed a bunch of calls. Her ex, Luis Giovanny’s father, was trying to get in touch with her, so she called him, already fearing something terrible had happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He didn’t know even how to tell me that, that our son was, had been killed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuando yo supe la noticia, cuando exploté, yo grité y le di golpes a la pared.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She said, “When I found out, I, I screamed. I hit the wall.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What did they say had happened to him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Una pelea.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That he had, uh, it was a fight, and that they had stabbed my son.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A fight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, a fight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was the first story she was told about her son’s death, and we know this was not true. There was no fight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario, just like us, is still trying to understand what is the real truth of what happened on December 12, 2019, in the restricted, high-security B8 Unit at New Folsom Prison. In this episode, we’re gonna dive deep into this case to try to answer that question, but it won’t be easy. Key witnesses have died, evidence is missing, and everyone we talked to who knows what happened seems to have a reason to lie. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season 2: New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get into the weeds, let’s start with the basic facts of what happened on December 12, 2019, facts that aren’t disputed, and that are reflected in internal CDCR reports that were leaked to us by a confidential source. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That day, 29-year-old Luis Giovanny Aguilar was brought down by officers into the day room, a shared space, typically used for recreation and classes. It was a new program, and pretty unusual for a solitary housing unit, or a SHU, like this. Two other men, Cody Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez, were brought down next, and there’s an elaborate security protocol to this. Each of the men were strip searched, wanded with a metal detector, and placed in restraints, handcuffs attached to a waist chain and ankle restraints.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once in the day room, each of these men were then attached by those ankle shackles to their chairs. Overlooking the day room was a control booth, where an officer sat. His job was to monitor the unit, and he had a 40-millimeter gun that shot foam projectiles and a deadly Mini-14 rifle in the booth for use if necessary. We do not know what the officer was doing or if he saw that Rodriguez and Taylor were working quickly to get out of their restraints. Once freed, Rodriguez went up the stairs and retrieved two long improvised knives from the cell of another incarcerated man on the second tier, Dion Green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rodriguez then came back down and handed one of the knives to Taylor. The two then approached Aguilar and began stabbing him as he sat shackled and unable to move. They stabbed him 55 times. The reports that were leaked by a confidential source do not say how long this took. They also don’t say when the control booth officer took action, but at some point, he did fire four foam rounds. Taylor and Rodriguez eventually stopped their attack, threw down their weapons, and lay facedown on the floor. Responding officers flooded into the day room. Among the officers who responded that day was Sgt. Kevin Steele. Steele, trained as a medic in the Air Force, tried to resuscitate Aguilar, but all the efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at the on-site medical center.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew Kevin knew something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Dion Green. He was in his cell in the second tier of the housing unit. Minutes earlier, he’d handed the knives under the door to Anthony Rodriguez, and then the murder played out. Now he watched as the veteran investigator took in the scene.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was the only one, when they all came inside the day room, it was about 30, 40 cops, squad and everybody. He was the only one just looking around. He was looking. He was standing there just looking, and wanted to know, “How the hell did they pull this off?” And he was just looking at the cameras, looking at the, the locks, the chains, looking up, you know, at the, at, at the cell, looking up how we came, uh, orchestrated everything. He was like, “Nah, something’s missing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at first, all the evidence pointed to an open-and-shut case. Within hours, Green had confessed to ordering the hit, and all three men were eventually charged with murder. Cody Taylor pled out first, taking a 102-year sentence. Anthony Rodriguez pled next and got 34 years to life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m the only one that hasn’t resolved my issues with, with the case yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ll hear from Taylor and Rodriguez later on too, but I wanted to talk to Green first, because I knew from reading through court documents and talking to sources that Steele had convinced Green to do something pretty remarkable: cooperate with his investigation. It seemed like he was the key to understanding Steele’s obsession with this case. Now keep in mind, Green also has his own reasons for talking to me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My life is on the line here. Please understand this. This is as serious it is as I, as I’m telling you, ma’am. If I don’t die from my heart failure, I’m gonna die in the hands of CDCR. They’re gonna set me up and kill me, I promise you that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Department officials have said in court filings that Green is not in danger. Over the past year, I’ve talked to Green many times. Originally from the Chicago and Detroit areas, Green was convicted of murder in California when he was 20. He’s been in prison ever since. Last year, I visited him at a prison in Stockton, California for people with serious medical conditions. He’s 50 years old now, and needs a walker to get around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not as healthy as I used to be. I never been around this corner before. I’m not the same as I used to be, but I’m still considered a very dangerous man.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green has dark eyes, with an unusual gray-blue ring around them. He says they’ve always been that way. He’s black and Puerto Rican, and he has pentagram tattoos on his hands and 666 tattooed on the back of his head. In prison, he goes by the nickname G Satan, or Satan. Four-and-a-half years ago, before the murder, before his heart problems and his health deteriorated, when he was transferred into the restricted B8 Unit at New Folsom Prison, he says he had even more power.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everything ran through me, you know what I’m saying? Everything ran through me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of people were in the B8 unit for committing new crimes in prison. That’s part of what the unit was for, and Green was no exception. He’d been moved to New Folsom because he was found with a weapon after trying to kill a man in Lancaster State Prison in Southern California. That man was named Michael Britt, and he’s important because what happened with Britt laid the groundwork for everything that happened later with Luis Giovanny Aguilar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Green showed up at New Folsom in September of 2019, he discovered something. His old enemy, Britt, was also there, in the exact same unit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I got here, moving me over to long-term, was my documented enemy — that’s how all started it. You put me right next to him on an ongoing case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, CDCR policy doesn’t outright bar wardens from placing two people like this, who are documented enemies, near each other. There are a lot of enemies behind bars, and sometimes it can’t be helped. For example, both Britt and Green likely had to be in the restricted unit because of their histories and how the department had classified them, but within that restricted unit, there were three different housing sections. Officers I spoke to say choosing to put both Green and Britt in the same housing section was a bad idea and a big security risk. And looking at this case, you can see why. Just a couple weeks after Green arrives in the unit, two men slip out of their cuffs in the day room and stab his enemy, Michael Britt, multiple times, as Green looked on from his chair in the day room. Britt is rushed to the hospital and ultimately survives this second attempt on his life. Green tells prison officials he was behind it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I went in there as an older homie. I said, “Listen, this case is some business from Lancaster. You guys wasn’t even supposed to put us together.” X, Y, and Z, I went in there and said what I needed to say.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green said he was a high-ranking member of a prison gang who orchestrated the hit by, “Influencing two inmates to carry it out,” according to court records. Those two incarcerated men under his influence were Cody Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez. So within a month of arriving at New Folsom, Green had found his hitters, and established himself as the shot caller of the secure housing unit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two months after the attempt on Britt, this same team struck again, the same guys, in the same housing section, in the same day room. But this time, the victim was Luis Giovanny Aguilar, and this time, their victim died. When Green was interviewed by investigators from the DA’s office that same night, he claimed responsibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was me. I ordered this.” You know what I’m saying? “It was this business.” You know, I went in there and, uh, made it seem like that I was just the worst fucking dude on the face of this Earth, you know? That I was this heartless fucking dude, and I just killed this dude in this gang business, and it, you know, that’s my statements.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Internal reports leaked by a confidential source reflect this. These reports say that Green called the murder, “Business.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what the script was, so it can just all go away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now Green says that script was just a story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That shit was made up, man, period.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was asking what you, what you know about Dion Green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dion Green… What, oh, the inmate?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The shot caller, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or, the quote-unquote-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, honestly, I think if, uh, people worked hard enough, I think you could get him to tell you the truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This correctional officer retired from the department after working at New Folsom for 15 years. She didn’t want us to use her real name, because she’s afraid of retaliation, so my co-reporter Julie gave her a codename: Tinkerbell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aww.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> ‘Cause your hairstyle reminds me-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, I love-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…of her hairstyle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Tinkerbell. Oh yeah, totally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She explains why Green had power in the prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s a shot caller because he’s got a lot of people that put money on his books. He has access to dope. So you have a bunch of dope heads and people that are in there, and they know that all they have to do is kill somebody in order to, you know, be in good graces with Green, or to get the dope, or to whatever. They have nothing to lose.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Tinkerbell’s pointing out is that life can be cheap in prison — the cost of a cell phone or some drugs. In the past decade, at least 33 people have been killed in New Folsom alone. We tried to compare this number to prisons across the state, but both the Department of Justice and CDCR had problems with their data, so getting an accurate number of people killed in California prisons was impossible. When Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed, Tinkerbell says she was off work recovering from an injury, and didn’t think much of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you hear that, it’s like it’s, “Okay, well, I mean, it’s, oh, it’s another homicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when she got back to work, she started looking into the details of what happened with the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whenever we had incidents, or whenever we got new inmates, I was very nosy. I want to know and understand these guys’ mentality. I wanna know what their history is at other prisons. Um, I wanna know whatever I can to protect other inmates, to protect that inmate, and to protect our staff, always, always, always why I was nosy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She says she already knew the reputations of his killers, Rodriguez and Taylor, so she was snooping through their prior cases.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was looking at Taylor’s history, and I saw that he had stabbed Britt, and I went in, and I was like, “Oh, well what’s the circumstances of this?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she started to connect the dots. Before they killed Aguilar, they’d tried the same thing with Michael Britt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And like, my red flags started going off in a major way. I’m like, first of all, how in the hell did it happen almost identically twice? And how in the hell did these guys get out of their cuffs, or weren’t supervised, knowing that they had already gotten out of their cuffs and done this to Britt? How the hell did this happen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Red flag number one, starting with the attack on Britt in the day room, Tinkerbell wanted to know why these two documented enemies, Dion Green and Michael Britt, were housed together.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At no point should they have been on the same yard, let alone the same building.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Britt and Green?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Correct.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, department policy doesn’t say this is forbidden, but enemy concerns are a key factor in determining where it’s safe to house someone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is a huge safety issue and no-no.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so to your mind, is this, um, incompetence or is this by design?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, at minimum, it’s incompetence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Red flag number two, after the attempted murder on Britt, they still kept all these guys housed in the same section together.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not gonna sit here and judge whether, um, Aguilar was a good person or not, because it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t our job. Our job was to protect him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And everything she was reading in these reports was telling her they’d failed to do that job.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Phone static] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma’am, how are you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m doing okay. How are you this morning, Dion?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m just-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One second. I’m just trying to get my recorder hooked up, if that’s okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you record, you record our whole conversation, or you, or are you gonna edit some stuff, or how does that work?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, yeah. I’m recording it, and then I will edit it. I will edit it, so…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of our many conversations like this one, Green tells me that it was in early 2020 — now facing a murder charge for Aguilar and two attempted murder charges for Britt — that he started seeing quite a bit of Sgt. Kevin Steele. Steele, as the criminal prosecution coordinator, was the person who brought Green back and forth to take legal phone calls, and then as the pandemic got underway in 2020, to attend court hearings over Zoom. Green says Steele was trying to get him to talk, but he was sticking to his story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, and I was just constantly still lying to him, telling him that, uh, you know, “Ah man, it’s, this is what it was, man. Bottom line, he just had to go, and that was that.” I was, I just stuck to my statements, and kept going, you know? But he kept shooting little shots like, “Something’s keeping me up at night, Mr. Green,” and I was like, “Well uh, I don’t know what to tell you,” you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then, Green says, Steele found something that would change his whole understanding of the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s when he came and says, “Hey, uh, you know, we, we need to really talk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Steele had found was a surveillance video of the B8 unit. According to Green, what this video shows is a dry run, where you can see them walking through some of the steps leading up to the murder. If true, this was a stunning piece of evidence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you, can you describe the dry run a little bit for me?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The dry run was exact same as the murder. The dry run was it was Monster and Kill-Kill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monster is Taylor’s prison name, and Kill-Kill is what they call Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monster and Kill-Kill was in the day room. I was in the cell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It took place a week before the murder. Green says the two men were both brought out and shackled to chairs in the day room. The practice run was necessary, Green says, because after the attack on Britt, a new security measure had been added to the day room routine. Now, when they were brought out and chained to their chairs, a box, usually used in prison transport, was placed over the cuffs around their ankles, totally covering the keyhole, making them much more difficult to pick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since it’s double locked, the cuff won’t move. The cuff will not move. It won’t give an inch or nothing. The cuff just does not move.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is a way around these black boxes. If the officers single lock the cuffs, out of laziness or forgetfulness, or as Green says, intentionally, you can easily slide a thin, flat piece of metal, like a flattened paper clip, into the side of the cuffs, lifting the teeth of the mechanism and popping it open. This totally circumvents the black boxes. Green says for all this to work, there was one more thing they needed to have in place: the help of officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everybody had it arranged with the COs that the test run and stuff was gonna happen today. So, we told them to be sure that you leave it single locked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says ahead of the practice run, the officers in the unit had agreed to single lock the cuffs around their ankles, allowing them to test their plan, and Green says it worked like a dream. Taylor was out of his cuffs in seconds, and came to the door of Green’s cell, grabbed the weapons, and brought them back down to the day room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the video, it shows Monster engage in conversation with the towers and stuff, were talking to ’em. Monster and them w- was talking to ’em, the tower.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the tower, Green means the officer in the control booth overlooking the day room. Again, if true, this video appeared to reveal that officers had seen these two guys, who’d slipped their cuffs and tried to kill someone two months earlier, in the day room, and one of them gets out of those cuffs again, and the officers don’t do anything to stop it. Steele thought this was very strange that officers had allowed this to happen, Green says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He brought the test run to me, he showed me on video, and that’s when it, that’s when the lies stopped. The lies stopped then, and the truth had to, had to, you know, start being told, and that’s where we at now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says he asked Steele what he was going to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Uh, are you going to just continue covering this up, like the, you know, the rest of your officers, the rest of you?” “No, I can’t. Absolutely not. I took an oath. I took an oath, and I stand on that. My integrity, my morals, my honor, you know? I, I, I had to, I have to.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s what Green says he told Steele. Officers, Green calls them cops, had told him that Aguilar was a child molester.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the cops said that he’s a child molester, when you bring this information to guys in prison, right? Child molesters, rapists, and stuff like that, it’s somebody that’s, that, that’s a no-no for us, you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of rules in prison, the official rules of the institution and the unwritten rules that everyone, including a lot of the officers, live by, or as Green says, manipulate for their own purposes. Green says the lieutenant of the unit, a man named Eric Baker, came to him because he was the shot caller, and asked him to handle Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, and you know, my name always came up with, with, with the “good business” you know? “He’s a serious man. He’s serious about his business, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut,” you know? So that’s how they just… You know, they just know in prison. You just know. COs know, and we know, who’s dirty and crooked. You know, once you’re in the game long enough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says he told Sgt. Steele that this lieutenant was the actual shot caller, and that Baker threatened him and forced him to carry out the murder. Now, I wanna be clear. We do not have any evidence of Baker’s involvement beyond Green’s word. In court filings, Baker has denied any involvement, and he told me on the phone that none of the multiple investigations into this incident have found him guilty of anything. When Green told me this about Baker, I was a bit skeptical.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For one, it just seems like too many motives. They killed Aguilar because he was a child molester, because they were paid by officers to do so, and because they were threatened. So many times during these conversations with Green, I wished I could talk to Steele and ask him what he made of this man’s story, if there were aspect he’d doubted, but I had no way to do that, and no way to know if I was even getting the same story Green had told Steele. What Green told me is that Baker arranged for everything, for an officer to bring him the cutting tool to make the knives, for an officer to bring in heroin, methamphetamine, and weed for Green to give Taylor and Rodriguez as payment, an officer to make sure that the cuffs were not double locked, allowing them to escape the black boxes, and he directed the officer in the control booth not to fire the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was no gunfire, no Mini, no nothing. Your job is to save a person’s life, you know? So it’s, it’s just a lot of moving pieces to this, this execution that took place. You know, it was an execution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar, as we’ve said before, has no convictions for molesting a child, but Dion Green says he didn’t find this out until months after the murder, when Steele told him. Green says it became clear that officers had manipulated him. There was a different reason they wanted Aguilar dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Truth of the matter is it’s because of one damn reason, and that was because he assaulted the staff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar had assaulted an officer. Documents show about a week before the murder, as Aguilar was coming out of the shower, he kicked him in the chest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just can’t… Man, that, that just… Uh, that, that don’t go on. You just can’t assault the police or just assault without them doing nothing, without something, and if the right crew was on, it could cost you your life, like it did him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do I believe that an officer intentionally did or ordered this? In my gut, I have a very hard time saying yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retired correctional officer, codenamed Tinkerbell, tells Julie and me there’s another scenario that’s not uncommon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes on tiers, people say stuff about inmates that they don’t like, that may or may not be true, so that other people assault them. So, for instance, I don’t like Julie. I’m on the tier, and I know that other inmates don’t like Julie, and I’m an officer, and I go up to Julie, and I’m like, “Julie, you shouldn’t have done this to that kid. You’re such a piece of shit.” And everyone else on the tier hears it. Now, the tier thinks that Julie is a child abuser, or a molester, or what have you. So now, me as an inmate, I’m gonna be like, “Hey, don’t worry about this. I got this,” and then they take care of business.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve heard this from other incarcerated people too, and there’s a documented case of something similar happening at another California prison in 2017. An incarcerated person came forward and told prison officials that he was part of a crew that officers allowed out of their cells in order to attack sex offenders. An investigation found a cache of weapons in a locked area only accessible to officers, and four officers were fired. Tinkerbell says Aguilar’s history shows he was difficult to handle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar was a, was a mouthy little shithead, but all in all, he didn’t do anything to have this happen to him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But were all these people involved? The officers on duty the day of the killing, more officers who were there for the practice run, even a lieutenant? And did the videos of the practice run and the murder really show what Green said they showed? Could there be another, less nefarious explanation? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was hard to believe that such a complex and widespread conspiracy could take place in an institution with so many eyes watching, and why would officers risk their careers, their pensions, over a mouthy young guy? Again, these officers have denied any involvement, and as we uncovered evidence and looked over leaked documents, we discovered there was a big hold in Green’s explanation of the motive. Yes, Aguilar had assaulted an officer. Disciplinary records show that assault took place on December 6, 2019, six days before the murder. But here’s the thing. The practice run, where Green said they tested their plan to escape the black boxes, that actually happened the day before, on December 5th. So unless we were missing something, the plan to take Aguilar out had to have already been in place before Aguilar kicked that officer in the chest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew I’d have to ask Green about this discrepancy at some point, but I still couldn’t understand, if no officers were involved, if everything Green said was a lie, how had allegations that officers played a role in this murder made it all the way to the FBI? Officially, the FBI refused to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, but in late September 2023, I spoke to a special agent on the phone who said the case was still active, and right before we launched this series, CDCR confirmed there is an ongoing investigation into Aguilar’s murder, involving outside law enforcement. CDCR declined to comment further. So, the FBI clearly thought there was something worth a multiyear investigation, and Steele, who’d worked in the ISU for years and had access to a lot more evidence than we did, appeared to take Green’s story very seriously.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Data we obtained from internal CDCR emails shows that about seven months after Aguilar was killed, Steele emailed Warden Jeff Lynch regarding interviews he’d done, video recordings of Dion Green’s statements, and other videos of Steele interviewing Cody Taylor, Monster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever record any interviews with Kevin Steele?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, no.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Cody Taylor, and this is not true. I’ve spoken to multiple people who’ve seen those recordings that Steele made with Taylor, and I’ve seen them referenced in internal CDCR emails. But I also understand why he doesn’t want to admit it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why tell me and not him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s one thing to talk to the public, right? And it’s one thing to talk about the police, right? But it’s another thing… Like, you don’t be talking about inmates, and you don’t fucking talk to squad, which is another terminology for IGI, which is the gang taskforce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is another one of those rules of prison life. Just like there’s a code of silence among officers, there’s a code of silence among incarcerated people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, you just don’t talk to them, period.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Taylor pleaded guilty, remember, he got 102 years, so the rules of prison life are the rules that will likely govern the rest of his life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, I think what you guys really need to understand out there, man, is, you know, I didn’t create prison. I’m just living here trying to survive it, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I spoke to Taylor, I tried to keep these rules in mind, and the other motivations that he likely had for talking to me. Before we talked on the phone in September of 2023, I had exchanged a few letters with him. Taylor had told me he was part of a gang and would need their permission to do the interview, so that was one factor. He also said he was interested in writing a book and that I could get famous if I helped him. So going into the interview, I already knew by his own admission that he was likely bound by the rules of his gang and wanted to promote their power, and that he was interested in fame, or at least notoriety. And so there’s this central tension in understanding everything that Taylor says. He both wants to talk and is fearful of crossing the gang or the guards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming in as a juvenile, I learned real quick, man, that, you know, it’s a different society in here, and it’s survival of the fittest, and so at the end of the day, you gotta choose. Do you wanna be a victim or you wanna be a suspect?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he killed Aguilar because he was in a warring gang. But like Green, he says without officer help, they couldn’t have gotten out of their shackles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s only two ways to get out of a black box.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One, he said, is to pick the master padlock on the black boxes, but that takes time. The other way is to get help from officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you look in the video, I’m out of my handcuffs within a matter of five seconds, so you know, you, you add one plus one, you, you, you’ll get the answer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Taylor, Aguilar’s assault on an officer the day after the practice run on December 6th just tipped the scales in their favor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It just so happened to happen that Mr. Aguilar assaulted one of ’em, and they came back immediately the next day and was like, “Here, bam. We got you. Don’t worry.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because, Taylor says, after Aguilar assaulted an officer, correctional staff in the unit agreed to facilitate the murder. This could partially explain the discrepancy in the timeline, because in Taylor’s telling, the assault is not a motive for officers to order the killing, but instead a motive for them to allow the killing, to single lock the cuffs and to agree not to fire the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reality behind the scenes is, is most of the murders in prison are done, or been able to be done, because the police let them. Number one, the police know about it before it’s gonna happen. Number two, they either allow it to happen, or number three, they do not do nothing to stop it from happening. And still to this day, man, you, you know, you run into a police officer, their favorite line is, “Hey, bro. This is level four. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” you know? So-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… they don’t do nothing to stop it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For people who might not understand what that, what that phrase means, like, what does that mean to you, “This is level four, it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen”?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so this is a maximum-security prison. The highest level, the most violent killers in the state of California are housed in one square little box, and if they’re gonna kill somebody, or the mob is gonna have them killed, it’s gonna happen. They’re not gonna stop it, because as soon as the police start to get involved in mob hits, it’s, it’s gonna be, you know, they’re gonna get killed, and so that in itself, the police do do the most not to get involved in prison gang politics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Taylor says that officers, in retaliation for the assault on one of their own and in order to keep their own safe, helped them carry out the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, ma’am. Well, you, well, you know where I’m at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. Thank you, Cody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a month after we spoke on the phone, I sent Taylor a message on his prison tablet. When he talked about his motive for the murder, he’d made it all about gang stuff, but I wanted to know if he’d also heard the rumor that Aguilar was a child molester. He replied back, “Yes. It turns out he wasn’t, some shit the police were saying. But Mr. Steele, the ISU officer, RIP, did in fact clarify.” So, that was another piece of Green’s story that Taylor backed up. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in the next few messages Taylor sent me, he seemed to be spiraling. He said he was worried about having to testify in the lawsuit brought by Aguilar’s mom, and then that he was gonna file a lawsuit himself and subpoena me. The final message he sent was perhaps the most confusing of all. “Hey, don’t publish that. It’s not true. I wanted to use the story and info for a book, sad face. Sorry to waste your time. It just wasn’t true.” I asked him to clarify what wasn’t true, but he didn’t reply, and he blocked me on the messaging app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think his fears about testifying in the lawsuit are a clue to Taylor’s sudden change of heart toward me. He had filed an objection in court, saying he wanted the family to know the truth, but it would put his life in danger to testify. A week after my last communication with Taylor, a judge heard Taylor’s objection, what’s called a motion to quash. I couldn’t record the hearing, but I listened in as Taylor told the judge his fears. Other incarcerated people could retaliate if they found out he’d broken the rules and worked with officers. Meanwhile, if he testified against the guards, he’d be in an impossible situation. He told the judge, “There’s two mysterious deaths, right? You got the officer Rodriguez that, you know, died of an overdose, and then you got the officer that quote-unquote ‘suicide.’ Like, just say hypothetically whatever I’m saying is bullshit, right? Whether it’s bullshit or not, which I, there’s evidence to support otherwise, but just the fact of me going up against these officers, I’m always gonna lose, Your Honor.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this hearing, which was public, Taylor said that Steele had talked about getting him somewhere safe, like federal custody. The judge sounded very sympathetic to Taylor’s concerns, but said there was no legal basis to allow him not to testify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this, we went back and forth about what to include from Taylor. We didn’t wanna heighten the danger to him, but to leave out his story and choices he made, including his decision to talk to Steele, would also distort the truth. It’s our job to tell the truth. It’s ultimately CDCR’s job to keep him safe. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the murder, he’s been bounced around to a few different prisons, including Pelican Bay in Stockton, where I talked to him. But just weeks before Taylor was supposed to give that deposition, CDCR transferred him again, back to New Folsom Prison. On the day he was supposed to be deposed, Taylor refused to attend the hearing, according to court documents. The attorney for CDCR is still trying to get him to testify.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was actually surprised to hear him saying that, you know, his life was in danger.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Taylor’s friend, Anthony Rodriguez, the third man who was charged in the murder, and is currently in Lancaster State Prison in Los Angeles County.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got, uh, 35 years to life for the murder, and 25 years to life for the attempted murder on Britt, and seven to life for the, for the weapon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’d reached out to him by letter as a long shot. I honestly didn’t think he’d talk to me, because of the three guys who’d been involved in the murder, he was the only one who stuck to that rule. As far as I can tell, he never talked to Steele, or to internal affairs, or to the FBI. But for some reason, he did agree to talk to me, and later, he told me he agreed to give a deposition in the family’s lawsuit. He tells me, at first he couldn’t believe that Green and Taylor had talked to Steele, until his defense attorney showed him the videos Steele had made of his interviews with them — videos we still hadn’t been able to see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I actually watched them myself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, wow. Interesting. And did… What did… What did Taylor say in his video?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor said the same thing. He s- He said, uh, he said his, his life was in danger because he told them that the cops were involved. And like I said, a lot of stuff that they said wasn’t true. They added a lot more. I don’t know why. But there was some truth to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Talking to Anthony Rodriguez was kind of surreal. I knew he’d committed a number of really terrible crimes. He and Taylor had even painted Aguilar’s blood across their faces. But the way he talked about killing Aguilar was totally casual. He said he did regret it, because if he hadn’t, he could be out right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As far as remorse, I, I really don’t feel it too much. I’ve always been like that, since I was a kid. I’ve never had those, those types of emotions. You know what I mean?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says he didn’t murder Aguilar because he was a child molester or because Green told him to. The reason he gives, his motive for killing Aguilar, is based on something that from the outside, seems small.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, can I ask w-Why Aguilar? Like, I was, I saw in your letter you said he crossed your name out on the yard, but like what does that mean?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean literally just what it means, you know? Uh, I have a habit of, of… We go into the same cages all the time when we go to yard. They put us in dog cages. We, we call them dog cages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re held in a restricted housing unit like B8, you do get to have time outside, but only in these solitary cages. So Rodriguez says he wrote his moniker, Kill-Kill, on the side of the cage, and Aguilar wrote his nickname, Raskal, over top of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have a habit of writing my name out in the cages, like with a pen, or a marker, or, or a crayon, or something, and that’s all he did. That, he just did that to me, and, and it’s, it’s a sign of big disrespect, so I did it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for officer involvement, Rodriguez says part of what Green and Taylor told Steele is true. Officers did help them in important ways. He says they agreed not to double lock their cuffs and they agreed not to use the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would you have been able to pull off the murder the way that it happened, you know, without any kind of assistance or complicity with the officers?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when it comes to the officers’ motive, Rodriguez says he’s in the dark.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be honest with you, they probably got their own reasons. Uh, I really don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In court filings, CDCR officials have denied that officers in any way helped these men carry out a murder. And I want to acknowledge something here. Each of these men are unreliable narrators, and I’m only playing small clips of the many hours I spent on the phone talking to them, in which I went down numerous rabbit holes and found plenty of contradictions and outright lies. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there was something attractive about Rodriguez’s story. Unlike the story Green tells, it’s simple. There doesn’t need to be a mass conspiracy, just a couple officers who basically agreed to look the other way. Pieces of Taylor’s story also explained a few things, the funky timeline, and he proposed a motive that makes sense for officers, that they agreed to help in part because one of their own was assaulted, and because it’s just practical. If a murder is going to happen, they wanna make sure no officers get injured in the process.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um- \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Phone static]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you go to the deposition?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just… Yes, ma’am. I just came back right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How was it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And um… Probably it was like four hours, five hours.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In September 2023, Dion Green told his story again, over Zoom, to the attorney for the officers and Claudia Bohorquez, Ma Rosario’s lawyer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when we were last talking, you said you were n- not sure if you wanted to do it or not, that you were nervous about it. Um, what made the difference for you today?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just woke up saying like, I, I got to do right. That’s all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says in the deposition, he repeated what he’d told Steele on the recorded video tapes about the practice run, the black boxes, and how they simply could not have pulled off the homicide without the help of officers. And he says he told Claudia that he also had a message for Aguilar’s family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I told her, I said, “Ms. Claudia, I did that. And that was a bad call. And it’s killing me. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” I said, “I, I’m hurt by it. I’m just hurt. I’m hurt. That’s not cool.” But what’s my hurt to, compared to them? You know? This is all about them. And you know, I hate that Steele died, ma’am.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I hate he killed himself, but you know, that, that was like my, like a good friend of mine, man. It, it, it sucked. And he couldn’t take it. And I’m proud of what he did, though. I, I’m proud.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says making the choice to talk to Steele has also left him very isolated. Within days of making those recorded statements, that Green believed would be kept confidential, the word was out on the housing tier that he had talked, and he says the label of snitch has followed him. Taylor and Rodriguez have both distanced themselves from Green, and Green says officers have threatened him. When Steele died, he says he lost his one ally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen, I don’t have anything. Look, all I have is you. Look, I’m already wanted. They gonna kill me. CDC officers is gonna kill me. When you put it on, on blast, everything, you know? It’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be ugly. But I want the podcast to start, because I’m gonna sit back and I’m gonna do roll call. I’m gonna do role call on, on all of them, on all CDC officers. I’m doing roll call, period. The podcast is coming out. I’m telling everybody, yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Well, it’s not coming out for a while yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. Yeah. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, just like, you know, in terms of my, you know, my job and my motivations, like I am, I’m here, I’m trying to get to the truth. I’m trying to, like, f- understand what happened, and like why, why Steele, um, killed himself. So it just, it makes me nervous when you say, uh, uh, say all you have is me, ’cause like, I am not, like, you know, on your side. Like, I am not your advocate. Um, so I just wanna… I wanna be clear about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, it’s understandable. You know, I, I know that. You’re not on my side. You know what I’m saying? I know that. You got a job to do. You simply care about the job. All you care about is the facts of this, so you can… That’s your job. You don’t really care about me. You don’t care about none of that. I understand that. I am aware of that. This is the job. Nobody can tell you the truth of what took place in B8 on 12/12, except me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officers’ involvement and everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all I’m telling you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I, I, I, I know what it, when, when it all comes…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Automated voice:\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This call and/or telephone number will be monitored and recorded.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I am not mixing up words or l- making up feelings or… No, I, I know what your job is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not naïve. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m very cut and dry, and know what’s what.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s where we left it that day. I thank him for his time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Talk to you soon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye, Dion. Stay well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dion Green is a compelling person. In the hours we’ve spent on the phone, it’s been hard not to get sucked into his story, to maintain the distance to be able to evaluate whether he’s telling the truth or not. Once again, as I’ve been talking to him, I’ve been holding Steele in my mind, wishing I could talk to him and find out what he made of this guy, and what Green made of Steele. If Green recognized a man in the midst of a crisis of faith, and somehow played on it. As we neared our publication date, I knew I needed to ask Green about the biggest hole in his story: the timeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the assault was the motive for the officers, how come all these plans were already in place to take out Aguilar?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the p- Okay, no, not, not before, not before the assault on the police. No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reports I’ve been able to get it says that Aguilar attacked somebody on December 6th, but the-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… practice run video was December 5th, so the practice run was the day before Aguilar assaulted an officer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, the practice run happened on the, on the 7th, 9, 10, 11, 12, 7th, 8th 9, 10, 11, 12… The practice run happened on the 7th. Are you sure it was the… It, it was-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you can hear, Green wasn’t sure of the date. He said people don’t keep track of dates in prison. But he acknowledged that it didn’t make sense for the assault — the supposed motive — to come after the practice run. But he didn’t back off his story, that officers were motivated by Aguilar’s assault on a guard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think my timeline is off. I could have swore he, he assaulted, assaulted staff earlier that month.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green knew there had been that incident in the shower, and thought it must have happened earlier than the report said. To be honest, this sounded pretty implausible. And then about a week-and-a-half after this conversation, I got a call in December 2023.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had an incident prior to that, that they didn’t write him up, because he had came from yard, and he had headbutted one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This man didn’t want us to use his name, because he’s afraid of being labeled a snitch, but he said we could use his voice. He tells me that this incident where Aguilar headbutted an officer happened before the time he kicked the officer in the shower, which put it before the practice run. I’d actually reached out to him months earlier, because I’d heard he was a witness to the murder, but he said he’d only just now gotten my message. He and Aguilar were housed near each other when that earlier assault happened. He says Aguilar was angry because something was going on with his daughter and he ran out of phone time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they wouldn’t give him another phone call, and he had headbutted them coming back from yard. And they beat him up, and they, they didn’t write him up because they had busted his nose.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they busted his nose. Why wouldn’t they write him up for that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because they now used excessive force, and it happened, and it, and it happened where he was… Like, I guess he wasn’t resisting no more. I guess when he headbutted one of them, he proned out on the ground.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This man says that’s when a different officer kicked him in the face. That’s a policy violation, so he says officers didn’t document it. He tells me he remembers the nurse who came to Aguilar’s cell door. This man’s story about this incident is full of details, the names of the involved officers, the name of the nurse, the type of form that she filled out. I’m not including all those details here because I haven’t been able to find any other evidence to confirm that this incident happened. I did reach out to the nurse, but she said she couldn’t talk to me about anything related to CDCR. CDCR said there was no injury form for Aguilar. But all these details are things that investigators with access to the prison should be able to corroborate or disprove.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever talk to the FBI?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, not to the actual FBI, but to Internal Affairs, to the DA, and to the ISU.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says they called him in for an interview because he’d sent a letter to the district attorney saying Aguilar’s murder had been a setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sent the letter the same week of the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other sources confirmed the existence of this man’s letter. He says Steele was in the room with prison officials and the district attorney’s office was on speakerphone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They asked me, did I have any information, such as, “How did I know that it was a setup?” And I told them because they told him that they had to search his cell, and he told them that he didn’t want to come out the cell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At first, Aguilar had refused to come out to the day room, he says, because he was scared of being attacked, and that the officers made him come out anyway. In that letter, this man says he also told the DA that there was a practice run, where Taylor got out of his cuffs and ran around the day room, and that it was caught on surveillance cameras. He says this initial interview with the DA and prison officials happened within weeks of the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. I appreciate your time. Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re welcome. You have a good day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You too. Bye.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If true, this revelation was pretty incredible. Not only did this man share details of an earlier assault that could bolster Green’s story of staff retaliation, but he was also saying that prison officials knew there were allegations that this murder was a setup within weeks of the homicide. Yet, it does not appear that any officers were reassigned or that a meaningful investigation was launched until months later, after Steele started turning over stones. But what had started Steele going down that path, and when did he begin to feel that his efforts were being ignored? This is where we were at when this podcast launched in early February. Those questions kind of seemed unanswerable. And then, a huge bombshell landed in our laps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ambient sound – driving] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here we are, Julie and I, in the car driving up towards Sacramento again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To see evidence that we have been wanting to see and trying to see for nearly two years now. And-\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A secret source had reached out. And we were going to get to see the videos of the practice run and the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar for ourselves.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to see it finally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we don’t know quite what the circumstances will be, if we’ll be able to take the recordings and use them, or if we just will have an opportunity to view them. Um, but this is, is really a significant breakthrough, and it is coming week two of launch, so we\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [laughs] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">we have two episodes out already. We are supposed to be, uh, wrapping everything up, and this is, this is really a kind of game-changing, Earth-shattering development.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we still didn’t know — how would this change our understanding of these competing stories and our understanding of Kevin Steele? It turns out there were a lot of materials to go through, so bear with us, ’cause we need some time to make sense of them. The next episode in this series will be coming out on April 2nd, when you’ll finally get to hear the testimony that launched Steele’s investigation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what? Initially, hey, uh, I didn’t say shit, man. I didn’t say shit to nobody, and, and I’m s- if anything, I should be treated like a king for me remaining silent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The caliber of man of who I am, and my two brothers, and the hits that we have put down-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are the number one security threat in B8. To not secure us-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… is a problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re listening to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season 2: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. This series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts, and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact-checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair, David Barstow, provided valuable support for the whole series. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And, thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor, Jr., Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "6. The Day Room | S2: New Folsom | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The team digs deep into the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar—the murder in the day room that Officer Valentino Rodriguez was tasked to write a report about, and that had consumed Sgt. Kevin Steele up until the last day of his life. We track down each of the men who took part in the stabbing to find out: did officers also play a role?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC9838235524\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode includes graphic descriptions of violence, homicide, and briefly references a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sukey, did you wanna start with the first question?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first thing we were gonna say is that we understand it can be difficult and emotional, so if there’s some point where you need to take a break or you don’t wanna talk, that’s, that’s okay. If there’s any questions that you’re not comfortable with.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Si te cuesta hablar de esto díganos, podemos tomar una descanso.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In September of 2022, one of the show’s producers, Steven Rascon, and I got on a Zoom call with this woman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok. Mi nombre es este “eme a” rosario Buena Zaragoza.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario is the mother of Luis Giovanny Aguilar the, man whose murder in the day room at New Folsom Prison is at the heart of our story, the same man on the video that Officer Valentino Rodriguez showed his father at the Christmas party — a brutal stabbing that seemed to go on and on, while the officer in the control booth only fired those foam bullets. Questions about this murder and whether officers had set it up had also consumed Sgt. Kevin Steele up until the last day of his life. And we knew at this point, almost three years later, the FBI was also still looking into this case, just like we were. We hoped the woman on this Zoom call could help us understand a bit about the victim at the center of all this, her son.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y cómo fue tu relación con Luis Giovanny?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Muy bonita para mi muy bonita la relación de mi hijo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had a very beautiful relationship. He was very sweet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo adoraba mi hijo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I adored him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Claudia Bohorquez, Ma Rosario’s attorney, who’s helping Ma Rosario sue New Folsom officials and is translating for her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Estoy en Tijuana…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario had moved back to Tijuana from Los Angeles after she split up with Luis Giovanny’s dad, but her son stayed living in LA.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuando mi hijo fue a la cárcel… pues me sentí mal. Me puse a llorar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When my son went to jail, I felt horrible. I got sick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The police report says in 2009, Luis Giovanny got in an argument with his girlfriend, and he hit her. She was holding their one-year-old daughter. Luis Giovanny, who was 19 at the time, swung again, missing his girlfriend and giving his daughter a bloody nose. He took a plea deal and was sent to prison. He got out in 2018.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me quería desmayar cuando lo vi…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wanted to faint when I saw him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Out of prison and now in his late 20s, he came to see his mom in Tijuana.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Porque fue una impresión ver a mi bebe tan grandote tan guapo.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a very strong impact for me to see my baby now a grown man, and so handsome.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo lo miraba muy feliz y yo tengo esa foto muy feliz…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She holds up a picture from that visit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Y una foto donde me dio una abrazo, fuerte fuerte.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re side by side, hugging each other tightly, their faces pressed against each other. Luis Giovanny looks young, with a buzzed haircut and mustache. It was the last time she saw him. After his visit, Luis Giovanny went back to The States, and before too long, again got arrested, this time for stealing a car and trying to flee police. Claudia, the attorney, says this whole thing was based on a misunderstanding. It was his uncle’s car, and he took it without asking. But with his prior record, he was sent back to prison for four years. And of course, he wasn’t sent to just any prison. He ended up in the most dangerous prison in the state, locked up in an incredibly high-security unit with men who’d been convicted of the most serious crimes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Todo ese tiempo yo no pude hablar con él, solo por cartas. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I couldn’t talk to him, I could only communicate with him through letters. I could not speak to him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario tells us her son didn’t want her to worry about him, so in his letters, he didn’t really talk about his life in prison, but he would send artwork.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sí, él lo dibujó.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s amazing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over Zoom, she shows us some pictures he drew.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A little closer too. Isn’t that amazing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A la pantalla…cerca\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Including a detailed, almost photorealistic black-and-white portrait of his grandfather, Ma Rosario’s father, a man with strong cheekbones, wearing a cowboy hat.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s so good.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The last letter she received from him was in early December, 2019. Eight days later, she says she was out looking for a Christmas tree. When she got home, she noticed that she had missed a bunch of calls. Her ex, Luis Giovanny’s father, was trying to get in touch with her, so she called him, already fearing something terrible had happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He didn’t know even how to tell me that, that our son was, had been killed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cuando yo supe la noticia, cuando exploté, yo grité y le di golpes a la pared.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She said, “When I found out, I, I screamed. I hit the wall.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What did they say had happened to him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ma Rosario Bueno Zaragoza:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Una pelea.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That he had, uh, it was a fight, and that they had stabbed my son.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A fight?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, a fight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was the first story she was told about her son’s death, and we know this was not true. There was no fight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma Rosario, just like us, is still trying to understand what is the real truth of what happened on December 12, 2019, in the restricted, high-security B8 Unit at New Folsom Prison. In this episode, we’re gonna dive deep into this case to try to answer that question, but it won’t be easy. Key witnesses have died, evidence is missing, and everyone we talked to who knows what happened seems to have a reason to lie. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season 2: New Folsom.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get into the weeds, let’s start with the basic facts of what happened on December 12, 2019, facts that aren’t disputed, and that are reflected in internal CDCR reports that were leaked to us by a confidential source. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That day, 29-year-old Luis Giovanny Aguilar was brought down by officers into the day room, a shared space, typically used for recreation and classes. It was a new program, and pretty unusual for a solitary housing unit, or a SHU, like this. Two other men, Cody Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez, were brought down next, and there’s an elaborate security protocol to this. Each of the men were strip searched, wanded with a metal detector, and placed in restraints, handcuffs attached to a waist chain and ankle restraints.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once in the day room, each of these men were then attached by those ankle shackles to their chairs. Overlooking the day room was a control booth, where an officer sat. His job was to monitor the unit, and he had a 40-millimeter gun that shot foam projectiles and a deadly Mini-14 rifle in the booth for use if necessary. We do not know what the officer was doing or if he saw that Rodriguez and Taylor were working quickly to get out of their restraints. Once freed, Rodriguez went up the stairs and retrieved two long improvised knives from the cell of another incarcerated man on the second tier, Dion Green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rodriguez then came back down and handed one of the knives to Taylor. The two then approached Aguilar and began stabbing him as he sat shackled and unable to move. They stabbed him 55 times. The reports that were leaked by a confidential source do not say how long this took. They also don’t say when the control booth officer took action, but at some point, he did fire four foam rounds. Taylor and Rodriguez eventually stopped their attack, threw down their weapons, and lay facedown on the floor. Responding officers flooded into the day room. Among the officers who responded that day was Sgt. Kevin Steele. Steele, trained as a medic in the Air Force, tried to resuscitate Aguilar, but all the efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at the on-site medical center.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew Kevin knew something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Dion Green. He was in his cell in the second tier of the housing unit. Minutes earlier, he’d handed the knives under the door to Anthony Rodriguez, and then the murder played out. Now he watched as the veteran investigator took in the scene.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was the only one, when they all came inside the day room, it was about 30, 40 cops, squad and everybody. He was the only one just looking around. He was looking. He was standing there just looking, and wanted to know, “How the hell did they pull this off?” And he was just looking at the cameras, looking at the, the locks, the chains, looking up, you know, at the, at, at the cell, looking up how we came, uh, orchestrated everything. He was like, “Nah, something’s missing.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But at first, all the evidence pointed to an open-and-shut case. Within hours, Green had confessed to ordering the hit, and all three men were eventually charged with murder. Cody Taylor pled out first, taking a 102-year sentence. Anthony Rodriguez pled next and got 34 years to life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m the only one that hasn’t resolved my issues with, with the case yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ll hear from Taylor and Rodriguez later on too, but I wanted to talk to Green first, because I knew from reading through court documents and talking to sources that Steele had convinced Green to do something pretty remarkable: cooperate with his investigation. It seemed like he was the key to understanding Steele’s obsession with this case. Now keep in mind, Green also has his own reasons for talking to me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My life is on the line here. Please understand this. This is as serious it is as I, as I’m telling you, ma’am. If I don’t die from my heart failure, I’m gonna die in the hands of CDCR. They’re gonna set me up and kill me, I promise you that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Department officials have said in court filings that Green is not in danger. Over the past year, I’ve talked to Green many times. Originally from the Chicago and Detroit areas, Green was convicted of murder in California when he was 20. He’s been in prison ever since. Last year, I visited him at a prison in Stockton, California for people with serious medical conditions. He’s 50 years old now, and needs a walker to get around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not as healthy as I used to be. I never been around this corner before. I’m not the same as I used to be, but I’m still considered a very dangerous man.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green has dark eyes, with an unusual gray-blue ring around them. He says they’ve always been that way. He’s black and Puerto Rican, and he has pentagram tattoos on his hands and 666 tattooed on the back of his head. In prison, he goes by the nickname G Satan, or Satan. Four-and-a-half years ago, before the murder, before his heart problems and his health deteriorated, when he was transferred into the restricted B8 Unit at New Folsom Prison, he says he had even more power.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everything ran through me, you know what I’m saying? Everything ran through me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of people were in the B8 unit for committing new crimes in prison. That’s part of what the unit was for, and Green was no exception. He’d been moved to New Folsom because he was found with a weapon after trying to kill a man in Lancaster State Prison in Southern California. That man was named Michael Britt, and he’s important because what happened with Britt laid the groundwork for everything that happened later with Luis Giovanny Aguilar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Green showed up at New Folsom in September of 2019, he discovered something. His old enemy, Britt, was also there, in the exact same unit.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I got here, moving me over to long-term, was my documented enemy — that’s how all started it. You put me right next to him on an ongoing case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, CDCR policy doesn’t outright bar wardens from placing two people like this, who are documented enemies, near each other. There are a lot of enemies behind bars, and sometimes it can’t be helped. For example, both Britt and Green likely had to be in the restricted unit because of their histories and how the department had classified them, but within that restricted unit, there were three different housing sections. Officers I spoke to say choosing to put both Green and Britt in the same housing section was a bad idea and a big security risk. And looking at this case, you can see why. Just a couple weeks after Green arrives in the unit, two men slip out of their cuffs in the day room and stab his enemy, Michael Britt, multiple times, as Green looked on from his chair in the day room. Britt is rushed to the hospital and ultimately survives this second attempt on his life. Green tells prison officials he was behind it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I went in there as an older homie. I said, “Listen, this case is some business from Lancaster. You guys wasn’t even supposed to put us together.” X, Y, and Z, I went in there and said what I needed to say.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green said he was a high-ranking member of a prison gang who orchestrated the hit by, “Influencing two inmates to carry it out,” according to court records. Those two incarcerated men under his influence were Cody Taylor and Anthony Rodriguez. So within a month of arriving at New Folsom, Green had found his hitters, and established himself as the shot caller of the secure housing unit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two months after the attempt on Britt, this same team struck again, the same guys, in the same housing section, in the same day room. But this time, the victim was Luis Giovanny Aguilar, and this time, their victim died. When Green was interviewed by investigators from the DA’s office that same night, he claimed responsibility.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It was me. I ordered this.” You know what I’m saying? “It was this business.” You know, I went in there and, uh, made it seem like that I was just the worst fucking dude on the face of this Earth, you know? That I was this heartless fucking dude, and I just killed this dude in this gang business, and it, you know, that’s my statements.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Internal reports leaked by a confidential source reflect this. These reports say that Green called the murder, “Business.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s what the script was, so it can just all go away.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now Green says that script was just a story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That shit was made up, man, period.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was asking what you, what you know about Dion Green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dion Green… What, oh, the inmate?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The shot caller, yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or, the quote-unquote-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, honestly, I think if, uh, people worked hard enough, I think you could get him to tell you the truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This correctional officer retired from the department after working at New Folsom for 15 years. She didn’t want us to use her real name, because she’s afraid of retaliation, so my co-reporter Julie gave her a codename: Tinkerbell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aww.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> ‘Cause your hairstyle reminds me-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, yeah, I love-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…of her hairstyle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…Tinkerbell. Oh yeah, totally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She explains why Green had power in the prison.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s a shot caller because he’s got a lot of people that put money on his books. He has access to dope. So you have a bunch of dope heads and people that are in there, and they know that all they have to do is kill somebody in order to, you know, be in good graces with Green, or to get the dope, or to whatever. They have nothing to lose.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Tinkerbell’s pointing out is that life can be cheap in prison — the cost of a cell phone or some drugs. In the past decade, at least 33 people have been killed in New Folsom alone. We tried to compare this number to prisons across the state, but both the Department of Justice and CDCR had problems with their data, so getting an accurate number of people killed in California prisons was impossible. When Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed, Tinkerbell says she was off work recovering from an injury, and didn’t think much of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When you hear that, it’s like it’s, “Okay, well, I mean, it’s, oh, it’s another homicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when she got back to work, she started looking into the details of what happened with the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whenever we had incidents, or whenever we got new inmates, I was very nosy. I want to know and understand these guys’ mentality. I wanna know what their history is at other prisons. Um, I wanna know whatever I can to protect other inmates, to protect that inmate, and to protect our staff, always, always, always why I was nosy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She says she already knew the reputations of his killers, Rodriguez and Taylor, so she was snooping through their prior cases.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was looking at Taylor’s history, and I saw that he had stabbed Britt, and I went in, and I was like, “Oh, well what’s the circumstances of this?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And she started to connect the dots. Before they killed Aguilar, they’d tried the same thing with Michael Britt.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And like, my red flags started going off in a major way. I’m like, first of all, how in the hell did it happen almost identically twice? And how in the hell did these guys get out of their cuffs, or weren’t supervised, knowing that they had already gotten out of their cuffs and done this to Britt? How the hell did this happen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Red flag number one, starting with the attack on Britt in the day room, Tinkerbell wanted to know why these two documented enemies, Dion Green and Michael Britt, were housed together.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At no point should they have been on the same yard, let alone the same building.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Britt and Green?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Correct.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, department policy doesn’t say this is forbidden, but enemy concerns are a key factor in determining where it’s safe to house someone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is a huge safety issue and no-no.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so to your mind, is this, um, incompetence or is this by design?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, at minimum, it’s incompetence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Red flag number two, after the attempted murder on Britt, they still kept all these guys housed in the same section together.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not gonna sit here and judge whether, um, Aguilar was a good person or not, because it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t our job. Our job was to protect him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And everything she was reading in these reports was telling her they’d failed to do that job.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Phone static] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ma’am, how are you?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m doing okay. How are you this morning, Dion?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, I’m just-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One second. I’m just trying to get my recorder hooked up, if that’s okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you record, you record our whole conversation, or you, or are you gonna edit some stuff, or how does that work?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, yeah. I’m recording it, and then I will edit it. I will edit it, so…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of our many conversations like this one, Green tells me that it was in early 2020 — now facing a murder charge for Aguilar and two attempted murder charges for Britt — that he started seeing quite a bit of Sgt. Kevin Steele. Steele, as the criminal prosecution coordinator, was the person who brought Green back and forth to take legal phone calls, and then as the pandemic got underway in 2020, to attend court hearings over Zoom. Green says Steele was trying to get him to talk, but he was sticking to his story.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, and I was just constantly still lying to him, telling him that, uh, you know, “Ah man, it’s, this is what it was, man. Bottom line, he just had to go, and that was that.” I was, I just stuck to my statements, and kept going, you know? But he kept shooting little shots like, “Something’s keeping me up at night, Mr. Green,” and I was like, “Well uh, I don’t know what to tell you,” you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then, Green says, Steele found something that would change his whole understanding of the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s when he came and says, “Hey, uh, you know, we, we need to really talk.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Steele had found was a surveillance video of the B8 unit. According to Green, what this video shows is a dry run, where you can see them walking through some of the steps leading up to the murder. If true, this was a stunning piece of evidence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you, can you describe the dry run a little bit for me?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The dry run was exact same as the murder. The dry run was it was Monster and Kill-Kill.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monster is Taylor’s prison name, and Kill-Kill is what they call Rodriguez.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monster and Kill-Kill was in the day room. I was in the cell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It took place a week before the murder. Green says the two men were both brought out and shackled to chairs in the day room. The practice run was necessary, Green says, because after the attack on Britt, a new security measure had been added to the day room routine. Now, when they were brought out and chained to their chairs, a box, usually used in prison transport, was placed over the cuffs around their ankles, totally covering the keyhole, making them much more difficult to pick.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since it’s double locked, the cuff won’t move. The cuff will not move. It won’t give an inch or nothing. The cuff just does not move.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there is a way around these black boxes. If the officers single lock the cuffs, out of laziness or forgetfulness, or as Green says, intentionally, you can easily slide a thin, flat piece of metal, like a flattened paper clip, into the side of the cuffs, lifting the teeth of the mechanism and popping it open. This totally circumvents the black boxes. Green says for all this to work, there was one more thing they needed to have in place: the help of officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everybody had it arranged with the COs that the test run and stuff was gonna happen today. So, we told them to be sure that you leave it single locked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says ahead of the practice run, the officers in the unit had agreed to single lock the cuffs around their ankles, allowing them to test their plan, and Green says it worked like a dream. Taylor was out of his cuffs in seconds, and came to the door of Green’s cell, grabbed the weapons, and brought them back down to the day room.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the video, it shows Monster engage in conversation with the towers and stuff, were talking to ’em. Monster and them w- was talking to ’em, the tower.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the tower, Green means the officer in the control booth overlooking the day room. Again, if true, this video appeared to reveal that officers had seen these two guys, who’d slipped their cuffs and tried to kill someone two months earlier, in the day room, and one of them gets out of those cuffs again, and the officers don’t do anything to stop it. Steele thought this was very strange that officers had allowed this to happen, Green says.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He brought the test run to me, he showed me on video, and that’s when it, that’s when the lies stopped. The lies stopped then, and the truth had to, had to, you know, start being told, and that’s where we at now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says he asked Steele what he was going to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Uh, are you going to just continue covering this up, like the, you know, the rest of your officers, the rest of you?” “No, I can’t. Absolutely not. I took an oath. I took an oath, and I stand on that. My integrity, my morals, my honor, you know? I, I, I had to, I have to.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s what Green says he told Steele. Officers, Green calls them cops, had told him that Aguilar was a child molester.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the cops said that he’s a child molester, when you bring this information to guys in prison, right? Child molesters, rapists, and stuff like that, it’s somebody that’s, that, that’s a no-no for us, you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a lot of rules in prison, the official rules of the institution and the unwritten rules that everyone, including a lot of the officers, live by, or as Green says, manipulate for their own purposes. Green says the lieutenant of the unit, a man named Eric Baker, came to him because he was the shot caller, and asked him to handle Aguilar.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, and you know, my name always came up with, with, with the “good business” you know? “He’s a serious man. He’s serious about his business, but he knows how to keep his mouth shut,” you know? So that’s how they just… You know, they just know in prison. You just know. COs know, and we know, who’s dirty and crooked. You know, once you’re in the game long enough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says he told Sgt. Steele that this lieutenant was the actual shot caller, and that Baker threatened him and forced him to carry out the murder. Now, I wanna be clear. We do not have any evidence of Baker’s involvement beyond Green’s word. In court filings, Baker has denied any involvement, and he told me on the phone that none of the multiple investigations into this incident have found him guilty of anything. When Green told me this about Baker, I was a bit skeptical.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For one, it just seems like too many motives. They killed Aguilar because he was a child molester, because they were paid by officers to do so, and because they were threatened. So many times during these conversations with Green, I wished I could talk to Steele and ask him what he made of this man’s story, if there were aspect he’d doubted, but I had no way to do that, and no way to know if I was even getting the same story Green had told Steele. What Green told me is that Baker arranged for everything, for an officer to bring him the cutting tool to make the knives, for an officer to bring in heroin, methamphetamine, and weed for Green to give Taylor and Rodriguez as payment, an officer to make sure that the cuffs were not double locked, allowing them to escape the black boxes, and he directed the officer in the control booth not to fire the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was no gunfire, no Mini, no nothing. Your job is to save a person’s life, you know? So it’s, it’s just a lot of moving pieces to this, this execution that took place. You know, it was an execution.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar, as we’ve said before, has no convictions for molesting a child, but Dion Green says he didn’t find this out until months after the murder, when Steele told him. Green says it became clear that officers had manipulated him. There was a different reason they wanted Aguilar dead.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Truth of the matter is it’s because of one damn reason, and that was because he assaulted the staff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar had assaulted an officer. Documents show about a week before the murder, as Aguilar was coming out of the shower, he kicked him in the chest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You just can’t… Man, that, that just… Uh, that, that don’t go on. You just can’t assault the police or just assault without them doing nothing, without something, and if the right crew was on, it could cost you your life, like it did him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ad break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do I believe that an officer intentionally did or ordered this? In my gut, I have a very hard time saying yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retired correctional officer, codenamed Tinkerbell, tells Julie and me there’s another scenario that’s not uncommon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes on tiers, people say stuff about inmates that they don’t like, that may or may not be true, so that other people assault them. So, for instance, I don’t like Julie. I’m on the tier, and I know that other inmates don’t like Julie, and I’m an officer, and I go up to Julie, and I’m like, “Julie, you shouldn’t have done this to that kid. You’re such a piece of shit.” And everyone else on the tier hears it. Now, the tier thinks that Julie is a child abuser, or a molester, or what have you. So now, me as an inmate, I’m gonna be like, “Hey, don’t worry about this. I got this,” and then they take care of business.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve heard this from other incarcerated people too, and there’s a documented case of something similar happening at another California prison in 2017. An incarcerated person came forward and told prison officials that he was part of a crew that officers allowed out of their cells in order to attack sex offenders. An investigation found a cache of weapons in a locked area only accessible to officers, and four officers were fired. Tinkerbell says Aguilar’s history shows he was difficult to handle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Aguilar was a, was a mouthy little shithead, but all in all, he didn’t do anything to have this happen to him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But were all these people involved? The officers on duty the day of the killing, more officers who were there for the practice run, even a lieutenant? And did the videos of the practice run and the murder really show what Green said they showed? Could there be another, less nefarious explanation? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was hard to believe that such a complex and widespread conspiracy could take place in an institution with so many eyes watching, and why would officers risk their careers, their pensions, over a mouthy young guy? Again, these officers have denied any involvement, and as we uncovered evidence and looked over leaked documents, we discovered there was a big hold in Green’s explanation of the motive. Yes, Aguilar had assaulted an officer. Disciplinary records show that assault took place on December 6, 2019, six days before the murder. But here’s the thing. The practice run, where Green said they tested their plan to escape the black boxes, that actually happened the day before, on December 5th. So unless we were missing something, the plan to take Aguilar out had to have already been in place before Aguilar kicked that officer in the chest.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I knew I’d have to ask Green about this discrepancy at some point, but I still couldn’t understand, if no officers were involved, if everything Green said was a lie, how had allegations that officers played a role in this murder made it all the way to the FBI? Officially, the FBI refused to confirm or deny the existence of an investigation, but in late September 2023, I spoke to a special agent on the phone who said the case was still active, and right before we launched this series, CDCR confirmed there is an ongoing investigation into Aguilar’s murder, involving outside law enforcement. CDCR declined to comment further. So, the FBI clearly thought there was something worth a multiyear investigation, and Steele, who’d worked in the ISU for years and had access to a lot more evidence than we did, appeared to take Green’s story very seriously.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Data we obtained from internal CDCR emails shows that about seven months after Aguilar was killed, Steele emailed Warden Jeff Lynch regarding interviews he’d done, video recordings of Dion Green’s statements, and other videos of Steele interviewing Cody Taylor, Monster.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever record any interviews with Kevin Steele?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, no.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Cody Taylor, and this is not true. I’ve spoken to multiple people who’ve seen those recordings that Steele made with Taylor, and I’ve seen them referenced in internal CDCR emails. But I also understand why he doesn’t want to admit it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why tell me and not him?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s one thing to talk to the public, right? And it’s one thing to talk about the police, right? But it’s another thing… Like, you don’t be talking about inmates, and you don’t fucking talk to squad, which is another terminology for IGI, which is the gang taskforce.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is another one of those rules of prison life. Just like there’s a code of silence among officers, there’s a code of silence among incarcerated people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, you just don’t talk to them, period.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Taylor pleaded guilty, remember, he got 102 years, so the rules of prison life are the rules that will likely govern the rest of his life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, I think what you guys really need to understand out there, man, is, you know, I didn’t create prison. I’m just living here trying to survive it, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As I spoke to Taylor, I tried to keep these rules in mind, and the other motivations that he likely had for talking to me. Before we talked on the phone in September of 2023, I had exchanged a few letters with him. Taylor had told me he was part of a gang and would need their permission to do the interview, so that was one factor. He also said he was interested in writing a book and that I could get famous if I helped him. So going into the interview, I already knew by his own admission that he was likely bound by the rules of his gang and wanted to promote their power, and that he was interested in fame, or at least notoriety. And so there’s this central tension in understanding everything that Taylor says. He both wants to talk and is fearful of crossing the gang or the guards.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coming in as a juvenile, I learned real quick, man, that, you know, it’s a different society in here, and it’s survival of the fittest, and so at the end of the day, you gotta choose. Do you wanna be a victim or you wanna be a suspect?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor says he killed Aguilar because he was in a warring gang. But like Green, he says without officer help, they couldn’t have gotten out of their shackles.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s only two ways to get out of a black box.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One, he said, is to pick the master padlock on the black boxes, but that takes time. The other way is to get help from officers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you look in the video, I’m out of my handcuffs within a matter of five seconds, so you know, you, you add one plus one, you, you, you’ll get the answer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to Taylor, Aguilar’s assault on an officer the day after the practice run on December 6th just tipped the scales in their favor.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It just so happened to happen that Mr. Aguilar assaulted one of ’em, and they came back immediately the next day and was like, “Here, bam. We got you. Don’t worry.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because, Taylor says, after Aguilar assaulted an officer, correctional staff in the unit agreed to facilitate the murder. This could partially explain the discrepancy in the timeline, because in Taylor’s telling, the assault is not a motive for officers to order the killing, but instead a motive for them to allow the killing, to single lock the cuffs and to agree not to fire the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reality behind the scenes is, is most of the murders in prison are done, or been able to be done, because the police let them. Number one, the police know about it before it’s gonna happen. Number two, they either allow it to happen, or number three, they do not do nothing to stop it from happening. And still to this day, man, you, you know, you run into a police officer, their favorite line is, “Hey, bro. This is level four. If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen,” you know? So-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… they don’t do nothing to stop it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For people who might not understand what that, what that phrase means, like, what does that mean to you, “This is level four, it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen”?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so this is a maximum-security prison. The highest level, the most violent killers in the state of California are housed in one square little box, and if they’re gonna kill somebody, or the mob is gonna have them killed, it’s gonna happen. They’re not gonna stop it, because as soon as the police start to get involved in mob hits, it’s, it’s gonna be, you know, they’re gonna get killed, and so that in itself, the police do do the most not to get involved in prison gang politics.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Taylor says that officers, in retaliation for the assault on one of their own and in order to keep their own safe, helped them carry out the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, ma’am. Well, you, well, you know where I’m at.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. Thank you, Cody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Driving music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About a month after we spoke on the phone, I sent Taylor a message on his prison tablet. When he talked about his motive for the murder, he’d made it all about gang stuff, but I wanted to know if he’d also heard the rumor that Aguilar was a child molester. He replied back, “Yes. It turns out he wasn’t, some shit the police were saying. But Mr. Steele, the ISU officer, RIP, did in fact clarify.” So, that was another piece of Green’s story that Taylor backed up. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But in the next few messages Taylor sent me, he seemed to be spiraling. He said he was worried about having to testify in the lawsuit brought by Aguilar’s mom, and then that he was gonna file a lawsuit himself and subpoena me. The final message he sent was perhaps the most confusing of all. “Hey, don’t publish that. It’s not true. I wanted to use the story and info for a book, sad face. Sorry to waste your time. It just wasn’t true.” I asked him to clarify what wasn’t true, but he didn’t reply, and he blocked me on the messaging app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think his fears about testifying in the lawsuit are a clue to Taylor’s sudden change of heart toward me. He had filed an objection in court, saying he wanted the family to know the truth, but it would put his life in danger to testify. A week after my last communication with Taylor, a judge heard Taylor’s objection, what’s called a motion to quash. I couldn’t record the hearing, but I listened in as Taylor told the judge his fears. Other incarcerated people could retaliate if they found out he’d broken the rules and worked with officers. Meanwhile, if he testified against the guards, he’d be in an impossible situation. He told the judge, “There’s two mysterious deaths, right? You got the officer Rodriguez that, you know, died of an overdose, and then you got the officer that quote-unquote ‘suicide.’ Like, just say hypothetically whatever I’m saying is bullshit, right? Whether it’s bullshit or not, which I, there’s evidence to support otherwise, but just the fact of me going up against these officers, I’m always gonna lose, Your Honor.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this hearing, which was public, Taylor said that Steele had talked about getting him somewhere safe, like federal custody. The judge sounded very sympathetic to Taylor’s concerns, but said there was no legal basis to allow him not to testify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After this, we went back and forth about what to include from Taylor. We didn’t wanna heighten the danger to him, but to leave out his story and choices he made, including his decision to talk to Steele, would also distort the truth. It’s our job to tell the truth. It’s ultimately CDCR’s job to keep him safe. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the murder, he’s been bounced around to a few different prisons, including Pelican Bay in Stockton, where I talked to him. But just weeks before Taylor was supposed to give that deposition, CDCR transferred him again, back to New Folsom Prison. On the day he was supposed to be deposed, Taylor refused to attend the hearing, according to court documents. The attorney for CDCR is still trying to get him to testify.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music break]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was actually surprised to hear him saying that, you know, his life was in danger.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Taylor’s friend, Anthony Rodriguez, the third man who was charged in the murder, and is currently in Lancaster State Prison in Los Angeles County.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got, uh, 35 years to life for the murder, and 25 years to life for the attempted murder on Britt, and seven to life for the, for the weapon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’d reached out to him by letter as a long shot. I honestly didn’t think he’d talk to me, because of the three guys who’d been involved in the murder, he was the only one who stuck to that rule. As far as I can tell, he never talked to Steele, or to internal affairs, or to the FBI. But for some reason, he did agree to talk to me, and later, he told me he agreed to give a deposition in the family’s lawsuit. He tells me, at first he couldn’t believe that Green and Taylor had talked to Steele, until his defense attorney showed him the videos Steele had made of his interviews with them — videos we still hadn’t been able to see.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I actually watched them myself.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, wow. Interesting. And did… What did… What did Taylor say in his video?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taylor said the same thing. He s- He said, uh, he said his, his life was in danger because he told them that the cops were involved. And like I said, a lot of stuff that they said wasn’t true. They added a lot more. I don’t know why. But there was some truth to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Talking to Anthony Rodriguez was kind of surreal. I knew he’d committed a number of really terrible crimes. He and Taylor had even painted Aguilar’s blood across their faces. But the way he talked about killing Aguilar was totally casual. He said he did regret it, because if he hadn’t, he could be out right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As far as remorse, I, I really don’t feel it too much. I’ve always been like that, since I was a kid. I’ve never had those, those types of emotions. You know what I mean?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he says he didn’t murder Aguilar because he was a child molester or because Green told him to. The reason he gives, his motive for killing Aguilar, is based on something that from the outside, seems small.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, can I ask w-Why Aguilar? Like, I was, I saw in your letter you said he crossed your name out on the yard, but like what does that mean?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean literally just what it means, you know? Uh, I have a habit of, of… We go into the same cages all the time when we go to yard. They put us in dog cages. We, we call them dog cages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re held in a restricted housing unit like B8, you do get to have time outside, but only in these solitary cages. So Rodriguez says he wrote his moniker, Kill-Kill, on the side of the cage, and Aguilar wrote his nickname, Raskal, over top of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have a habit of writing my name out in the cages, like with a pen, or a marker, or, or a crayon, or something, and that’s all he did. That, he just did that to me, and, and it’s, it’s a sign of big disrespect, so I did it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for officer involvement, Rodriguez says part of what Green and Taylor told Steele is true. Officers did help them in important ways. He says they agreed not to double lock their cuffs and they agreed not to use the deadly Mini-14 rifle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would you have been able to pull off the murder the way that it happened, you know, without any kind of assistance or complicity with the officers?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But when it comes to the officers’ motive, Rodriguez says he’s in the dark.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Rodriguez:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be honest with you, they probably got their own reasons. Uh, I really don’t know.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In court filings, CDCR officials have denied that officers in any way helped these men carry out a murder. And I want to acknowledge something here. Each of these men are unreliable narrators, and I’m only playing small clips of the many hours I spent on the phone talking to them, in which I went down numerous rabbit holes and found plenty of contradictions and outright lies. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there was something attractive about Rodriguez’s story. Unlike the story Green tells, it’s simple. There doesn’t need to be a mass conspiracy, just a couple officers who basically agreed to look the other way. Pieces of Taylor’s story also explained a few things, the funky timeline, and he proposed a motive that makes sense for officers, that they agreed to help in part because one of their own was assaulted, and because it’s just practical. If a murder is going to happen, they wanna make sure no officers get injured in the process.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um- \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Phone static]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you go to the deposition?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just… Yes, ma’am. I just came back right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How was it?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And um… Probably it was like four hours, five hours.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In September 2023, Dion Green told his story again, over Zoom, to the attorney for the officers and Claudia Bohorquez, Ma Rosario’s lawyer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when we were last talking, you said you were n- not sure if you wanted to do it or not, that you were nervous about it. Um, what made the difference for you today?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just woke up saying like, I, I got to do right. That’s all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green says in the deposition, he repeated what he’d told Steele on the recorded video tapes about the practice run, the black boxes, and how they simply could not have pulled off the homicide without the help of officers. And he says he told Claudia that he also had a message for Aguilar’s family.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I told her, I said, “Ms. Claudia, I did that. And that was a bad call. And it’s killing me. I’m sorry. I am so sorry.” I said, “I, I’m hurt by it. I’m just hurt. I’m hurt. That’s not cool.” But what’s my hurt to, compared to them? You know? This is all about them. And you know, I hate that Steele died, ma’am.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I hate he killed himself, but you know, that, that was like my, like a good friend of mine, man. It, it, it sucked. And he couldn’t take it. And I’m proud of what he did, though. I, I’m proud.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Green says making the choice to talk to Steele has also left him very isolated. Within days of making those recorded statements, that Green believed would be kept confidential, the word was out on the housing tier that he had talked, and he says the label of snitch has followed him. Taylor and Rodriguez have both distanced themselves from Green, and Green says officers have threatened him. When Steele died, he says he lost his one ally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen, I don’t have anything. Look, all I have is you. Look, I’m already wanted. They gonna kill me. CDC officers is gonna kill me. When you put it on, on blast, everything, you know? It’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be ugly. But I want the podcast to start, because I’m gonna sit back and I’m gonna do roll call. I’m gonna do role call on, on all of them, on all CDC officers. I’m doing roll call, period. The podcast is coming out. I’m telling everybody, yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right. Well, it’s not coming out for a while yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes. Yeah. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, just like, you know, in terms of my, you know, my job and my motivations, like I am, I’m here, I’m trying to get to the truth. I’m trying to, like, f- understand what happened, and like why, why Steele, um, killed himself. So it just, it makes me nervous when you say, uh, uh, say all you have is me, ’cause like, I am not, like, you know, on your side. Like, I am not your advocate. Um, so I just wanna… I wanna be clear about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. I mean, it’s understandable. You know, I, I know that. You’re not on my side. You know what I’m saying? I know that. You got a job to do. You simply care about the job. All you care about is the facts of this, so you can… That’s your job. You don’t really care about me. You don’t care about none of that. I understand that. I am aware of that. This is the job. Nobody can tell you the truth of what took place in B8 on 12/12, except me.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The officers’ involvement and everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s all I’m telling you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I, I, I, I know what it, when, when it all comes…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Automated voice:\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This call and/or telephone number will be monitored and recorded.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, I am not mixing up words or l- making up feelings or… No, I, I know what your job is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not naïve. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[laughs]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I’m very cut and dry, and know what’s what.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s where we left it that day. I thank him for his time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Talk to you soon.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bye, Dion. Stay well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dion Green is a compelling person. In the hours we’ve spent on the phone, it’s been hard not to get sucked into his story, to maintain the distance to be able to evaluate whether he’s telling the truth or not. Once again, as I’ve been talking to him, I’ve been holding Steele in my mind, wishing I could talk to him and find out what he made of this guy, and what Green made of Steele. If Green recognized a man in the midst of a crisis of faith, and somehow played on it. As we neared our publication date, I knew I needed to ask Green about the biggest hole in his story: the timeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the assault was the motive for the officers, how come all these plans were already in place to take out Aguilar?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the p- Okay, no, not, not before, not before the assault on the police. No.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reports I’ve been able to get it says that Aguilar attacked somebody on December 6th, but the-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… practice run video was December 5th, so the practice run was the day before Aguilar assaulted an officer.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No, the practice run happened on the, on the 7th, 9, 10, 11, 12, 7th, 8th 9, 10, 11, 12… The practice run happened on the 7th. Are you sure it was the… It, it was-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you can hear, Green wasn’t sure of the date. He said people don’t keep track of dates in prison. But he acknowledged that it didn’t make sense for the assault — the supposed motive — to come after the practice run. But he didn’t back off his story, that officers were motivated by Aguilar’s assault on a guard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t think my timeline is off. I could have swore he, he assaulted, assaulted staff earlier that month.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Green knew there had been that incident in the shower, and thought it must have happened earlier than the report said. To be honest, this sounded pretty implausible. And then about a week-and-a-half after this conversation, I got a call in December 2023.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He had an incident prior to that, that they didn’t write him up, because he had came from yard, and he had headbutted one of them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This man didn’t want us to use his name, because he’s afraid of being labeled a snitch, but he said we could use his voice. He tells me that this incident where Aguilar headbutted an officer happened before the time he kicked the officer in the shower, which put it before the practice run. I’d actually reached out to him months earlier, because I’d heard he was a witness to the murder, but he said he’d only just now gotten my message. He and Aguilar were housed near each other when that earlier assault happened. He says Aguilar was angry because something was going on with his daughter and he ran out of phone time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they wouldn’t give him another phone call, and he had headbutted them coming back from yard. And they beat him up, and they, they didn’t write him up because they had busted his nose.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they busted his nose. Why wouldn’t they write him up for that?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because they now used excessive force, and it happened, and it, and it happened where he was… Like, I guess he wasn’t resisting no more. I guess when he headbutted one of them, he proned out on the ground.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This man says that’s when a different officer kicked him in the face. That’s a policy violation, so he says officers didn’t document it. He tells me he remembers the nurse who came to Aguilar’s cell door. This man’s story about this incident is full of details, the names of the involved officers, the name of the nurse, the type of form that she filled out. I’m not including all those details here because I haven’t been able to find any other evidence to confirm that this incident happened. I did reach out to the nurse, but she said she couldn’t talk to me about anything related to CDCR. CDCR said there was no injury form for Aguilar. But all these details are things that investigators with access to the prison should be able to corroborate or disprove.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did you ever talk to the FBI?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, not to the actual FBI, but to Internal Affairs, to the DA, and to the ISU.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He says they called him in for an interview because he’d sent a letter to the district attorney saying Aguilar’s murder had been a setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I sent the letter the same week of the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Other sources confirmed the existence of this man’s letter. He says Steele was in the room with prison officials and the district attorney’s office was on speakerphone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They asked me, did I have any information, such as, “How did I know that it was a setup?” And I told them because they told him that they had to search his cell, and he told them that he didn’t want to come out the cell.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At first, Aguilar had refused to come out to the day room, he says, because he was scared of being attacked, and that the officers made him come out anyway. In that letter, this man says he also told the DA that there was a practice run, where Taylor got out of his cuffs and ran around the day room, and that it was caught on surveillance cameras. He says this initial interview with the DA and prison officials happened within weeks of the murder.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. All right. I appreciate your time. Thank you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anonymous:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re welcome. You have a good day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You too. Bye.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If true, this revelation was pretty incredible. Not only did this man share details of an earlier assault that could bolster Green’s story of staff retaliation, but he was also saying that prison officials knew there were allegations that this murder was a setup within weeks of the homicide. Yet, it does not appear that any officers were reassigned or that a meaningful investigation was launched until months later, after Steele started turning over stones. But what had started Steele going down that path, and when did he begin to feel that his efforts were being ignored? This is where we were at when this podcast launched in early February. Those questions kind of seemed unanswerable. And then, a huge bombshell landed in our laps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Ambient sound – driving] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here we are, Julie and I, in the car driving up towards Sacramento again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To see evidence that we have been wanting to see and trying to see for nearly two years now. And-\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A secret source had reached out. And we were going to get to see the videos of the practice run and the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar for ourselves.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to see it finally.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we don’t know quite what the circumstances will be, if we’ll be able to take the recordings and use them, or if we just will have an opportunity to view them. Um, but this is, is really a significant breakthrough, and it is coming week two of launch, so we\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> [laughs] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">we have two episodes out already. We are supposed to be, uh, wrapping everything up, and this is, this is really a kind of game-changing, Earth-shattering development.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Theme music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we still didn’t know — how would this change our understanding of these competing stories and our understanding of Kevin Steele? It turns out there were a lot of materials to go through, so bear with us, ’cause we need some time to make sense of them. The next episode in this series will be coming out on April 2nd, when you’ll finally get to hear the testimony that launched Steele’s investigation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Cody Taylor:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what? Initially, hey, uh, I didn’t say shit, man. I didn’t say shit to nobody, and, and I’m s- if anything, I should be treated like a king for me remaining silent. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The caliber of man of who I am, and my two brothers, and the hits that we have put down-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are the number one security threat in B8. To not secure us-\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mm-hmm.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">… is a problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Credits music]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re listening to \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Season 2: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. This series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts, and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact-checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair, David Barstow, provided valuable support for the whole series. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. Funding for \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On Our Watch\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And, thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor, Jr., Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "5. End of Watch | S2: New Folsom",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino Rodriguez Sr. is on the treadmill one morning when he gets a call—Sgt. Kevin Steele is dead. Val Sr. has lost not only his friend, but his partner in their shared quest to find the truth. A meeting with the FBI provides few answers, even as new questions arise about why a second whistleblower from New Folsom has lost his life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7235055677\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode contains references to a drug overdose and a description of a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Early on the morning of August 20th, 2021, Val Rodriguez Sr. got a text from Sergeant Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He, he text me in the morning, says, “Good morning, Val. Happy Friday. Yep. Uh, we made it through another week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He sent Val Sr. a funny TikTok video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>TikTok Video:\u003c/b> I hope I can make it through this book. Okay. [laughs].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And wrote…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> “God Bless, I think of you often, and I am always grateful for your friendship. Know this, exclamation point.” And he always finished it with Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was 8:00 AM in Missouri where Steele had now been living for about eight months. They talked on the phone for a bit, texted a few more times, and then later that day-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It was about six hours later, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele texted again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I called him right away. He was very mad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele was upset because he’d just gotten off the phone with a special agent from the Office of Internal Affairs. The guy wanted to schedule an interview with him about the events surrounding the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar, what Steele had called the B8 homicide, where Aguilar, while shackled to a chair in the day room, was stabbed 55 times by two incarcerated men who’d slipped their cuffs in view of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was mad because whoever the agent was, says, come on, we have to hurry up and do this. It’s been almost a year. We gotta wrap this up. And he’s, he, he was pissed about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It had been 20 months since Aguilar was killed, and over a year since Steele passed on evidence that officers might be involved, we know he’d found the video of a practice run and heard that officers had spread a rumor that Aguilar was a child molester. Finally, there’d been a nearly identical attempted hit by the same incarcerated people two months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He says, I’ve already had interviews with them, Val. They know everything. They’re asking me the same questions. They’ve got everything. What do they need to interview me for? Why are they just wrapping this up all of a sudden, they’re in a hurry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The interview was scheduled for the following week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And that was his last call before mine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The next morning, Val Sr. says he was on the treadmill when he got another call, it was Steele’s wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Lili contacted me and she just said, “Kevin took his life last night.” And, um, I just began to sob a little bit. You know, just, it’s hard to, uh, accept that news over, over the phone. You know, you, I was confused and I just told her, “he was my friend.” And she goes, “I know.” And man, it felt like somebody hit me with something across my face. It was just the weirdest, it was a different feeling than when my son passed away. Like I was hit, hit with something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the span of just 10 months, Val Sr. was facing another loss that he struggled to make sense of. Steele, whose strength had helped Val Sr. bear the death of his son and galvanized his search for justice, seemingly could no longer shoulder the burden of their shared mission. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After everything he’d seen and everything they’d been through, Val Sr. couldn’t believe that Steele had taken his own life. And it wasn’t just Val Sr. So many people we spoke to for this story, even correctional officers who were close to Steele also couldn’t believe it. When we started investigating this story, we also weren’t sure what was true about Steele’s death. It seemed too coincidental, too extraordinary that within less than a year, a second officer from New Folsom Prison had died so unexpectedly after reporting misconduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[SFX – phone ringing]\u003c/i> So we started making some calls. I called the sheriff’s office in Miller County, Missouri, where Steele had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi, Corporal Scott. This is Sukey Lewis…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi Carla. I sent a sunshine request for some incident reports, 911 calls, and dispatch-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My co-reporter, Julie, reached out to the county coroner, the person who’d made the determination about cause of death, and he did email her back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “I’ll get the report together and send you the information that I have. An autopsy was not done due to this case being an obvious suicide.” I guess where he’s sitting maybe just seems like an obvious suicide. But, um, from Val’s perspective, it was like, but there was all this context. He felt his life was threatened, but I don’t know that the coroner in Miller County knew that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So we should get the coroner stuff at least next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah. That should be interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I also reached out to the people closest to Kevin Steele, to his wife and daughter. Over email, I told them a little bit about the project we were working on, about the many people we’d spoken to who’d shared how Steele had touched their lives. And I asked if they’d be willing to talk to us. I hoped they could help us understand who Kevin Steele was outside of the prison walls, and how those closest to him were making sense of this terrible loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We did know that in the months leading up to his death, as Steele tried to find a job in Missouri, he’d also been working on a book. He’d told Val Sr. about it, but hadn’t given him a copy yet. Steele told his friend, once the book was finished, the two of them would go on a book tour, promote the book, and expose the Department of Corrections at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> His last words to me before he died was, “You know, be ready to sell your business. We’re gonna travel with this book between us, Val, and you’re gonna know the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> More than anything, this is what Val Sr. wanted—to find out the truth about his son, but he stopped short of asking Steele exactly what he meant by the truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He said it would be difficult, but you’re gonna know. I says, “Okay, Kevin, whatever you need me to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells Julie he hasn’t read Steele’s book, but he does know the title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> That’s the name of his book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I’m assuming it would be like, “This is how you demoralize a cop. This is how you-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> This is the pattern. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> This is the pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The volume and content of Steele’s email exchanges with Val Sr. reveal his disillusionment with the system he’d been a part of for so long. Val Sr. has shared more than 200 emails between Steele and him, in which you can see every few days or weeks, Steele would email Val Sr. a lawsuit, a snippet of CDCR policy, or a link to an article, all pieces of this emerging pattern. In February, Steele emailed Val Sr. a link to a video of then Secretary of Corrections, Ralph Diaz, addressing the 2020 graduating class of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ralph Diaz:\u003c/b> We have to hold each other accountable. We have to speak up and say when things are being done that aren’t right. When you see your partner going sideways, it’s your job to demand that they get back on track. Save them, save yourself, and save this badge that you all represent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In March, Steele sent an email with a subject line, “I told the truth.” It was a link to an old Buzzfeed article about a correctional officer at High Desert State Prison in Northern California who had reported his fellow guards for misconduct, including letting contraband into the prison and abusing incarcerated people. The article says his fellow officers turned on him. He was found dead by apparent suicide in 2011. Among some notes with messages for his family was one that read, “I told the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, Steele sent Val Sr. another article about a correctional officer in Oregon who was suing over a culture of silence enforced through violence. In June, he sent a YouTube link to a podcast called The Prison Post, featuring a former ISU agent at Salinas Valley State Prison, who turned whistleblower about 20 years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Podcast Host:\u003c/b> We got our guest, uh, DJ Vodicka. He’s the largest whistleblower in CDCR history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On the podcast video, the former officer, Vodicka, spoke about his experiences testifying against a corrupt and abusive gang that officers had formed called The Green Wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>DJ Vodicka:\u003c/b> I testified for two hours on an open stand. I mean it, nobody knew about the Green Wall. The senators in the stand, my story hit the AP Associated Press, and shortly after that, I had to go off the grid into hiding for six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In response, Val Sr. emailed Steele that he’d like to do a podcast. Steele replied, “Me too, I can’t wait to do it together. You and I will make history. Watch. I am with you always. Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin wanted to keep his story alive. The story, the big story, which I don’t know what it, what it is. The truth?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> 11 days after he died, Val Sr. sent a text message to his friend’s phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> “Hey buddy, I know this is crazy. I did the same thing when my son died in some way, I know you can see this message. I’m praying for your peace and the blessed travel. You’re no longer worried about anything. I’m going to do my best alone. I miss you, love you, and one day will see you and my son.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Somber music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. would have to look for the truth, whatever that was on his own. And now he added his questions about Steele’s death to the snarl of loose ends left behind by his son, Valentino’s. What were those repeated calls his son had made on the last day of his life—to the guy from the neighborhood, who was a source for pain pills? What was in the black balloon that Mimy had found ripping up the carpets in their house that had looked like drugs from inside the prison? What had Valentino known about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar? And why didn’t the West Sacramento police seem interested in answering these questions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this time ever, since Val Sr. had that conversation with the police chief shortly after his son died, and heard those words, “They are not looking on the streets.” Val Sr. had believed that the FBI and or the prison’s Office of Internal Affairs might still be carrying out some kind of investigation into Valentino’s death—looking inside the prison for the source of the fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in early 2022, about four or five months after Steele’s death and over a year after Valentino’s, it seemed like he might finally get some answers. The FBI set up a meeting with Val Sr. and his wife Erma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That day they pulled up outside the FBI field office in Roseville, near Sacramento, a three story building with large glass windows and a fenced perimeter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They were very, um, particular about searching me and making sure I left my phone in a car, all that stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They were shown into a large conference room with glass walls and sat down at a long conference table with a female FBI agent and special agent Justin Bolden of CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They spend a lot of time when you’re in a meeting like that observing you. So I was observing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says a senior FBI official came in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He introduced himself to me, and it’s nice to meet you. I hope we can answer any of your questions, but we can’t answer everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Then the official left the room. Erma says to her, it seemed like the agents had more questions than answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They kind of wanted to mainly knew what Valentino uncovered or heard or was told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> About, like the Aguilar homicide or…?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> More, more about Kevin, I think. Like he would just ask him what he knew about that. I don’t know if he was maybe trying to see how much he knew or how much Kevin told him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They didn’t seem really warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We called special agent Bolden, but he said he can’t comment on investigations. At this point, two officers had already gotten fired over their treatment of Valentino, but they still had an appeal pending before the State Personnel board, which is basically the HR department for the state. In the meeting, Val Sr. says he felt like a broken record going over his usual list of questions and suspicions. He says Bolden listened to him, but his response was final.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They flat out told me they’re not, we’re not investigating your son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In a later email, the special agent clarified if there was any investigation to be done into Valentino’s death, that would’ve been the police’s job. The FBI told us they could not comment. After all this time, Val Sr. finally understood that nobody was looking into his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Describe how you felt walking outta that meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Disappointed, dissatisfied, victimized, helpless, hopeless. I wasn’t sad or feeling bad. I just like, that was what I thought was my last stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And without his partner Steele, his own investigation also ground to a halt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I hate to say I gave up, but I got to the point to, well, let me just wait and see and then time passes and I’m waiting. And then Julie called me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Julie made contact and we began this project trying to see if we’d be able to answer Val Sr’s questions and our own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So that’s why we’re sitting down here right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was more than a year into our investigation, in October of 2023, that the results came back from the forensic drug testing company. We’d shipped off a package to the company months earlier with the pills and the black bindle or balloon that looked so much like drugs seized from the prison. The results of their analysis could tell us if any of these items, and especially the balloon, was a match to the fentanyl and Valentino system when he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they did, it wouldn’t prove anything conclusively, but it felt like something we couldn’t ignore. And who knows, it could support Val Sr’s theory that someone from New Folsom might have supplied Valentino with the drug. So Julie and I jumped on Zoom to read through the results of the test together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – Zoom chime]\u003c/i> Did you show the email?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I am just sending it to you now. I have not opened it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It wasn’t what we expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> So this is the little capsule that had the brownish, it looked like it could be heroin powder, but it is not. It is kratom. Kratom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We found out it’s actually pronounced kratom. It’s an herbal substance that can produce opioid-like effects, but it’s not illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Circular white tablet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The tablet contains anti-nausea medication, and the other capsule doesn’t test positive for anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> No drugs detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Black balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> One item. The black balloon. What? Oh, cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So the bindle is cocaine. It is not opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay. Yeah, Val’s just texting right now. “I sent you, the results to you. None of the tests for fentanyl, none of these were in his system.” Do you wanna call Val and see what he makes of it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – phone ringing] \u003c/i>Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah, I’m here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Well-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah. So what do you make of- make of the results?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I was kicking that around in my head. I don’t know. I don’t know if it really has anything to do with the story. Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We talked through the results for a bit and Val Sr. goes over other suspicions that he still has about where the fentanyl came from and more broadly, who is to blame for his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> How important is it to you that there is a direct line between someone giving him the fentanyl and him using it versus the, I think the very clear pattern that, that we \u003ci>can\u003c/i> show, which is that the stress of this job and the abuse that he suffered were factors on that day that kind of contributed to it. Even if we can’t put, you know, those drugs in somebody’s hand handing it to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s a really hard question to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah, I know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’ve thought about that without even asking me that, that exact same thing. Sometimes I can be really honest with myself and sometimes I don’t know what honest is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What do you mean by that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Well, for example, the, in that, in that question you asked me in there is a hidden, uh, question, which is, well, did my son take this on his own? And would he be alive if he hadn’t? And yes, I gotta be honest. Yeah. Did he have an addiction? Yes, he did. If he had not had that addiction, would he still be alive? Yes. Yes, he would. Uh, on the other hand, if they had treated him the way they were supposed to treat him at that prison, like a, like an employee with integrity and they honored integrity, like, like they say they do, uh, on his graduation, what he’s trained for, then yeah, he’d still be alive, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Uh, so did the- the job contribute to his death? Yes. Was it intentional? Uh, well that’s, that’s why the source of the fentanyl has always been really important to me. Been really important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Ever since Valentino’s death, his father has been seeking closure—from the police, from the FBI, from us, and even from Steele. It’s hard to know if getting these items tested has gotten him any closer to that goal. On the one hand, the results don’t tell us that much, but on the other, the bindle is also clearly not what he thought it might be: evidence to support his theory that someone from the prison might have sent fentanyl to kill his son. But Val Sr. says he still believes in that theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I think it was intentional. Well, there’s, there’s nothing that has led me not to think that. Nothing. Everything I have found, it was intentional to get rid of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I tell him, while this test kind of feels like a dead end, it does answer the question of what was in the bindle. And it frees us up to try to answer some of his other questions. We probably won’t be able to answer all of them, but we will try our best to answer most of them and then also kind of ask the bigger question behind those questions, which is: why are we the ones who are having to ask them? You know, why, why is this investigation not being done by the police?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah. Why does Anderson get a promotion?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. brings it back to the prison. How come Sergeant David Anderson, Valentino’s direct boss, who Valentino says had threatened him and who hadn’t put a stop to the abuse from his other colleagues as required by agency policy, was not fired or removed as a supervisor? While we don’t know exactly what CDCR did to investigate or discipline Anderson, we do know that as of last year, he still worked at New Folsom and had even been promoted to a Lieutenant. Anderson did not respond to our calls requesting comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> All right, girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right. Appreciate you, Val. Have a good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Okay, you too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Thanks. All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Give our best to Erma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Okay, I will. Good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Even though the results from the forensic company felt unsatisfactory, they did free us up to move forward with some interviews we’d had on hold. As I told Val Sr. in that call, we had a lot of questions for the West Sacramento police chief. What had they done to investigate and could they have done more to find the source of the fentanyl? So in late October, Julie drove to the West Sacramento Police Department to put these questions to Chief Robert Strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Hello. You must be Chief Strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> How are you doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Good. How are you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The Chief brings Julie through the lobby, decked out in Halloween decorations and into his office on the walls. He’s got law enforcement mementos and baseball memorabilia. He tells Julie, he first spoke to Val Sr. almost exactly three years ago, right after Valentino’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Honestly, at first I thought, well, this is a man going through the loss of his son, trying to find an explanation. And I thought I just wanted to do my best to console him. But the longer things went on, and maybe a year later I started seeing, um, just news reports about what had been happening at Folsom Prison. I started putting two and two together realizing that there may have been at least some, some truth to at least the concerns he had about the work unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He’s referring to the ISU squad. Now, it says something about the relationship between Chief Strange and Val Sr. that the Chief is even willing to talk to us. In my experience, a lot of the time, police chiefs refuse to address specific cases. They worry about liability issues. And Strange tells Julie that he only agreed to the interview at all after clearing it with Val Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I said, “Hey, like I got this inquiry. I wanna make sure that you’re okay with this.” ‘Cause it’s one of those things where I, I know I don’t have, I don’t have answers he wants to hear, that’s for sure. Um, but I also don’t wanna, I don’t want to get sideways with him either, and I understand what he’s trying to do. So, I mean, frankly, if he said, no, don’t talk to ‘em, I probably would’ve gone a different direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As you can hear, their relationship is complicated. Val Sr. begged the Chief to do more to treat this case like it was his son on the bathroom floor. The Chief, while sympathetic, says he simply didn’t have the answers Val Sr. was looking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I’m not gonna be able to deliver, um, a criminal investigation outcome that says that somebody is responsible for your son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But the Chief listens to Julie as she walks him through the various leads that Val Sr. says were never followed up on—like the Black Bindle. Why didn’t the police collect it from Val Sr.? The Chief says he does remember some conversation about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I honestly don’t know what ultimately happened. I also would say I, I don’t know what it was gonna tell us, frankly. Uh, and that’s just the unfortunate reality is there wasn’t, it was gonna tell us that it was maybe drugs, right? Ultimately that’s what would’ve been tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Um, but I don’t think it would tell us more than a toxicology probably did or, or anything along those lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And Julie also asks the Chief about perhaps the most tangible lead in Val Sr’s cache of evidence: the cell provider call log from Valentino’s last days that shows this striking pattern of calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Like this is the day- days leading up to his death. He called this person this many times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The log lists six short calls that Valentino made on the day he died, and eight calls the day before, all to the same number. The number of the guy who lived in the neighborhood and was a known source for pain pills. And Julie shares what we’d discovered: none of those calls showed up on Valentino’s actual phone or on the hard drive we’d been given by Val Sr. They only appeared on this physical call log—the bill from his provider, which tracks all connections. This means someone, maybe Valentino, deleted all his calls to the neighborhood guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> These phone calls were deleted from his phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Oh, really?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If there were any text messages between the two men, they were also missing from the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I was not aware of this at all. And specifically what you’re showing me here with the- both the number of calls and the approximate nature of these calls to his death… it’s pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Initially, the man we’re calling “the guy from the neighborhood” didn’t agree to talk to us, but a few weeks after Julie spoke to the Chief, she went by his house. It felt important to get his side of things. He didn’t agree to a recorded interview, but he did speak with her. He denied ever selling Valentino drugs. He said he did not see him the day that he died and had no involvement in his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie wanted to ask the Chief about this to figure out if the police could have done more to investigate at the time. But while the Chief says the pattern of calls is interesting, the case is still closed for now, and it’s not clear what evidence would be enough to reopen it. The Chief tells us he did assign a detective to look over the case again in early 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I really, truly did not think that it would change anything, but at least out of an act of compassion, I just thought, let’s have him sit down with Val, talk through this again and see if there’s anything that maybe I haven’t seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This detective spoke to Val Sr. and talked to Mimy, but did not find evidence of foul play, or anything that changed the department’s original assessment of the case. Just like I don’t think anything we’ve shown the Chief has changed that assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Quite simply, there just wasn’t evidence for us to see it as more than a self-inflicted overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And this is at the heart of the conflict between these two men. For Val Sr. his son’s death has always been a criminal matter. He cannot look away from the stunning fact pattern, the threats on his son’s phone, the timing of his death, just days after reporting misconduct to the warden. But even beyond that, the lethal drug that killed his son had to come from somewhere. And Val Sr. can’t understand why the police didn’t aggressively try to find out where.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Chief Strange, this case has always been a tragic accident. And none of the evidence at the scene and none of the evidence Val has uncovered, has changed this fundamental point of view. The department’s policy at the time was that they simply did not deeply investigate these kinds of cases. But the Chief says that policy is one big thing that Valentino’s death has changed. He says, based on that case, the department now does things differently when someone dies by fentanyl in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> It did change things. I- I think we would’ve changed anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> But I don’t know that we would’ve changed as soon as I got back from talking to Val Sr. one day, ’cause that’s how it went down. I came back, I talked to my special investigations unit sergeant and I said, “Oh wait, I think we need to change what we’re doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Because as we mentioned earlier, Valentino’s death in 2020 was part of a wave of fentanyl deaths. And even though this is cold comfort to Val Sr. If Valentino died today, the Chief says they’d have their special investigations unit involved at the scene of his death to look for evidence that might help them trace the source of the drugs. We don’t know what would’ve happened if this new policy had already been in place at the time. It still may not have resulted in any criminal charges, and there’s a lot of debate about whether policies that further criminalize drug sales are effective in addressing the opioid crisis. But it’s also possible that a more rigorous look at all the evidence right from the beginning, might have been able to give Val Sr. the one thing he still looking for, answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To this day, Val Sr. still cannot accept why the Chief didn’t do more at the time. There is one final thing that we learned from Chief Strange about what he did do in the wake of Valentino’s death. He says, after talking to Val Sr, he called someone at the Office of Internal Affairs at CDCR and was put in touch with special agent Chris McGraw, thinking maybe the prison would want to take possession of Valentino’s phone to investigate some of those allegations Val Sr. had told him about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Uh, Val Sr. was talking about his perception of there being threats and at least some, um, just to put it generally some treatment of his son as a whistleblower and, and in the sense of being treated completely improperly as a whistleblower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right. There was evidence on the phone of, of, word leaking out that he had met with the warden and he told on the team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Oh wow, okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> And those, and he became aware of that the night that he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Okay. Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But the Chief says, at the time when he talked to McGraw, it didn’t sound like any internal investigation was going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> It didn’t sound like it was something that, so to speak, jumped off the page to him… that we had Val’s- Val Rodriguez Jr’s phone. Like that was an opportunity. And so, uh, in that sense, I didn’t perceive a level of opportunity or excitement around that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We reached out to McGraw, but he didn’t respond to our emails requesting comment. The police department released the phone back to the family. But Julie tells the Chief that McGraw did eventually get Valentino’s phone from Val Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Learning of that today is heartening for me to know that at least there’s a likelihood that a fuller picture of the story of what was happening with Val Jr. leading up to his death, is hopefully, um, at least a little bit more colored in by the contents of that phone. Even if the realities of what is learned initially at least is more painful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As we now know what the department discovered on that phone—the slurs and harassing messages—resulted in two officers getting fired and lesser discipline for a handful of other officers. Four of them are still appealing that discipline. And as far as we can tell, the higher ups avoided scrutiny altogether. We wanted to know why. Chief Strange says he also doesn’t know if CDCR and the FBI are done investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> So it’ll be interesting to see if there’s more still going on in the investigative world and prosecutorial world when it comes to everything surrounding what was happening at that prison during that period of time. Thus far, it’s fairly alarming to put it very mildly. And anytime that anyone anywhere that’s wearing a badge, not only doesn’t take their oath seriously, but downright dishonors it—it absolutely affects all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauleón:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – Zoom chime] \u003c/i>Who wants to start?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In early 2023 I got on a Zoom with Julie and our editor, Victoria Mauleón, to give them a big update.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, so I talked, I called Michael Steele, Kevin Steele’s brother. We had that initial conversation. He said he would talk, but then was like, I can’t right now…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Val Sr. had shared a lot with us about who Steele was to him, but they had only really become close in the final year of Kevin’s life. We hoped someone in his family could give us a deeper understanding of this man who was so central to our story. His daughter had responded to my email saying she wasn’t able to participate, and Lili, Steele’s widow, also didn’t want to do a recorded interview with us. But finally, I had connected with someone who’d known him longer than almost anybody: his younger brother, Michael.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He said that he had talked to Lili and that she was, um, she was positive about him participating. She was supportive of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Michael said he did have some reservations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His big question for me was, which side of the blue line are you on? And I said, you know, “Do I have to pick a side? Um, you know, I’m on the side of transparency and accountability.” \u003ci>[laughs]\u003c/i> Um, but he was like, you know, Kevin loved his job and he committed himself to it. Um, and he committed himself to participating in law enforcement. And, and Michael doesn’t wanna see that torn down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nUm, he obviously feels really complicated about it ’cause he also called him “a victim of the corruption in CDCR.” You know, I also said at one point, like, “This work isn’t about trying to tear things down. It’s about trying to, like, shine a light to expose problems or fix things.” And I used that word “fix,” and he was like, “Nothing is gonna be fixed for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In July of 2023, after months of calls and texts, Mike agreed to meet me in person…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I’m Mike Steele, brother of Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> …At the place where he spends the most time thinking about his brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> For the recording, why don’t you just say where we are. So- to make sense of the noises people will be hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> We’re on my boat at the Marriott Marina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> In San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> In San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And you said-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Which is my happy place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike’s long-term girlfriend, Andrea, is here with him for support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What kind of energy did he bring to life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Intensity-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> … in everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike’s got those same startling blue eyes that his brother had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> The only difference between him and I that he was mad about is he didn’t have any hair and I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> (laughs).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> And he started losing his hair really early, like in his 20s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They have a lot of other similarities too. They both went into the military. Kevin chose the Air Force and Mike went into the Marines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> My dad was Navy. Uncles were Navy. You know, we always have had, uh, a very clear love of our country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike tells me after his brother’s service as a young man, he later joined the reserves and was twice deployed to Iraq.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> This roadside bomb shit all, you know, like, um, a lot of intensity. There was so many of his, um, comrades that didn’t come home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mmmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we sit on his boat in the San Diego Marina rain pats lightly on the plastic curtains. Mike’s eyes filled with tears and they run down his face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He loved deep. And I mean, I, you know, like I said, my whole life, I just wanted him to be proud of me. And my dad, obviously. But, um, his opinion of me was more important than anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Kevin started working for the Department of Corrections in 2001, and after seven years at San Quentin, he was transferred to New Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> If he was supposed to be there at 5:00. He was there at 4:00, probably. You know, we both had the same work ethic. And he said, nobody fucking works harder than cast Steele. Like he fucking never slept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When did he sleep?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Like he was a machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he became an investigator, he was relentless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He didn’t quit until he got to the bottom of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But Mike says his role in the investigative services unit sometimes put him at odds with other officers. Now it was his job to find out the truth, even if that meant uncovering what some of his fellow officers were doing to the people in their custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He felt like he had to protect those people from, um, I mean, I’m just being completely honest that I struggled with him having that task of having to turn on his own people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If it were him in that position, Mike says he’d probably side with the brotherhood of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you ever ask him about it or say like, why are you-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … sympathetic?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What would he say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> What’s right is right. I mean, in those words exactly what’s right is right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But not everyone he worked with lived up to that code. And it bothered him. It bothered him to the point where Kevin started writing that memo to the warden at New Folsom, and ultimately making his plans to leave the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I mean, he lined everything up to where he was gonna drop the bomb and then, you know, ride off into the sunset and where all of his time lined up for retirement and just the who- everything was calculated for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike says, even after his brother left, every conversation turned back to New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did he talk to you about the, what he called the B8 homicide, which was the one that he believed officers had set up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah, he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I said, as difficult as it is, you just gotta, you did what you were supposed to do, you did what you were paid to do. You gave the fucking evidence, proof, everything that you were supposed to do, you did. Let it fucking go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But he couldn’t, he was still consumed. Mike says he could feel something was wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I don’t know if you are comfortable talking at all about his drinking on the record, but I also just wondered how much you feel like that played a role?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Um, hmm. It was a Friday\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At one point Mike had told me that Kevin had been drinking more heavily in Missouri, and so he and Lili made a deal: they’d only drink on the weekends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I don’t think it weakened him. I’m certain that it didn’t help, but I don’t know that it, um… I don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But he says drinking didn’t change who Kevin was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, so I was just gonna ask if he talked to you at all about his safety concerns and how much that played a role in deciding to leave California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Um, yeah, there was definitely issues and, um, God, he had guns. Boy a fucking ton of them. And, uh, he was, he was ready, you know, ’cause he did think that that was a possibility that they would, you know…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And did he ever have like any, you know, actual threats or any, you know, things that felt concrete?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I don’t, I wouldn’t say that I’m aware of any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I’m not saying that that didn’t happen, but I, I’m not aware of any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> But I mean, being in there, it, you know, you, you know what the system’s capable of, you know, just a matter of when it gets turned on you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. Did you or anyone else, like in his close family, consider foul play or think that you know somebody?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I mean, initially that’s what we thought, you know, it was part of the discussion that- but I saw the video. It is what it is. All by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The video. This is the reason Mike is certain that Kevin wasn’t murdered. Just a warning, we’re gonna now walk through the details of his death. When we finally got the documents and dispatch tape in response to our records request to Miller County, we also got this video. It’s a 10 second recording captured by a camera attached to the outside of the shed. The time code on the video shows it was 5:23 in the afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can see Kevin Steele come into the frame wearing an orange T-shirt and blue shorts. He has a length of rope in his hand. The other end of it is looped around his neck in a noose. He walks into the shed and he doesn’t come out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I saw the video of him going out to the shed, barn, whatever it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike says, seeing the way his brother was walking…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> That was the fucking plan. And, um, it was just fucking following through with the plan. You know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Police reports show that Lili got home around 6:00 PM but couldn’t find Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> It’s weird. He had taken chicken out to cook for dinner, out of the freezer, and he had opened the garage door for her ’cause he always would open the garage door when she was getting ready to get home. So she pulled up and the door’s open like everything’s normal. But she said when she went in the house, she thought it was strange—Kevin wasn’t in the house and the dogs were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Lili walked out to the shed and then called 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>911 Operator:\u003c/b> 911, location of your emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She tells the dispatcher that she came home to find that her husband had hung himself. It’s really heartbreaking. So we’re not gonna play much of it. But at one point during the call, she does say something really important and she gave us permission to play this clip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>911 Operator:\u003c/b> Has he been sick?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lili Steele:\u003c/b> No. \u003ci>[Sobs]\u003c/i> He’s just been dealing with a lot of stuff from his… work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> His work. Just like Mimy Rodriguez, when she found Valentino on the bathroom floor, Steele’s wife felt his work at the prison had something to do with his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>11 minutes into the call, first responders arrive. The records show Lili later found a word document written on her husband’s computer that she turned over to the sheriff’s office. The note is titled, My Thoughts. The police report notes that the final edit was made to this document that same afternoon, a couple of hours before he died. “Lili is my angel, my light, and my survivor. Lili always had my back and remained my cheerleader. I know what time it is. It is the ninth hour and no one is here. I was. CDCR killed me. I told the truth and shielded the truth. Truth requires no shield, no triple plated armament or Abrams tank. These barbarians killed Valentino and I.” Then he lists the names of senior officials at New Folsom and finishes, “Cowards and bandits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three days after Kevin’s death, the family all gathered around the flagpole at Kevin’s house in Missouri. Mike and his father lowered the flag from the flagpole and folded it while they played a recording of Kevin’s niece playing taps on the trumpet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I told you who he is. I told you he was. There’s no denying that they’re fucking responsible for what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I think on- when we were on the phone, on one of the times I talked to you, you called him a victim of the system. Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> 100 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> The system that he was trying to protect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR said the agency takes allegations of employee misconduct, “Very seriously.” And that they have a new process for reviewing complaints. But they did not answer our questions about how the department responded to Sergeant Kevin Steele’s efforts to address misconduct in the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He just didn’t understand. He felt betrayed that he had worked his butt off for that prison- for the state. Never so much as took a pencil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Do you ever feel angry with him for doing that? For leaving?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I feel angry with my son and yeah, I feel angry with him, of course. Yeah. I didn’t ask to go on this ride with him. He reached out to me. And we did a lot of stuff together and he made a lot of promises to me—to be my voice. And just kind of pulled me along and then I just, like, I got pulled to here and then… cast away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. Never wanted to fight this fight, but he feels like he has to keep pushing for his son and for his friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, we hear from a man who broke the rules of prison life to talk to Kevin Steele. Now he says his life is in danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> I’m just frustrated. It just, I was having a funny feeling that this is, this is going to go bad. This is not gonna go like it’s supposed to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we dig deep into what really happened in the B8 day room, the day that Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> You know, and I’m not gonna sit here and judge whether, um, Aguilar was a good person or not, because it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t our job. Our job was to protect him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You are listening to \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa, sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of podcasts and she executive produced the series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meticulous Fact Checking by Mark Bettencourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional Music from APM Music and Audio Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor, Jr. Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino Rodriguez Sr. is on the treadmill one morning when he gets a call—Sgt. Kevin Steele is dead. Val Sr. has lost not only his friend, but his partner in their shared quest to find the truth. A meeting with the FBI provides few answers, even as new questions arise about why a second whistleblower from New Folsom has lost his life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7235055677\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode contains references to a drug overdose and a description of a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Early on the morning of August 20th, 2021, Val Rodriguez Sr. got a text from Sergeant Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He, he text me in the morning, says, “Good morning, Val. Happy Friday. Yep. Uh, we made it through another week.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He sent Val Sr. a funny TikTok video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>TikTok Video:\u003c/b> I hope I can make it through this book. Okay. [laughs].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And wrote…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> “God Bless, I think of you often, and I am always grateful for your friendship. Know this, exclamation point.” And he always finished it with Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was 8:00 AM in Missouri where Steele had now been living for about eight months. They talked on the phone for a bit, texted a few more times, and then later that day-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It was about six hours later, I think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele texted again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I called him right away. He was very mad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele was upset because he’d just gotten off the phone with a special agent from the Office of Internal Affairs. The guy wanted to schedule an interview with him about the events surrounding the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar, what Steele had called the B8 homicide, where Aguilar, while shackled to a chair in the day room, was stabbed 55 times by two incarcerated men who’d slipped their cuffs in view of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was mad because whoever the agent was, says, come on, we have to hurry up and do this. It’s been almost a year. We gotta wrap this up. And he’s, he, he was pissed about that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It had been 20 months since Aguilar was killed, and over a year since Steele passed on evidence that officers might be involved, we know he’d found the video of a practice run and heard that officers had spread a rumor that Aguilar was a child molester. Finally, there’d been a nearly identical attempted hit by the same incarcerated people two months earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He says, I’ve already had interviews with them, Val. They know everything. They’re asking me the same questions. They’ve got everything. What do they need to interview me for? Why are they just wrapping this up all of a sudden, they’re in a hurry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The interview was scheduled for the following week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And that was his last call before mine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The next morning, Val Sr. says he was on the treadmill when he got another call, it was Steele’s wife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Lili contacted me and she just said, “Kevin took his life last night.” And, um, I just began to sob a little bit. You know, just, it’s hard to, uh, accept that news over, over the phone. You know, you, I was confused and I just told her, “he was my friend.” And she goes, “I know.” And man, it felt like somebody hit me with something across my face. It was just the weirdest, it was a different feeling than when my son passed away. Like I was hit, hit with something.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the span of just 10 months, Val Sr. was facing another loss that he struggled to make sense of. Steele, whose strength had helped Val Sr. bear the death of his son and galvanized his search for justice, seemingly could no longer shoulder the burden of their shared mission. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After everything he’d seen and everything they’d been through, Val Sr. couldn’t believe that Steele had taken his own life. And it wasn’t just Val Sr. So many people we spoke to for this story, even correctional officers who were close to Steele also couldn’t believe it. When we started investigating this story, we also weren’t sure what was true about Steele’s death. It seemed too coincidental, too extraordinary that within less than a year, a second officer from New Folsom Prison had died so unexpectedly after reporting misconduct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[SFX – phone ringing]\u003c/i> So we started making some calls. I called the sheriff’s office in Miller County, Missouri, where Steele had died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi, Corporal Scott. This is Sukey Lewis…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hi Carla. I sent a sunshine request for some incident reports, 911 calls, and dispatch-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My co-reporter, Julie, reached out to the county coroner, the person who’d made the determination about cause of death, and he did email her back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “I’ll get the report together and send you the information that I have. An autopsy was not done due to this case being an obvious suicide.” I guess where he’s sitting maybe just seems like an obvious suicide. But, um, from Val’s perspective, it was like, but there was all this context. He felt his life was threatened, but I don’t know that the coroner in Miller County knew that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So we should get the coroner stuff at least next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah. That should be interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I also reached out to the people closest to Kevin Steele, to his wife and daughter. Over email, I told them a little bit about the project we were working on, about the many people we’d spoken to who’d shared how Steele had touched their lives. And I asked if they’d be willing to talk to us. I hoped they could help us understand who Kevin Steele was outside of the prison walls, and how those closest to him were making sense of this terrible loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We did know that in the months leading up to his death, as Steele tried to find a job in Missouri, he’d also been working on a book. He’d told Val Sr. about it, but hadn’t given him a copy yet. Steele told his friend, once the book was finished, the two of them would go on a book tour, promote the book, and expose the Department of Corrections at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> His last words to me before he died was, “You know, be ready to sell your business. We’re gonna travel with this book between us, Val, and you’re gonna know the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> More than anything, this is what Val Sr. wanted—to find out the truth about his son, but he stopped short of asking Steele exactly what he meant by the truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He said it would be difficult, but you’re gonna know. I says, “Okay, Kevin, whatever you need me to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells Julie he hasn’t read Steele’s book, but he does know the title.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> That’s the name of his book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I’m assuming it would be like, “This is how you demoralize a cop. This is how you-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> This is the pattern. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> This is the pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The volume and content of Steele’s email exchanges with Val Sr. reveal his disillusionment with the system he’d been a part of for so long. Val Sr. has shared more than 200 emails between Steele and him, in which you can see every few days or weeks, Steele would email Val Sr. a lawsuit, a snippet of CDCR policy, or a link to an article, all pieces of this emerging pattern. In February, Steele emailed Val Sr. a link to a video of then Secretary of Corrections, Ralph Diaz, addressing the 2020 graduating class of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ralph Diaz:\u003c/b> We have to hold each other accountable. We have to speak up and say when things are being done that aren’t right. When you see your partner going sideways, it’s your job to demand that they get back on track. Save them, save yourself, and save this badge that you all represent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In March, Steele sent an email with a subject line, “I told the truth.” It was a link to an old Buzzfeed article about a correctional officer at High Desert State Prison in Northern California who had reported his fellow guards for misconduct, including letting contraband into the prison and abusing incarcerated people. The article says his fellow officers turned on him. He was found dead by apparent suicide in 2011. Among some notes with messages for his family was one that read, “I told the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In April, Steele sent Val Sr. another article about a correctional officer in Oregon who was suing over a culture of silence enforced through violence. In June, he sent a YouTube link to a podcast called The Prison Post, featuring a former ISU agent at Salinas Valley State Prison, who turned whistleblower about 20 years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Podcast Host:\u003c/b> We got our guest, uh, DJ Vodicka. He’s the largest whistleblower in CDCR history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On the podcast video, the former officer, Vodicka, spoke about his experiences testifying against a corrupt and abusive gang that officers had formed called The Green Wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>DJ Vodicka:\u003c/b> I testified for two hours on an open stand. I mean it, nobody knew about the Green Wall. The senators in the stand, my story hit the AP Associated Press, and shortly after that, I had to go off the grid into hiding for six months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In response, Val Sr. emailed Steele that he’d like to do a podcast. Steele replied, “Me too, I can’t wait to do it together. You and I will make history. Watch. I am with you always. Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin wanted to keep his story alive. The story, the big story, which I don’t know what it, what it is. The truth?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> 11 days after he died, Val Sr. sent a text message to his friend’s phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> “Hey buddy, I know this is crazy. I did the same thing when my son died in some way, I know you can see this message. I’m praying for your peace and the blessed travel. You’re no longer worried about anything. I’m going to do my best alone. I miss you, love you, and one day will see you and my son.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Somber music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. would have to look for the truth, whatever that was on his own. And now he added his questions about Steele’s death to the snarl of loose ends left behind by his son, Valentino’s. What were those repeated calls his son had made on the last day of his life—to the guy from the neighborhood, who was a source for pain pills? What was in the black balloon that Mimy had found ripping up the carpets in their house that had looked like drugs from inside the prison? What had Valentino known about the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar? And why didn’t the West Sacramento police seem interested in answering these questions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All this time ever, since Val Sr. had that conversation with the police chief shortly after his son died, and heard those words, “They are not looking on the streets.” Val Sr. had believed that the FBI and or the prison’s Office of Internal Affairs might still be carrying out some kind of investigation into Valentino’s death—looking inside the prison for the source of the fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And in early 2022, about four or five months after Steele’s death and over a year after Valentino’s, it seemed like he might finally get some answers. The FBI set up a meeting with Val Sr. and his wife Erma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That day they pulled up outside the FBI field office in Roseville, near Sacramento, a three story building with large glass windows and a fenced perimeter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They were very, um, particular about searching me and making sure I left my phone in a car, all that stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They were shown into a large conference room with glass walls and sat down at a long conference table with a female FBI agent and special agent Justin Bolden of CDCR’s Office of Internal Affairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They spend a lot of time when you’re in a meeting like that observing you. So I was observing them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says a senior FBI official came in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He introduced himself to me, and it’s nice to meet you. I hope we can answer any of your questions, but we can’t answer everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Then the official left the room. Erma says to her, it seemed like the agents had more questions than answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They kind of wanted to mainly knew what Valentino uncovered or heard or was told.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> About, like the Aguilar homicide or…?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> More, more about Kevin, I think. Like he would just ask him what he knew about that. I don’t know if he was maybe trying to see how much he knew or how much Kevin told him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Fishing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They didn’t seem really warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We called special agent Bolden, but he said he can’t comment on investigations. At this point, two officers had already gotten fired over their treatment of Valentino, but they still had an appeal pending before the State Personnel board, which is basically the HR department for the state. In the meeting, Val Sr. says he felt like a broken record going over his usual list of questions and suspicions. He says Bolden listened to him, but his response was final.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They flat out told me they’re not, we’re not investigating your son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In a later email, the special agent clarified if there was any investigation to be done into Valentino’s death, that would’ve been the police’s job. The FBI told us they could not comment. After all this time, Val Sr. finally understood that nobody was looking into his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Describe how you felt walking outta that meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Disappointed, dissatisfied, victimized, helpless, hopeless. I wasn’t sad or feeling bad. I just like, that was what I thought was my last stand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And without his partner Steele, his own investigation also ground to a halt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I hate to say I gave up, but I got to the point to, well, let me just wait and see and then time passes and I’m waiting. And then Julie called me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Julie made contact and we began this project trying to see if we’d be able to answer Val Sr’s questions and our own.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So that’s why we’re sitting down here right now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was more than a year into our investigation, in October of 2023, that the results came back from the forensic drug testing company. We’d shipped off a package to the company months earlier with the pills and the black bindle or balloon that looked so much like drugs seized from the prison. The results of their analysis could tell us if any of these items, and especially the balloon, was a match to the fentanyl and Valentino system when he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they did, it wouldn’t prove anything conclusively, but it felt like something we couldn’t ignore. And who knows, it could support Val Sr’s theory that someone from New Folsom might have supplied Valentino with the drug. So Julie and I jumped on Zoom to read through the results of the test together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – Zoom chime]\u003c/i> Did you show the email?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I am just sending it to you now. I have not opened it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It wasn’t what we expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> So this is the little capsule that had the brownish, it looked like it could be heroin powder, but it is not. It is kratom. Kratom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We found out it’s actually pronounced kratom. It’s an herbal substance that can produce opioid-like effects, but it’s not illegal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Circular white tablet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The tablet contains anti-nausea medication, and the other capsule doesn’t test positive for anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> No drugs detected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Black balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> One item. The black balloon. What? Oh, cocaine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So the bindle is cocaine. It is not opioids.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay. Yeah, Val’s just texting right now. “I sent you, the results to you. None of the tests for fentanyl, none of these were in his system.” Do you wanna call Val and see what he makes of it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – phone ringing] \u003c/i>Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah, I’m here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Well-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah. So what do you make of- make of the results?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I was kicking that around in my head. I don’t know. I don’t know if it really has anything to do with the story. Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We talked through the results for a bit and Val Sr. goes over other suspicions that he still has about where the fentanyl came from and more broadly, who is to blame for his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> How important is it to you that there is a direct line between someone giving him the fentanyl and him using it versus the, I think the very clear pattern that, that we \u003ci>can\u003c/i> show, which is that the stress of this job and the abuse that he suffered were factors on that day that kind of contributed to it. Even if we can’t put, you know, those drugs in somebody’s hand handing it to him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s a really hard question to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah, I know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’ve thought about that without even asking me that, that exact same thing. Sometimes I can be really honest with myself and sometimes I don’t know what honest is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What do you mean by that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Well, for example, the, in that, in that question you asked me in there is a hidden, uh, question, which is, well, did my son take this on his own? And would he be alive if he hadn’t? And yes, I gotta be honest. Yeah. Did he have an addiction? Yes, he did. If he had not had that addiction, would he still be alive? Yes. Yes, he would. Uh, on the other hand, if they had treated him the way they were supposed to treat him at that prison, like a, like an employee with integrity and they honored integrity, like, like they say they do, uh, on his graduation, what he’s trained for, then yeah, he’d still be alive, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Uh, so did the- the job contribute to his death? Yes. Was it intentional? Uh, well that’s, that’s why the source of the fentanyl has always been really important to me. Been really important.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Ever since Valentino’s death, his father has been seeking closure—from the police, from the FBI, from us, and even from Steele. It’s hard to know if getting these items tested has gotten him any closer to that goal. On the one hand, the results don’t tell us that much, but on the other, the bindle is also clearly not what he thought it might be: evidence to support his theory that someone from the prison might have sent fentanyl to kill his son. But Val Sr. says he still believes in that theory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I think it was intentional. Well, there’s, there’s nothing that has led me not to think that. Nothing. Everything I have found, it was intentional to get rid of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I tell him, while this test kind of feels like a dead end, it does answer the question of what was in the bindle. And it frees us up to try to answer some of his other questions. We probably won’t be able to answer all of them, but we will try our best to answer most of them and then also kind of ask the bigger question behind those questions, which is: why are we the ones who are having to ask them? You know, why, why is this investigation not being done by the police?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah. Why does Anderson get a promotion?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. brings it back to the prison. How come Sergeant David Anderson, Valentino’s direct boss, who Valentino says had threatened him and who hadn’t put a stop to the abuse from his other colleagues as required by agency policy, was not fired or removed as a supervisor? While we don’t know exactly what CDCR did to investigate or discipline Anderson, we do know that as of last year, he still worked at New Folsom and had even been promoted to a Lieutenant. Anderson did not respond to our calls requesting comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> All right, girls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right. Appreciate you, Val. Have a good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Okay, you too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Thanks. All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Give our best to Erma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Okay, I will. Good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Good night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Even though the results from the forensic company felt unsatisfactory, they did free us up to move forward with some interviews we’d had on hold. As I told Val Sr. in that call, we had a lot of questions for the West Sacramento police chief. What had they done to investigate and could they have done more to find the source of the fentanyl? So in late October, Julie drove to the West Sacramento Police Department to put these questions to Chief Robert Strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Hello. You must be Chief Strange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> How are you doing?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Good. How are you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Nice to meet you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The Chief brings Julie through the lobby, decked out in Halloween decorations and into his office on the walls. He’s got law enforcement mementos and baseball memorabilia. He tells Julie, he first spoke to Val Sr. almost exactly three years ago, right after Valentino’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Honestly, at first I thought, well, this is a man going through the loss of his son, trying to find an explanation. And I thought I just wanted to do my best to console him. But the longer things went on, and maybe a year later I started seeing, um, just news reports about what had been happening at Folsom Prison. I started putting two and two together realizing that there may have been at least some, some truth to at least the concerns he had about the work unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He’s referring to the ISU squad. Now, it says something about the relationship between Chief Strange and Val Sr. that the Chief is even willing to talk to us. In my experience, a lot of the time, police chiefs refuse to address specific cases. They worry about liability issues. And Strange tells Julie that he only agreed to the interview at all after clearing it with Val Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I said, “Hey, like I got this inquiry. I wanna make sure that you’re okay with this.” ‘Cause it’s one of those things where I, I know I don’t have, I don’t have answers he wants to hear, that’s for sure. Um, but I also don’t wanna, I don’t want to get sideways with him either, and I understand what he’s trying to do. So, I mean, frankly, if he said, no, don’t talk to ‘em, I probably would’ve gone a different direction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As you can hear, their relationship is complicated. Val Sr. begged the Chief to do more to treat this case like it was his son on the bathroom floor. The Chief, while sympathetic, says he simply didn’t have the answers Val Sr. was looking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I’m not gonna be able to deliver, um, a criminal investigation outcome that says that somebody is responsible for your son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But the Chief listens to Julie as she walks him through the various leads that Val Sr. says were never followed up on—like the Black Bindle. Why didn’t the police collect it from Val Sr.? The Chief says he does remember some conversation about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I honestly don’t know what ultimately happened. I also would say I, I don’t know what it was gonna tell us, frankly. Uh, and that’s just the unfortunate reality is there wasn’t, it was gonna tell us that it was maybe drugs, right? Ultimately that’s what would’ve been tested.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Um, but I don’t think it would tell us more than a toxicology probably did or, or anything along those lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And Julie also asks the Chief about perhaps the most tangible lead in Val Sr’s cache of evidence: the cell provider call log from Valentino’s last days that shows this striking pattern of calls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Like this is the day- days leading up to his death. He called this person this many times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The log lists six short calls that Valentino made on the day he died, and eight calls the day before, all to the same number. The number of the guy who lived in the neighborhood and was a known source for pain pills. And Julie shares what we’d discovered: none of those calls showed up on Valentino’s actual phone or on the hard drive we’d been given by Val Sr. They only appeared on this physical call log—the bill from his provider, which tracks all connections. This means someone, maybe Valentino, deleted all his calls to the neighborhood guy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> These phone calls were deleted from his phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Oh, really?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If there were any text messages between the two men, they were also missing from the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I was not aware of this at all. And specifically what you’re showing me here with the- both the number of calls and the approximate nature of these calls to his death… it’s pretty interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Initially, the man we’re calling “the guy from the neighborhood” didn’t agree to talk to us, but a few weeks after Julie spoke to the Chief, she went by his house. It felt important to get his side of things. He didn’t agree to a recorded interview, but he did speak with her. He denied ever selling Valentino drugs. He said he did not see him the day that he died and had no involvement in his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Julie wanted to ask the Chief about this to figure out if the police could have done more to investigate at the time. But while the Chief says the pattern of calls is interesting, the case is still closed for now, and it’s not clear what evidence would be enough to reopen it. The Chief tells us he did assign a detective to look over the case again in early 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> I really, truly did not think that it would change anything, but at least out of an act of compassion, I just thought, let’s have him sit down with Val, talk through this again and see if there’s anything that maybe I haven’t seen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This detective spoke to Val Sr. and talked to Mimy, but did not find evidence of foul play, or anything that changed the department’s original assessment of the case. Just like I don’t think anything we’ve shown the Chief has changed that assessment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Quite simply, there just wasn’t evidence for us to see it as more than a self-inflicted overdose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And this is at the heart of the conflict between these two men. For Val Sr. his son’s death has always been a criminal matter. He cannot look away from the stunning fact pattern, the threats on his son’s phone, the timing of his death, just days after reporting misconduct to the warden. But even beyond that, the lethal drug that killed his son had to come from somewhere. And Val Sr. can’t understand why the police didn’t aggressively try to find out where.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Chief Strange, this case has always been a tragic accident. And none of the evidence at the scene and none of the evidence Val has uncovered, has changed this fundamental point of view. The department’s policy at the time was that they simply did not deeply investigate these kinds of cases. But the Chief says that policy is one big thing that Valentino’s death has changed. He says, based on that case, the department now does things differently when someone dies by fentanyl in the city.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> It did change things. I- I think we would’ve changed anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> But I don’t know that we would’ve changed as soon as I got back from talking to Val Sr. one day, ’cause that’s how it went down. I came back, I talked to my special investigations unit sergeant and I said, “Oh wait, I think we need to change what we’re doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Because as we mentioned earlier, Valentino’s death in 2020 was part of a wave of fentanyl deaths. And even though this is cold comfort to Val Sr. If Valentino died today, the Chief says they’d have their special investigations unit involved at the scene of his death to look for evidence that might help them trace the source of the drugs. We don’t know what would’ve happened if this new policy had already been in place at the time. It still may not have resulted in any criminal charges, and there’s a lot of debate about whether policies that further criminalize drug sales are effective in addressing the opioid crisis. But it’s also possible that a more rigorous look at all the evidence right from the beginning, might have been able to give Val Sr. the one thing he still looking for, answers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To this day, Val Sr. still cannot accept why the Chief didn’t do more at the time. There is one final thing that we learned from Chief Strange about what he did do in the wake of Valentino’s death. He says, after talking to Val Sr, he called someone at the Office of Internal Affairs at CDCR and was put in touch with special agent Chris McGraw, thinking maybe the prison would want to take possession of Valentino’s phone to investigate some of those allegations Val Sr. had told him about.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Uh, Val Sr. was talking about his perception of there being threats and at least some, um, just to put it generally some treatment of his son as a whistleblower and, and in the sense of being treated completely improperly as a whistleblower.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right. There was evidence on the phone of, of, word leaking out that he had met with the warden and he told on the team.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Oh wow, okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> And those, and he became aware of that the night that he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Okay. Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But the Chief says, at the time when he talked to McGraw, it didn’t sound like any internal investigation was going on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> It didn’t sound like it was something that, so to speak, jumped off the page to him… that we had Val’s- Val Rodriguez Jr’s phone. Like that was an opportunity. And so, uh, in that sense, I didn’t perceive a level of opportunity or excitement around that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We reached out to McGraw, but he didn’t respond to our emails requesting comment. The police department released the phone back to the family. But Julie tells the Chief that McGraw did eventually get Valentino’s phone from Val Sr.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> Learning of that today is heartening for me to know that at least there’s a likelihood that a fuller picture of the story of what was happening with Val Jr. leading up to his death, is hopefully, um, at least a little bit more colored in by the contents of that phone. Even if the realities of what is learned initially at least is more painful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As we now know what the department discovered on that phone—the slurs and harassing messages—resulted in two officers getting fired and lesser discipline for a handful of other officers. Four of them are still appealing that discipline. And as far as we can tell, the higher ups avoided scrutiny altogether. We wanted to know why. Chief Strange says he also doesn’t know if CDCR and the FBI are done investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chief Robert Strange:\u003c/b> So it’ll be interesting to see if there’s more still going on in the investigative world and prosecutorial world when it comes to everything surrounding what was happening at that prison during that period of time. Thus far, it’s fairly alarming to put it very mildly. And anytime that anyone anywhere that’s wearing a badge, not only doesn’t take their oath seriously, but downright dishonors it—it absolutely affects all of us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Victoria Mauleón:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[SFX – Zoom chime] \u003c/i>Who wants to start?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In early 2023 I got on a Zoom with Julie and our editor, Victoria Mauleón, to give them a big update.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, so I talked, I called Michael Steele, Kevin Steele’s brother. We had that initial conversation. He said he would talk, but then was like, I can’t right now…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Val Sr. had shared a lot with us about who Steele was to him, but they had only really become close in the final year of Kevin’s life. We hoped someone in his family could give us a deeper understanding of this man who was so central to our story. His daughter had responded to my email saying she wasn’t able to participate, and Lili, Steele’s widow, also didn’t want to do a recorded interview with us. But finally, I had connected with someone who’d known him longer than almost anybody: his younger brother, Michael.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He said that he had talked to Lili and that she was, um, she was positive about him participating. She was supportive of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Michael said he did have some reservations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His big question for me was, which side of the blue line are you on? And I said, you know, “Do I have to pick a side? Um, you know, I’m on the side of transparency and accountability.” \u003ci>[laughs]\u003c/i> Um, but he was like, you know, Kevin loved his job and he committed himself to it. Um, and he committed himself to participating in law enforcement. And, and Michael doesn’t wanna see that torn down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nUm, he obviously feels really complicated about it ’cause he also called him “a victim of the corruption in CDCR.” You know, I also said at one point, like, “This work isn’t about trying to tear things down. It’s about trying to, like, shine a light to expose problems or fix things.” And I used that word “fix,” and he was like, “Nothing is gonna be fixed for me.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In July of 2023, after months of calls and texts, Mike agreed to meet me in person…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I’m Mike Steele, brother of Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> …At the place where he spends the most time thinking about his brother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> For the recording, why don’t you just say where we are. So- to make sense of the noises people will be hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> We’re on my boat at the Marriott Marina.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> In San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> In San Diego.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And you said-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Which is my happy place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike’s long-term girlfriend, Andrea, is here with him for support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What kind of energy did he bring to life?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Intensity-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> … in everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike’s got those same startling blue eyes that his brother had.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> The only difference between him and I that he was mad about is he didn’t have any hair and I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> (laughs).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> And he started losing his hair really early, like in his 20s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They have a lot of other similarities too. They both went into the military. Kevin chose the Air Force and Mike went into the Marines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> My dad was Navy. Uncles were Navy. You know, we always have had, uh, a very clear love of our country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike tells me after his brother’s service as a young man, he later joined the reserves and was twice deployed to Iraq.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> This roadside bomb shit all, you know, like, um, a lot of intensity. There was so many of his, um, comrades that didn’t come home.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mmmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As we sit on his boat in the San Diego Marina rain pats lightly on the plastic curtains. Mike’s eyes filled with tears and they run down his face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He loved deep. And I mean, I, you know, like I said, my whole life, I just wanted him to be proud of me. And my dad, obviously. But, um, his opinion of me was more important than anybody else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Andrea:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Kevin started working for the Department of Corrections in 2001, and after seven years at San Quentin, he was transferred to New Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> If he was supposed to be there at 5:00. He was there at 4:00, probably. You know, we both had the same work ethic. And he said, nobody fucking works harder than cast Steele. Like he fucking never slept.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When did he sleep?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Like he was a machine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he became an investigator, he was relentless.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He didn’t quit until he got to the bottom of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But Mike says his role in the investigative services unit sometimes put him at odds with other officers. Now it was his job to find out the truth, even if that meant uncovering what some of his fellow officers were doing to the people in their custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> He felt like he had to protect those people from, um, I mean, I’m just being completely honest that I struggled with him having that task of having to turn on his own people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If it were him in that position, Mike says he’d probably side with the brotherhood of officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did you ever ask him about it or say like, why are you-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … sympathetic?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What would he say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> What’s right is right. I mean, in those words exactly what’s right is right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But not everyone he worked with lived up to that code. And it bothered him. It bothered him to the point where Kevin started writing that memo to the warden at New Folsom, and ultimately making his plans to leave the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I mean, he lined everything up to where he was gonna drop the bomb and then, you know, ride off into the sunset and where all of his time lined up for retirement and just the who- everything was calculated for him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike says, even after his brother left, every conversation turned back to New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Did he talk to you about the, what he called the B8 homicide, which was the one that he believed officers had set up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Yeah, he did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I said, as difficult as it is, you just gotta, you did what you were supposed to do, you did what you were paid to do. You gave the fucking evidence, proof, everything that you were supposed to do, you did. Let it fucking go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But he couldn’t, he was still consumed. Mike says he could feel something was wrong.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I don’t know if you are comfortable talking at all about his drinking on the record, but I also just wondered how much you feel like that played a role?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Um, hmm. It was a Friday\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At one point Mike had told me that Kevin had been drinking more heavily in Missouri, and so he and Lili made a deal: they’d only drink on the weekends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I don’t think it weakened him. I’m certain that it didn’t help, but I don’t know that it, um… I don’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But he says drinking didn’t change who Kevin was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Um, so I was just gonna ask if he talked to you at all about his safety concerns and how much that played a role in deciding to leave California?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> Um, yeah, there was definitely issues and, um, God, he had guns. Boy a fucking ton of them. And, uh, he was, he was ready, you know, ’cause he did think that that was a possibility that they would, you know…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And did he ever have like any, you know, actual threats or any, you know, things that felt concrete?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I don’t, I wouldn’t say that I’m aware of any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I’m not saying that that didn’t happen, but I, I’m not aware of any.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> But I mean, being in there, it, you know, you, you know what the system’s capable of, you know, just a matter of when it gets turned on you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. Did you or anyone else, like in his close family, consider foul play or think that you know somebody?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I mean, initially that’s what we thought, you know, it was part of the discussion that- but I saw the video. It is what it is. All by himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The video. This is the reason Mike is certain that Kevin wasn’t murdered. Just a warning, we’re gonna now walk through the details of his death. When we finally got the documents and dispatch tape in response to our records request to Miller County, we also got this video. It’s a 10 second recording captured by a camera attached to the outside of the shed. The time code on the video shows it was 5:23 in the afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can see Kevin Steele come into the frame wearing an orange T-shirt and blue shorts. He has a length of rope in his hand. The other end of it is looped around his neck in a noose. He walks into the shed and he doesn’t come out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I saw the video of him going out to the shed, barn, whatever it was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mike says, seeing the way his brother was walking…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> That was the fucking plan. And, um, it was just fucking following through with the plan. You know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Police reports show that Lili got home around 6:00 PM but couldn’t find Kevin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> It’s weird. He had taken chicken out to cook for dinner, out of the freezer, and he had opened the garage door for her ’cause he always would open the garage door when she was getting ready to get home. So she pulled up and the door’s open like everything’s normal. But she said when she went in the house, she thought it was strange—Kevin wasn’t in the house and the dogs were.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Lili walked out to the shed and then called 911.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>911 Operator:\u003c/b> 911, location of your emergency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She tells the dispatcher that she came home to find that her husband had hung himself. It’s really heartbreaking. So we’re not gonna play much of it. But at one point during the call, she does say something really important and she gave us permission to play this clip.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>911 Operator:\u003c/b> Has he been sick?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lili Steele:\u003c/b> No. \u003ci>[Sobs]\u003c/i> He’s just been dealing with a lot of stuff from his… work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> His work. Just like Mimy Rodriguez, when she found Valentino on the bathroom floor, Steele’s wife felt his work at the prison had something to do with his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>11 minutes into the call, first responders arrive. The records show Lili later found a word document written on her husband’s computer that she turned over to the sheriff’s office. The note is titled, My Thoughts. The police report notes that the final edit was made to this document that same afternoon, a couple of hours before he died. “Lili is my angel, my light, and my survivor. Lili always had my back and remained my cheerleader. I know what time it is. It is the ninth hour and no one is here. I was. CDCR killed me. I told the truth and shielded the truth. Truth requires no shield, no triple plated armament or Abrams tank. These barbarians killed Valentino and I.” Then he lists the names of senior officials at New Folsom and finishes, “Cowards and bandits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Three days after Kevin’s death, the family all gathered around the flagpole at Kevin’s house in Missouri. Mike and his father lowered the flag from the flagpole and folded it while they played a recording of Kevin’s niece playing taps on the trumpet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> I told you who he is. I told you he was. There’s no denying that they’re fucking responsible for what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I think on- when we were on the phone, on one of the times I talked to you, you called him a victim of the system. Um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> 100 percent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Steele:\u003c/b> The system that he was trying to protect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR said the agency takes allegations of employee misconduct, “Very seriously.” And that they have a new process for reviewing complaints. But they did not answer our questions about how the department responded to Sergeant Kevin Steele’s efforts to address misconduct in the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He just didn’t understand. He felt betrayed that he had worked his butt off for that prison- for the state. Never so much as took a pencil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Do you ever feel angry with him for doing that? For leaving?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I feel angry with my son and yeah, I feel angry with him, of course. Yeah. I didn’t ask to go on this ride with him. He reached out to me. And we did a lot of stuff together and he made a lot of promises to me—to be my voice. And just kind of pulled me along and then I just, like, I got pulled to here and then… cast away.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. Never wanted to fight this fight, but he feels like he has to keep pushing for his son and for his friend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, we hear from a man who broke the rules of prison life to talk to Kevin Steele. Now he says his life is in danger.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Dion Green:\u003c/b> I’m just frustrated. It just, I was having a funny feeling that this is, this is going to go bad. This is not gonna go like it’s supposed to go.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we dig deep into what really happened in the B8 day room, the day that Luis Giovanny Aguilar was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Tinkerbell:\u003c/b> You know, and I’m not gonna sit here and judge whether, um, Aguilar was a good person or not, because it doesn’t matter. That wasn’t our job. Our job was to protect him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You are listening to \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa, sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of podcasts and she executive produced the series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meticulous Fact Checking by Mark Bettencourt. Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the investigative reporting program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair David Barstow provided valuable support for the whole series. Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional Music from APM Music and Audio Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor, Jr. Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "4. \"Foul Play\" | S2: New Folsom",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did Sgt. Kevin Steele go from being a true believer in the institution of New Folsom to writing an explosive memo hoping to tear it down? We sift through video evidence, interrogation tapes and internal reports to find glimpses of his transformation. But when he feels his reports of corruption are ignored—he takes an even more drastic step.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7074451474\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads-up that this episode includes graphic descriptions of violence and discusses a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A few months into our investigation, in late 2022, I get a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Hello, can you hear me now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yes, hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I guess the other headphones I have ain’t working that good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The connection isn’t great, but the call is a breakthrough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was at Sacramento for like about like two, two or three years off and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This man isn’t at Sacramento’s New Folsom prison anymore, but he is still in prison. I wrote to Joel Uribe because Sergeant Kevin Steele mentioned him in his memo — that one he sent to the warden shortly before he was banned from prison grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I finally just got your letter five minutes ago, just barely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Now, Joel is calling me ’cause he just got my letter five minutes earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In my letter, I didn’t mention anything about Steele or the memo, but before I bring it up, Joel starts talking about Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I remember ISU, uh, Sergeant Steele’s coming in and yelling at the COs saying, “Why didn’t you guys call me?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel is telling me about the first time he met Sergeant Steele, May 2017. Joel was in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> You see in pictures of me in the hospital, the bed I’m laying on is, like, soaked in blood. I was bleeding a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I was able to get a video of Joel in the hospital. It was actually taken by Sergeant Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele. I am recording Inmate Uribe. What’s your CDC number?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele has the camera trained on Joel, who is lying in the hospital bed with a blood pressure cuff on his arm and monitors taped to his bare chest. Blood has seeped into the gauze pads under his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I want you to tell me in your own words what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, I was in my cell and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At one point, Steele swings the camera around to the right side of Joel’s shaved head and, you can see, there is still an open wound in his skull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I’ve still got the scar on my head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On the phone, Joel tells me officers put him in the hospital that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> They broke my ribs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They broke his ribs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I lost my hearing on one of my ears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he lost hearing in one of his ears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At any point, like have you pursued, uh, litigation? Have you tried to, you know, get any other remedy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I’ve been trying to, and I’ve been trying to see if I can-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> You have 60 seconds remaining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s gonna shut off any minute. Can you call back or do you have to go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. I’ll call back later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay. Thanks. Bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Okay, bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Years before Officer Valentino Rodriguez died, years before Sergeant Kevin Steele met Valentino’s father and joined him on his mission, the sergeant had already begun gathering evidence, evidence that he’d one day cite in that memo, evidence of the times he felt the institution had broken its promises to officers and the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Sukey Lewis, and this is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It is currently about 2:46 on Wednesday morning. Inmate Uribe…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On May 3rd, 2017, at UC Davis hospital in Sacramento, Sergeant Kevin Steele interviewed Joel Uribe around 2:45 in the morning and then in greater depth around 12:20 in the afternoon, after he received medical treatment. You’ll hear audio from both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Inmate Uribe, have I told you anything to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the video, Joel is clean-shaven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He’s got dark brown eyes and tattoos cover his abdomen and creep up his neck and face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I want you to tell me in your own words what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was in my cell and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel tells Steele it all started when officers told him he was moving to a housing block in a different building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> They go, “You gotta go.” And I go, “Look, man, I already know what’s up, man.” I go-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> What do you mean when you say that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, I already knew they were gonna fuck my up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> How do you know that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Because of everything that’s been going on with Gomez. We knew it was retaliation. And, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> And when you say Gomez, you’re talking about Officer Gomez?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, the one that got assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> By-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> An officer named Joseph Gomez had been assaulted by a different incarcerated man about a week and a half earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says officers thought he had something to do with it because he’d gotten in an argument with Gomez. And Joel was convinced this move was being orchestrated as a cover to get him out of his cell so they could beat him up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I just gonna get it out the way, dog, and get-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Get what out of the way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Get their beating out the way. And they were like, “Mm it’s too funny, it’s too funny, don’t, man.” And, um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Other inmates were telling you not to come out of your cell?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, not to come out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says the circumstances of the move seemed strange. It was 7:00 at night. And not only that, he was set to be transferred to a different prison shortly. Why go to the trouble of moving him and all his stuff twice? But Officer Eric Shinnette and another officer came to take him to another housing facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Shinnette came, chained, cuffed me, walked me to the cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette’s a big guy, about 5’9″ and 240 pounds. Joel is quite a bit smaller, two inches shorter and at least 80 pounds lighter. And it’s important to know that, because of problems with his back, Joel walked with a cane. He was shackled at the ankles and his wrists were cuffed to a waist chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> And we walked all the way over there. And then when we got in front of the block…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> And you were going from B Facility to A Facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Let me take a minute to describe the layout of the prison so you can picture what’s happening here. There are three main yards, or facilities, A, B, and C, that are all similarly designed. Each facility has eight housing blocks that can hold around 120 people each. These housing blocks are further subdivided into sections. They also each have their own administrative offices, dining hall, etc. Those eight blocks are organized around a central outdoor yard, kind of like the petals of a flower. So to get from B Facility to A Facility, Shinnette, holding Joel’s arm, had to walk quite a ways. And two of Shinnette’s partners followed behind, one of them pushing a cart with Joel’s belongings on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As they got to the gate, a couple of other officers joined in the escort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> You know where you gotta come in through that gate? You come in this way and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Yep. The bay gate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The group filed through a number of locking doors and security checkpoints that feed into the rotunda of the housing block, which you walk through to get into the housing sections or administrative offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> The first window you see to the office, they put me on that little concrete pillar where the door comes like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> What do you mean put you on it? What does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Uh, he like, like, said “stand right here,” in front of the concrete thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> With your facing the con- You’re facing the wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yes. I’m facing the wall and, and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says Shinnette took his cane and handed it to another officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Did he grab your cane because you were attempting to use it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No. As soon as he did that, he spit on the floor and he just socked me, man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Socked you meaning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> He s- like s- with his fist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Punch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, he punched me hard-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Where did he hit you at?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Like right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Here, you’re, it looks like you’re pointing towards your forehead area or your head, face?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. Yeah, and then I fell down to the ground and I fell on my, I was laying on my right s- on my right side, but I couldn’t lay on my stomach because I was like, the concrete wall was holding me up. And they were just s- stomping my head, man, and socking me. And then I just seen the blood coming out and I go, “Oh man, they’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill me.” Then I just felt it crack, crack, right, uh, in, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Where was that crack at?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Right here. And then he-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Just for reference, you’re referring to this, your chest area right here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At some point, they stopped. They put Joel in a holding cage. He says he was in pain and throwing up, but he refused treatment. Finally, he did get assessed by medical staff, and he told them he had a back spasm and had hit his head on the door knob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> When you told him that, was that true?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Why did you say that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, because I was scared, man. I’m not gonna lie, I was scared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Scared of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Them retaliating, because there were still a grip COs there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When he got to the hospital, escorted by two correctional officers, initially Joel told doctors the same thing about the door knob. It wasn’t until Sergeant Steele arrived and told the other officers to leave that Joel changed his story and gave the explanation you just heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay, we’re gonna go ahead and conclude this. It is now 12:50 on the same day, Wednesday. We’re gonna conclude this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel was diagnosed with a concussion, three fractured ribs, and he received four sutures to close up the wound on his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ambient sounds]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This seems to be working okay. Let’s just kind of scooch together so that we both are on mic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My co-reporter Julie and I are in the studio together to go over some stuff. We’ve gotten hundreds of pages of documents from CDCR about Joel’s case and more than a dozen audio recordings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What are you pulling up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So this is the CDCR recordings that we got that are associated with the case in which Joel Uribe ended up in the hospital and was very injured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tape I want to play for Julie, it’s a little scratchy. It’s from a recording of a prison phone call Joel made to his mother, Juana Lopez, about 10 days after the incident, and they start talking about Sergeant Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Like, like I was telling you before, be cool with Lieutenant Steeles, ’cause he’s helped me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, no, I am, I am. Yesterday I apologized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s clear from their call that Juana has also talked to Steele, and it sounds to me like she kind of went off on him. She was angry and scared for her son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Are you in a safe place? ‘Cause he promised me you were in, in a safe place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. Yeah, he’s got me right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel tells her Sergeant Steele is protecting him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Lieutenant Steele goes, “I don’t work here to protect my own. I work here to protect everybody. If I’m following the rules and following the laws, and I’m supposed to be doing this, then my partner should be doing this too. There’s no code of silence here or nothing like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The code of silence. It’s a term used for an unspoken agreement between correctional officers that they won’t report misconduct or turn on each other. It’s officially banned, but it still happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was like, “Thank you, man. I appreciate that.” You know? And he’s for reals, mom. And he-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> I know, I know. That’s why I apologized, but he understands from where I was coming from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Because, um, ma, he, even he knows this was bullshit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Coming across this call — where Joel talks to his mom about Steele — way back in 2017… felt like finding one of Steele’s footprints in the snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s just interesting to me ’cause like this, uh, his term code of silence is not a term that I have ever heard Joel use. Like I don’t feel like that, like he is, to me it feels like he is quoting him, because that’s a term that Steele would use, ’cause he knows about the code of silence and everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm. Yeah. Right. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Um, so I was just like that’s, you know, just very interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> And the, you know, the “I’m not here to just protect my own, I’m here to protect everybody,” that fits with everything we know and have heard about him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And it’s also like at this point it feels like he still believes it, right? Like h- this is in 2017 or whatever, and he’s saying there’s no code of silence, like it’s, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He feels like he can protect Joel and things will be figured out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You can trust- still trust the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While we’ve heard a lot about Steele from Val Senior, part of what Julie and I are trying to understand and retrace are the steps that led Steele, a sergeant who trusted and supported this institution, to become the man who sent that explosive memo, hoping to bring it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve gone over his memo many times, each time peeling back another layer of evidence and comparing it with the evidence we have been able to gather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I’m Sergeant Steele. This is Sergeant Steele. It is the 20th of July. It’s about a little bit after 8:00, approximately 10 after 8:00 on the…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And through these records and tapes…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It is Tuesday, the 16th…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … We catch more glimpses of Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele, ISU… 19th of August… on a Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we learned that Steele was often the guy who did “use of force” interviews. The department has this policy that if someone in prison gets really badly hurt or alleges they were badly hurt by a guard, an officer, someone not involved in the incident, has to interview them on camera within 48 hours to document their injuries and ask them about what happened. In fact, you’ve already heard Steele doing one of these interviews in an earlier episode. That was Steele who initially talked to an incarcerated man that we called C, the guy in the psychiatric services unit who says officers handed him a noose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> …Uh, you made the allegation, you, while trying to hang myself, the COs came in and smashed my face into the wall. Can you tell me about that, what you mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So Steele had this really direct interaction with incarcerated people who’d been injured where he’d take down their allegations firsthand. Of course, this is also how he met Joel Uribe. But it wasn’t Steele’s job to figure out if those allegations had merit or if the use of force was justified. After Steele interviewed someone like Joel in the hospital, the officers’ reports and any photos or evidence would get kicked to higher-ups to decide whether it needed further investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nIf they thought it did, they’d call in investigators from outside New Folsom to do the follow-up. Special agents from the Office of Internal Affairs would be tasked with investigating if officers broke policy, which could mean discipline, or broke the law, which could mean criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Today is September 19, 2017, and the time is approximately 6:19. Uh, this is the initial report concerning…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In Joel Uribe’s case, Office of Internal Affairs Special Agent Grant Parker was assigned to look into Joel’s allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Are you comfortable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yeah, I’m good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> You good?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Adjust myself here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In September, about four months after the incident, the special agent sat down to interview Officer Eric Shinnette, the one who’d been walking alongside Joel. In California, correctional officers like Shinnette are peace officers, so they’re protected by the Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights, which means, going into this interview, he’s got the right to know what it’s about ahead of time and his union lawyer is in the room with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Do you recall that incident?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay. Why don’t you give me your version of that incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yeah, so from the beginning? Uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Let’s go from, uh, yeah, whatever your beginning is. We’ll take it from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Okay, um…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette says, as they were moving Joel to a different unit, everything was going smoothly…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Where’d you have him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Well, I had him, I hold him with my right hand, his left, like, tricep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Tricep/elbow area?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Right..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … Until they got through the door and walked into the rotunda of the housing block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> And then out of nowhere, uh, Uribe just turned around, plu- uh, pulls away from my grip, turns around and hits me with his, his cane. I was able to push him down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> When he fell down on the ground, did he fall on his, on his back, on his stomach?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, no, on his head. I know that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Oh, on his head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay, c- could you tell me o- one side or the other?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, I really don’t remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Forehead?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette says he also slipped and ended up on the ground where Joel kept lashing out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> He’s still hitting me, kicking me, or, you know, hitting me with his, uh… I’m trying to get the cane away. He hit me with his cane. I’m trying to get the cane away. I punched him two to three times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> While he was on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> While we were on, both on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Oh, okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Another officer, or officers, arrived and helped him hold Joel down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> I was able to get the cane away. Then CO Brewer comes in and, um, pins his upper body. I’m pinning his lower body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So to recap, Shinnette’s version is that they walked inside the housing unit, out of nowhere Joel Uribe hit him with his cane, Shinnette pulled him to the ground, Joel landed on his head, and then Shinnette punched him a couple times to get the cane away, and then they got Joel under control and it was all over. The special agent doesn’t ask Shinnette anything about Officer Joseph Gomez, who’d been assaulted about 10 days before the incident with Joel. His questions were focused on the use of force that day. The special agent talked to the other officers involved too. And we won’t play you all of their interviews, but what is important is these noticeable discrepancies in how officers remembered the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nFor example, no one can agree on which direction Joel was facing when he was on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer Camacho:\u003c/b> He was on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> And he has his, he has his cane, and he’s face down on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer White:\u003c/b> Yes, sir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer Brewer: \u003c/b> He’s laying, he’s on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, he was on his stomach, facing…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay, so face, face down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To me this is key because, remember, Joel is shackled at the ankles and the waist. If he’s on his stomach, he’d barely be able to move, let alone pose a threat. And if the only force was two or three punches from Shinnette, how did Joel get those injuries, a head injury needing stitches, a concussion, loss of hearing in one of his ears, and three broken ribs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The officers who used force on Joel also wrote reports, but what stood out to me reading through them is that they’re totally inconsistent. Officer Eric Shinnette’s report doesn’t mention Officer Camacho or Officer White using force. Officer Brewer’s report mentions Officer White using force, but does not mention Officer Camacho using force. Officer White’s report mentions Officer Camacho using force, but not Officer Brewer. And, Officer Camacho’s report does not mention Officer Brewer or Officer White using force. Now, that may sound like one of those logic puzzles you get on the SAT, but even after prison supervisors asked some of the guards to clarify these reports, the picture of who actually did what remains confusing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR did not respond to questions about this case. My attempts to contact Eric Shinnette over email were unsuccessful. The oversight agency that monitors prisons did review this investigation and found no evidence that officers planned to beat Joel. They said Shinnette did have bruises on his chest and legs from the cane, and they speculated that Joel could have broken his ribs when he fell on an officer’s boot. In the end, CDCR’s internal investigation didn’t find that the officers did anything wrong and none of them were disciplined; Joel, however, was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a disciplinary hearing a few months after the incident, Joel was found guilty of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, the cane, and he was sentenced to 42 months, three and a half years, in the SHU, solitary confinement. He says he served more than a year of that before prison officials decided to release him from solitary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> I have a call from Joel Uribe, an inmate at…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I just want to point out that Joel is taking a risk by talking to me, as is anyone who is still incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Officers can listen in and hear what they are alleging, and Joel doesn’t have another Steele around to protect him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the incident, Joel was referred to the DA for assault with a deadly weapon, the cane, which could have meant a whole new prison term. The documents that we obtained show that the charges were dropped in the “interest of justice.” As we spoke in that first call, Joel tells me that was because Steele intervened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Within the first two weeks, Sergeant Steele pulled me off then told me that uh, “I’m dropping the DA referral because I already know what’s going on. I know you didn’t do nothing. I know you had nothing to do with this, and that’s the best I could do for you.” And I said, “Man, I appreciate that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he gives me another clue to Steele’s character. Long after the incident, Steele kept in touch with Juana Lopez, Joel’s mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> He’s gonna make sure, and yeah, no, your son’s okay. He would call and make sure I’m okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says while he was in solitary, serving out his SHU sentence, Steele would come by and check on him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do you think your mom might talk to me as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, she will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He gives me his mom’s number. And, I want to call her to hear more about Joel, but also more about Steele, because this feels so unusual, a correctional officer keeping in touch with the family of someone in their custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, she’ll talk to you like for sure. And, uh, she knows a lot too, what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay, that’s great. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Thank you. Okay, bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In his memo, when Steele writes about what happened to Joel Uribe, he says there were “many more of these cases where the man’s injuries didn’t match what officers wrote on their reports.” While we don’t know what incidents Steele was thinking of when he says there were many more cases like Joel’s, we have been doing our own investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here’s our current list of cases, updated, so…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been fighting to get records on all serious use of force cases from the Department of Corrections. In 2022, we sued, well, KQED’s lawyers did, because CDCR was giving us these records so incredibly slowly. The agency still hasn’t given us all the records we asked for, but with those we have been able to get, we’ve been building a database of incidents and the names of involved officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this one involves… Look, who does it involve?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Oh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Eric Shinnette. Leach, who was also involved in the Uribe incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And that’s also interesting, when you just look at like the kind of order of events, it’s again during an escort and he doesn’t want to go wherever they’re going, you know, placing him in a new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The rules around officer use of force are pretty clear. It’s gotta be proportional, so deadly force can only be used to overcome a deadly threat. Batons, pepper spray, even fists can be used to overcome resistance or to stop a threat, but once the resistance stops or the threat is gone, the officers also have to stop. They’re not allowed to use force in retaliation or as a punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been able to get records of all the serious incidents that happened at New Folsom between 2014 and 2021. In all, according to CDCR, there were 27 of these incidents in which officers severely injured someone or used deadly force. Some of these appear totally lawful — officers shooting to save someone’s life who’s being stabbed or using pepper spray grenades to stop an attack. But in about half of these incidents where the person ended up seriously injured, the circumstances followed a pattern. The reports note that the incarcerated person was resisting in some way. And despite the fact that in most of these cases the incarcerated person was already in restraints, either handcuffed behind their back or handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, in many cases officers used force so severe that the person ended up with really bad injuries, ranging from head lacerations to broken noses and ribs. One man’s femur was even broken. But in many of these cases, in the reports filed by officers, it’s often unclear how the events they describe resulted in such severe injuries. For example, in one report, the officer wrote he used “the minimal amount of physical force needed to place the incarcerated person on the ground.” But the man ended up in the intensive care unit with broken ribs and extensive internal bleeding. Sometimes the officers’ explanations were contradicted by other witnesses or evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these are just the cases that we actually got reports for. Incarcerated people have told us about incidents that don’t appear in the records at all. A lawsuit filed by one of these men, who was incarcerated at New Folsom in 2016, alleges that his back was broken by officers and that officers poured urine and feces in his mouth. Medical records show that his back was fractured at some point and he required extensive surgery a year later, but CDCR refused to release documents related to the incident, saying it didn’t qualify as a use of force that resulted in great bodily injury. In court filings, CDCR has denied the man’s claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We tracked down about a dozen men who were incarcerated at New Folsom who say they were beaten excessively by officers or as retaliation or that they witnessed these beatings. We also got interview tapes from CDCR of incarcerated people telling investigators like Steele what happened to them. Here are their voices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 1:\u003c/b> They would cuff us. They would handcuff us and beat us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was handcuffed as I am now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> With my hands behind my back, still handcuffed, and my legs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> He was escorting me with his right hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> And then I seen him coming at me, and before I knew it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was forced to the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> He grabbed me. He slammed me on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 5:\u003c/b> Dropping their knees down on my back and my spine, stomping on my…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> He even kicked me in the face two times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> Punches coming to the back of my head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> Grabbing my hair, knocked out my teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was pulled to the left and I was hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 6:\u003c/b> You are knocked out, but you still feel the blows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> And then they threw me in the cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 5:\u003c/b> And that’s how they broke my back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 6:\u003c/b> Thought I was gonna die. I felt like I was dying, man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 7:\u003c/b> I was like, you know what? I’m not gonna say nothing, ’cause if I did, they’re gonna beat me again and I might die this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We have also spoken to four current and former correctional officers who said when they worked at the prison it was well known that some officers would beat up incarcerated people. They all said they witnessed at least one of these beatings firsthand but did not report misconduct because they were afraid of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just want to point out that out of the 800+ guards who work at New Folsom, only about 50 were responsible for injuring people in their custody, and there were clear repeat offenders, names that kept showing up in the records. CDCR said they have a new process in place to investigate all complaints of employee misconduct. They also pointed to the new fixed cameras and body cams that they have installed at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 27 serious use of force incidents that we have records for, however, there was almost always the same outcome. It’s what happened with Joel Uribe’s case. There was no discipline for the officers. And more often than not, the incarcerated person was punished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is one case that turned out differently from all the rest. It started, as so many of them did, with Sergeant Steele on camera in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele, ISU. The date is the 16th of September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s 2016, a little less than a year after Steele joined the ISU squad. A second officer is behind the camera. Steele is wearing his wire-rimmed glasses and checks his black military watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It’s approximately 10:30 on a Friday morning. Go ahead and introduce yourself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Um, Ronnie Price…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the video, you can see, again, a man lying in a hospital bed. His name: Ronnie Price. He’s in a dark blue gown, hooked up to an IV, a handcuff around his wrist. You can’t see his face because it’s been blacked out in the video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Go ahead, tell me what happened to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Price tells Steele he transferred to New Folsom a week earlier, and officers were about to move him to a new cell with a cellmate. Price didn’t want to go. That part of the audio is redacted, so it’s not totally clear why he didn’t want to go there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> But you understand, when an officer tells you you gotta go there, that’s what you gotta do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, I, I, but I was willing to, to take the punishment in the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> ‘Cause if, if I go in the cell and get caught up, I’m gonna spend years wishing I had went to the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What this sounds like to me is that Price is afraid he’s going to get caught up in something that he’ll regret. He’d even rather go to the hole or solitary confinement which is the punishment for refusing the cell move than go to this new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We gonna take you to the hole. J- Just cuff up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I said, “Oh, no problem.” So I turned around and they opened the door and they, they cuffed me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But as the officers escorted him, he realized where they were going, and it wasn’t the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> So I asked, “Where y’all going? This, this ain’t the way to the hole.” So that’s when they put the, the leg restraints on me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So now he was cuffed behind his back and his ankles were in shackles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> I told them, “I’m not going in that cell with the guy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As they tried to physically move him along…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You were pushing back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You were resisting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah I was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He says four officers grabbed him, two on each arm, and propelled him forward into the rotunda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> That’s when somebody stepped on my, uh, shackles and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> From behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> And they, they, they pushed me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He says an officer, or officers, stepped on the shackles around his ankles and pushed him to the ground face first. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he couldn’t even break his fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I’m gonna have the camera come in here. What happened to your mouth?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> It, it, uh, knocked out two false teeth and, and knocked out two of my, my own teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Two r- regular teet- teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, four teeth got [inaudible 00:32:24].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> And when, when I raised my head up to spit the teeth out, somebody grabbed my head and s-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You’re on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You’re on the ground, you raise your head up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> When I raise up, uh, was about to spit the teeth out, somebody grabbed my head and slammed it, slammed it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> There is some kind of alarm going off, but you can hear Price say they slammed his head on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> … On the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> How did they do that? How did they slam your head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> When I, when I raised up, somebody grabbed me by the head and slammed it into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> They’re using their hands to push your head down on the ground?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Is that what they used, their hands?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, their hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele asks a few more questions, Price confirms they took him to see medical and then, by ambulance, to the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Do you have any questions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Not that I can think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> We’re gonna go ahead and conclude this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele checks his watch again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It’s now about 10:48 on the 16th of September. Again, it is Friday. This concludes this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The very next day, according to internal reports, Price went into a medical emergency around 4:30 in the afternoon and his heart stopped beating. Records show Steele attended his autopsy. The coroner ruled Price’s death a homicide, but that just means death at the hands of another; it doesn’t assign criminal liability or if the use of force was justified. Just like in Joel Uribe’s case, special agents from the Office of Internal Affairs were called in to find out if officers violated policy or broke the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, we’re on the record. The date is December 5th, 2017. The time’s approximately 1406 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Already this is unusual. As you can hear in this interview, it’s taking place in December 2017. That’s more than a year after the incident happened. Most of these investigations are wrapped up much sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I’m Special Agent Justin Bolden. I’m in charge of this interview and I’m gonna be assisted by, uh, Special Agent Lillia Duarte. Also present is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the hot seat today is an officer named Arturo Pacheco, one of the officers who escorted Ronnie Price to his new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As Bolden goes over Pachecho’s rights at the beginning of the interview, there’s another step he goes through that’s less common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so, um, Officer Pacheco, you’re being interviewed regarding an incident where there are criminal proceedings pending or pe- potential. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The investigation into Price’s death is criminal as well as administrative, so Pacheco has a right not to incriminate himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Having been informed of your rights and having your rights in mind, are you willing to talk to us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I, I wish to invoke…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco’s voice is kind of faint there, but he says he wants to invoke his right to remain silent. This doesn’t mean the interview is over, though. Bolden goes on to issue what’s called a Lybarger Warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> This is an administrative inquiry, and as such you do not have the right to refuse to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What this means is that if Pacheco wants to keep his job, he has to answer their questions. But because it’s a compelled interview, nothing he says in the interview can be used in a criminal case against him; it can only be used for internal disciplinary purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Do you understand?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, now we’re gonna do this…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> During the interview, Pacheco’s story about what happened during the escort is different from Ronnie Price’s. He says as they entered the rotunda of the unit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I had just walked in and we’d took an approximate five steps in. By the time we got to the rotunda, that’s when inmate Price stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And this is fi- towards the office?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Towards the office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. And-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Right where the lockers are at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And there’s lockers on what side of the…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> The left side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> On left side? Okay. So are you next to, standing next to the lockers when Inmate Price stops?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Uh, we were, it was a tight fit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> So once you walk in, I, my partner, I believe, was right behind me, and he stopped, and that’s when he resisted and he s- broke free of my grasp by lunging forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> All I did was just immediately use force, ’cause at the time that’s w- I could use my body weight right there and then, so I brought him down. And I didn’t think nothing of it, so brought him down and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I’ve listened to a lot of recordings of Internal Affairs interviews. A lot of times, they sound almost collaborative, like the investigators are trying to help the officers tell their story. But this time the Internal Affairs special agent takes a very different tone. He interrupts Pacheco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> … So I used immediate force to overcome Price’s resisting-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so stop right there. W- What is immediate force?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Immediate force is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And you’re referring to your white card-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I’m u- referring to my card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Um, the use of force to respond without delay to a situation or circumstance that constitute an imminent threat over the security and safety of persons\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He lets Pacheco refer to his report, but he also really presses him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, and in this rotunda, who was in there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> That I know of, just me and my partner and the inmate and the officer bringing me upstage, but-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> You said that you know of. Would there be anybody that didn’t not know of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> No, it’s, that’s it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco’s report mirrors what he says here, that he was the only officer to use force. But this question of who was there isn’t just the special agent fishing, he’s setting a trap. Over and over, the special agent circles back to this question of who else was there, and Pacheco keeps dodging and denying. Then Bolden springs the trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, what happened is that, um, I talked to Officer Luna, and Luna said he was [censored]. He said he was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He reveals he knows there was another officer there who also came down on Price who is totally missing from the incident reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And you look kinda surprised, but that’s a fact, um, Officer Luna was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> That’s what he said. And I’m telling you what I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I know, but I’m telling you that Officer Luna was there too. You’re, you’re saying that nobody else was there, so-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> No, he said he didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> I’m gonna object to your representation of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> You’re gonna object, that’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s Pacheco’s lawyer jumping in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, um, during the escort, Officer Luna [censored]. Do you recall now him being there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> No. I was focused on the inmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Well, he, he walked with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> But I wasn’t focused on what’s behind me though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Uh, I’m not saying you weren’t focused or anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> Can we take a break please?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yeah, we can take a break. The time is, uh, 1503 hours. Taking a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They come back from the break, and still Pacheco tries to say, well, he didn’t see the other officer or he doesn’t remember. And a little later, Bolden’s Internal Affairs colleague, who’s been quiet for most of the interview, steps in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lillia Duarte:\u003c/b> I can tell the pressure’s on you, that, uh, all you really have left to do right now is just to, to tell the truth, because it gets worse. It does get worse with the information that we’re gonna share with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Finally, an hour and 30 minutes into the interview, this happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, uh, during the break, did you have a chance to kinda think things over, um?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. So, what, what’s, what, what changed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Luna was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco admits the truth, Officer Luna was also there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Why didn’t you straight up and say, “He was there”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Just a dirtbag I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Who?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I don’t think you’re a dirtbag. I think you made, you probably made a, uh, a wrong decision, okay? And that happens. And then we’re, that’s why we’re here, to kinda cl- clarify and get, get the truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco doesn’t say he stepped on Price’s shackles, but he does say that they took him down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> And then that’s when we went forward and dumped him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, and you said we dumped him. Who dumped him down?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Me and apparently Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> How was it apparently Luna?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> He’s on top of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Other officers confirmed that dumping someone is taking them to the ground. No one said they slammed Price’s face a second time, but Special Agent Bolden isn’t just interested in what they did during the incident. He also has questions about what they did afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I know it’s a coverup. I know everyone talked. I got everyone’s emails and I know all the reports went back and forth to one main person. And all the information I’m providing you was, was straight facts. I’m telling you straight-up, I’ma look you, you at your face. I’m not he- I’m not here to lie to you. I’m not here to play a joke. I’m not here to play a game. I was, I was pretty straightforward with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Bolden reveals over their year-long investigation they’ve gotten search warrants of officers’ phones and searched their departmental emails and found that after the incident officers coordinated a coverup. Investigators found multiple versions of the officers’ reports. The sergeant on duty actually changed their reports and removed details about Price saying he didn’t want to make the cell move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Did you ask her wh- uh, why it wasn’t needed about the information that she revised and took off?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> But I did not que- I didn’t question her. She’s the supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> So I just signed it and I was happy with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And finally, the investigator confronts Pacheco with text messages that he sent. They say, quote, “It’s all about how you write your report,” and, “Your partners have your back.” As the interview comes to a close, Pacheco’s voice sounds subdued and almost strangled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> This report, yes, is incorrect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This is a rare moment, an officer admitting his reports were false.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. Looking back at this report and what was done, was it wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> How do you feel about it now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Dirtbag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Again Pacheco calls himself a dirtbag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Did we, during this investigation, did we treat you okay or fairly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes. You treated me fairly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. At, uh, closing, is there anything that you would like to include?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I’m sorry all this happened. It wasn’t my intention. I had no intention of, I guess, for him dying, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I never planned for that, you know, it’s, so I’m just sorry and sorry to everybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco and his partner along with three other officers and the sergeant who changed the reports were all fired for violating policy, including using excessive force or lying about the incident. Pacheco and his sergeant were also referred to the district attorney for potential criminal charges. She couldn’t use the interviews you just heard, but the other stuff, text messages and altered reports, was fair game. However, she declined to prosecute, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to secure a homicide conviction. But it turned out, another agency did think there might be evidence of a crime, the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FBI investigation into Arturo Pacheco and the other officers involved in the death of Ronnie Price took years. But finally, in October 2022, in a federal courtroom in Sacramento, he was called to account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walk me through arriving at the courthouse. What happened, who’d you see, what stood out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Well, Pacheco’s family filled the entire courtroom practically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco had pleaded guilty to falsifying records in a federal investigation and depriving Price of his civil rights under color of law. This means he used his authority as an officer to unlawfully injure Price. My co-reporter Julie and producer Steven Rascón attended this hearing, where Pacheco would find out his sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> He looked very, um, crisp, clean. He was wearing a crisp blue linen shirt and dark slacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Ronnie Price’s family was there too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Uh, the nephew of Ronnie Price, you know, he wanted to speak. He wanted to read his victim statement. The judge was like, “Well, why, I have it in writing. I don’t need you to present it.” And he’s like, “Well, I want to. You know, I want, I want him to hear this.” Him meaning Pacheco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Takis Tucker:\u003c/b> To prepare this statement has been tremendously difficult and painful. My mom and I cried heavily before we started to write this. We had come to the sense and reality that Ronnie would not be coming home from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We couldn’t record in court, but Price’s nephew, Takis Tucker, read his victim impact statement for us later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Takis Tucker:\u003c/b> It is difficult because even though Ronnie may have been a felon and was incarcerated, we never would have imagined that a peace officer who was ordered to monitor and protect would be the cause of Ronnie’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have suffered. It’s like an empty space that lays on our heart. It is sad to know that he is dead. He had a calm demeanor and it would take an awful lot to get him beside himself. Ronnie was funny. He had a sense of humor and he loved hard candies. I remember a time after he was released he wanted to go with the family and listen to his favorite singer Sade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was determined to manage his business and get things done whether he was in jail or not. Ronnie was relaxed and a good person and he loved his family. We will miss him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> According to Takis, even while that whole investigation was going on, neither CDCR nor the FBI told Price’s family exactly how or why he died. A lawsuit filed by the Price family says that Steele is the one who called Price’s sister to say that Price was dead, but it alleges in that phone call he said that Price’s cellmate caused his injuries. We can’t confirm that this call happened, but it doesn’t make sense that Steele would cover up the incident, because he didn’t just take Price’s statement, he also attended his autopsy and he told prison officials he believed officers were responsible for Price’s death. But one way or another, according to Price’s nephew, the family didn’t know that officers were to blame until six years later, in 2022, when Pacheco pled guilty for his role in Price’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At the sentencing hearing, Julie tells me Pacheco also spoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> The judge asked Pacheco if he had anything to say for himself, and he said, um, he said, “I am very remorseful. I apologize.” It was very short and he choked up in the middle, and that’s all he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Then it was time for the judge to issue his sentence…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Then the judge said, “This is a very difficult decision for the court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … 12 years in federal prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> When the judge said he was gonna be sentenced to, you know, twel- over 12 years, um, it was the daughters, I believe, who started weeping. You know, and his wife, of course, just looked stricken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit filed by Price’s family is ongoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacheco’s partner also took a plea deal. She was sentenced to two years in federal prison, but her lawyer said she is currently serving her time in transitional housing rather than in federal prison. Their supervisor, the sergeant who altered their reports, was convicted of conspiracy and falsifying records in a federal investigation. She is set to be sentenced on March 18th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Somber music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that supervisor’s trial, in December of 2023, prosecutors played the video of Sergeant Kevin Steele standing at Price’s bedside taking his testimony. Without that recording, it is unlikely anyone would ever know what happened to Price. He died the next day. Without that recording, only the officers’ version of the story would have survived. But as the video played in court, no mention was made that the man who made this video and so many others like it was no longer alive—because Steele did not survive to see that justice was served in this case. He died by suicide about a year before Pacheco’s sentencing, on August 20th, 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Phone ringing]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple days after Joel Uribe gave me his mom’s phone number, I called her back. It was dark outside and after 7:00 at night, and I was sitting in my home office with the phone plugged into my recorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Hi, Ms. Lopez?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Yeah, now I’m home. I was just coming from work, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You’re home. All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that Sergeant Kevin Steele had spoken to her and stayed in touch with her seemed like another important clue about who Steele had been.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okay, so your son gave me your phone number. And, is it okay if I record this conversation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Uh, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s okay? Okay, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juana Lopez immediately struck me as an impressive woman. She’s an audit inspector and she loves her son fiercely, but she is also a hard-ass. When he went to prison, she told him…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> I am not gonna play around. One tattoo goes on your face, I will stand strong on my word, I will not come and see you. And the reason is because you don’t know how much you’re hurting me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel didn’t listen. Lots of people get face tattoos in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh no, I am not a joke. I am your mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She hasn’t seen his face in over 12 years, but they’re still close. They talk on the phone all the time. And after he wound up in the hospital, she says they filed a lawsuit, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, and it is very, very frustrating, very frustrating. The only good thing that kept me going, there was this officer. His name is Mr. Steele. I would keep touch with him, but, um, I haven’t called him lately. It’s usually at, um, Christmas, you know, “Merry Christmas or you, how are you doing? How is Joel doing?” If it wasn’t for him, my son wouldn’t be alive today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Really? Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. He was the one that, uh, seek medical attention for him. I think he was one of the reasons that he helped him transfer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh, he helped him to go to a different facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> And I, I’m very appreciative of Mr. Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I realize as she’s talking that Juana doesn’t know yet that Steele passed away. Did you hear that he had died?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Who?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mr. Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah. I’m really sorry to be telling you that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> He… They, uh, that’s, uh, foul play. Foul play, honestly. He- And I was gonna… Oh, wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She immediately suspects that he was killed, but I have to tell her that seven months after he moved to Missouri, he actually took his own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[Sobs]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He, um, um, he, he committed suicide they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, no. \u003ci>[crying]\u003c/i> No, he was a very sharp, was, he was very, very… Uh-uh. I cannot accept that. I cannot accept that, none. I mean, I knew him talking to him like I’m talking to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> But with him, I felt a comfort. He goes, “No, Ms. Lopez, you don’t worry about your son. I am here. I am here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. Um, I’m really sorry I, I had to-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I had told your son and I thought he might, might have already told you. I’m really sorry to be giving you this information in this way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. He was, he was a true officer. When did this happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Um, about a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Ugh. Oh, wow. Ugh. Ugh. I know the torment he went through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. They took a little angel. So please get to the bottom of this. Everybody needs justice, especially him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Guitar picking music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I will do my best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Okay, you have a good night, and I’m gonna, I’ll stay in touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You too. Okay, stay in touch, sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> And… O- Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, Val Senior tells us about the project Steele was working on when he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> That’s the name of his book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> The title is How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I’m assuming it would be like, “This is how you demoralize a cop. This is how you undermine. This is the pattern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Exactly. The pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And finally, we learn what was in the black drug bindle that Mimi found in their home when they were ripping out the carpets after Valentino died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did you share the email?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I am just sending it to you now. I have not opened it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we finally get in touch with someone who was close to Sergeant Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His big question for me was, which side of the blue line are you on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Credits music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’re listening to On Our Watch, \u003ci>Season Two\u003c/i>: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research by Laura Fitzgerald and Kathleen Quinn, students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky, and to our in-house counsel, Rebecca Hopkins. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. We got tremendous support from David Barstow, Chair of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and graduate students Elizabeth Santos, Cayla Mihalovich, Julietta Bisharyan, William Jenkins, Armon Owlia, Vera Watt, and Junyao Yang. Thanks also to UC Berkeley’s Jeremy Rue, Amanda Glazer, and Olivia Chu for their data analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The internal records highlighted in this podcast were obtained as part of the California Reporting Project. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and The California Endowment. Thank you to our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R Taylor, Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How did Sgt. Kevin Steele go from being a true believer in the institution of New Folsom to writing an explosive memo hoping to tear it down? We sift through video evidence, interrogation tapes and internal reports to find glimpses of his transformation. But when he feels his reports of corruption are ignored—he takes an even more drastic step.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7074451474\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer:\u003c/b> Before we start, just wanted to give you a heads-up that this episode includes graphic descriptions of violence and discusses a suicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A few months into our investigation, in late 2022, I get a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Hello, can you hear me now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yes, hi.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Can you hear me?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I guess the other headphones I have ain’t working that good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The connection isn’t great, but the call is a breakthrough.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was at Sacramento for like about like two, two or three years off and on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This man isn’t at Sacramento’s New Folsom prison anymore, but he is still in prison. I wrote to Joel Uribe because Sergeant Kevin Steele mentioned him in his memo — that one he sent to the warden shortly before he was banned from prison grounds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I finally just got your letter five minutes ago, just barely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Now, Joel is calling me ’cause he just got my letter five minutes earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In my letter, I didn’t mention anything about Steele or the memo, but before I bring it up, Joel starts talking about Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I remember ISU, uh, Sergeant Steele’s coming in and yelling at the COs saying, “Why didn’t you guys call me?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel is telling me about the first time he met Sergeant Steele, May 2017. Joel was in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> You see in pictures of me in the hospital, the bed I’m laying on is, like, soaked in blood. I was bleeding a lot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I was able to get a video of Joel in the hospital. It was actually taken by Sergeant Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele. I am recording Inmate Uribe. What’s your CDC number?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele has the camera trained on Joel, who is lying in the hospital bed with a blood pressure cuff on his arm and monitors taped to his bare chest. Blood has seeped into the gauze pads under his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I want you to tell me in your own words what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, I was in my cell and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At one point, Steele swings the camera around to the right side of Joel’s shaved head and, you can see, there is still an open wound in his skull.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I’ve still got the scar on my head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On the phone, Joel tells me officers put him in the hospital that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> They broke my ribs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They broke his ribs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I lost my hearing on one of my ears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he lost hearing in one of his ears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At any point, like have you pursued, uh, litigation? Have you tried to, you know, get any other remedy?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I’ve been trying to, and I’ve been trying to see if I can-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> You have 60 seconds remaining.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s gonna shut off any minute. Can you call back or do you have to go?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. I’ll call back later on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay. Thanks. Bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Okay, bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Years before Officer Valentino Rodriguez died, years before Sergeant Kevin Steele met Valentino’s father and joined him on his mission, the sergeant had already begun gathering evidence, evidence that he’d one day cite in that memo, evidence of the times he felt the institution had broken its promises to officers and the public.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m Sukey Lewis, and this is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i>, Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It is currently about 2:46 on Wednesday morning. Inmate Uribe…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On May 3rd, 2017, at UC Davis hospital in Sacramento, Sergeant Kevin Steele interviewed Joel Uribe around 2:45 in the morning and then in greater depth around 12:20 in the afternoon, after he received medical treatment. You’ll hear audio from both.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Inmate Uribe, have I told you anything to say?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the video, Joel is clean-shaven.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He’s got dark brown eyes and tattoos cover his abdomen and creep up his neck and face.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I want you to tell me in your own words what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was in my cell and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel tells Steele it all started when officers told him he was moving to a housing block in a different building.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> They go, “You gotta go.” And I go, “Look, man, I already know what’s up, man.” I go-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> What do you mean when you say that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, I already knew they were gonna fuck my up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> How do you know that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Because of everything that’s been going on with Gomez. We knew it was retaliation. And, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> And when you say Gomez, you’re talking about Officer Gomez?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, the one that got assaulted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> By-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> An officer named Joseph Gomez had been assaulted by a different incarcerated man about a week and a half earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says officers thought he had something to do with it because he’d gotten in an argument with Gomez. And Joel was convinced this move was being orchestrated as a cover to get him out of his cell so they could beat him up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I just gonna get it out the way, dog, and get-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Get what out of the way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Get their beating out the way. And they were like, “Mm it’s too funny, it’s too funny, don’t, man.” And, um-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Other inmates were telling you not to come out of your cell?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, not to come out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says the circumstances of the move seemed strange. It was 7:00 at night. And not only that, he was set to be transferred to a different prison shortly. Why go to the trouble of moving him and all his stuff twice? But Officer Eric Shinnette and another officer came to take him to another housing facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Shinnette came, chained, cuffed me, walked me to the cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette’s a big guy, about 5’9″ and 240 pounds. Joel is quite a bit smaller, two inches shorter and at least 80 pounds lighter. And it’s important to know that, because of problems with his back, Joel walked with a cane. He was shackled at the ankles and his wrists were cuffed to a waist chain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> And we walked all the way over there. And then when we got in front of the block…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> And you were going from B Facility to A Facility.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Let me take a minute to describe the layout of the prison so you can picture what’s happening here. There are three main yards, or facilities, A, B, and C, that are all similarly designed. Each facility has eight housing blocks that can hold around 120 people each. These housing blocks are further subdivided into sections. They also each have their own administrative offices, dining hall, etc. Those eight blocks are organized around a central outdoor yard, kind of like the petals of a flower. So to get from B Facility to A Facility, Shinnette, holding Joel’s arm, had to walk quite a ways. And two of Shinnette’s partners followed behind, one of them pushing a cart with Joel’s belongings on it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As they got to the gate, a couple of other officers joined in the escort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> You know where you gotta come in through that gate? You come in this way and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Yep. The bay gate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The group filed through a number of locking doors and security checkpoints that feed into the rotunda of the housing block, which you walk through to get into the housing sections or administrative offices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> The first window you see to the office, they put me on that little concrete pillar where the door comes like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> What do you mean put you on it? What does that mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Uh, he like, like, said “stand right here,” in front of the concrete thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> With your facing the con- You’re facing the wall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yes. I’m facing the wall and, and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says Shinnette took his cane and handed it to another officer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Did he grab your cane because you were attempting to use it?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No. As soon as he did that, he spit on the floor and he just socked me, man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Socked you meaning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> He s- like s- with his fist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Punch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, he punched me hard-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Where did he hit you at?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Like right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Here, you’re, it looks like you’re pointing towards your forehead area or your head, face?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. Yeah, and then I fell down to the ground and I fell on my, I was laying on my right s- on my right side, but I couldn’t lay on my stomach because I was like, the concrete wall was holding me up. And they were just s- stomping my head, man, and socking me. And then I just seen the blood coming out and I go, “Oh man, they’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill me.” Then I just felt it crack, crack, right, uh, in, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Where was that crack at?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Right here. And then he-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Just for reference, you’re referring to this, your chest area right here?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At some point, they stopped. They put Joel in a holding cage. He says he was in pain and throwing up, but he refused treatment. Finally, he did get assessed by medical staff, and he told them he had a back spasm and had hit his head on the door knob.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> When you told him that, was that true?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Why did you say that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Um, because I was scared, man. I’m not gonna lie, I was scared.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Scared of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Them retaliating, because there were still a grip COs there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When he got to the hospital, escorted by two correctional officers, initially Joel told doctors the same thing about the door knob. It wasn’t until Sergeant Steele arrived and told the other officers to leave that Joel changed his story and gave the explanation you just heard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay, we’re gonna go ahead and conclude this. It is now 12:50 on the same day, Wednesday. We’re gonna conclude this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel was diagnosed with a concussion, three fractured ribs, and he received four sutures to close up the wound on his head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ambient sounds]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This seems to be working okay. Let’s just kind of scooch together so that we both are on mic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My co-reporter Julie and I are in the studio together to go over some stuff. We’ve gotten hundreds of pages of documents from CDCR about Joel’s case and more than a dozen audio recordings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What are you pulling up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So this is the CDCR recordings that we got that are associated with the case in which Joel Uribe ended up in the hospital and was very injured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tape I want to play for Julie, it’s a little scratchy. It’s from a recording of a prison phone call Joel made to his mother, Juana Lopez, about 10 days after the incident, and they start talking about Sergeant Kevin Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Like, like I was telling you before, be cool with Lieutenant Steeles, ’cause he’s helped me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, no, I am, I am. Yesterday I apologized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s clear from their call that Juana has also talked to Steele, and it sounds to me like she kind of went off on him. She was angry and scared for her son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Are you in a safe place? ‘Cause he promised me you were in, in a safe place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah. Yeah, he’s got me right here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel tells her Sergeant Steele is protecting him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Lieutenant Steele goes, “I don’t work here to protect my own. I work here to protect everybody. If I’m following the rules and following the laws, and I’m supposed to be doing this, then my partner should be doing this too. There’s no code of silence here or nothing like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The code of silence. It’s a term used for an unspoken agreement between correctional officers that they won’t report misconduct or turn on each other. It’s officially banned, but it still happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> I was like, “Thank you, man. I appreciate that.” You know? And he’s for reals, mom. And he-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> I know, I know. That’s why I apologized, but he understands from where I was coming from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Because, um, ma, he, even he knows this was bullshit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Coming across this call — where Joel talks to his mom about Steele — way back in 2017… felt like finding one of Steele’s footprints in the snow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s just interesting to me ’cause like this, uh, his term code of silence is not a term that I have ever heard Joel use. Like I don’t feel like that, like he is, to me it feels like he is quoting him, because that’s a term that Steele would use, ’cause he knows about the code of silence and everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm. Yeah. Right. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Um, so I was just like that’s, you know, just very interesting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> And the, you know, the “I’m not here to just protect my own, I’m here to protect everybody,” that fits with everything we know and have heard about him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And it’s also like at this point it feels like he still believes it, right? Like h- this is in 2017 or whatever, and he’s saying there’s no code of silence, like it’s, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He feels like he can protect Joel and things will be figured out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You can trust- still trust the system.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While we’ve heard a lot about Steele from Val Senior, part of what Julie and I are trying to understand and retrace are the steps that led Steele, a sergeant who trusted and supported this institution, to become the man who sent that explosive memo, hoping to bring it down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve gone over his memo many times, each time peeling back another layer of evidence and comparing it with the evidence we have been able to gather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I’m Sergeant Steele. This is Sergeant Steele. It is the 20th of July. It’s about a little bit after 8:00, approximately 10 after 8:00 on the…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And through these records and tapes…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It is Tuesday, the 16th…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … We catch more glimpses of Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele, ISU… 19th of August… on a Friday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we learned that Steele was often the guy who did “use of force” interviews. The department has this policy that if someone in prison gets really badly hurt or alleges they were badly hurt by a guard, an officer, someone not involved in the incident, has to interview them on camera within 48 hours to document their injuries and ask them about what happened. In fact, you’ve already heard Steele doing one of these interviews in an earlier episode. That was Steele who initially talked to an incarcerated man that we called C, the guy in the psychiatric services unit who says officers handed him a noose.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> …Uh, you made the allegation, you, while trying to hang myself, the COs came in and smashed my face into the wall. Can you tell me about that, what you mean?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So Steele had this really direct interaction with incarcerated people who’d been injured where he’d take down their allegations firsthand. Of course, this is also how he met Joel Uribe. But it wasn’t Steele’s job to figure out if those allegations had merit or if the use of force was justified. After Steele interviewed someone like Joel in the hospital, the officers’ reports and any photos or evidence would get kicked to higher-ups to decide whether it needed further investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nIf they thought it did, they’d call in investigators from outside New Folsom to do the follow-up. Special agents from the Office of Internal Affairs would be tasked with investigating if officers broke policy, which could mean discipline, or broke the law, which could mean criminal charges.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Today is September 19, 2017, and the time is approximately 6:19. Uh, this is the initial report concerning…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In Joel Uribe’s case, Office of Internal Affairs Special Agent Grant Parker was assigned to look into Joel’s allegations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Are you comfortable?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yeah, I’m good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> You good?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Adjust myself here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In September, about four months after the incident, the special agent sat down to interview Officer Eric Shinnette, the one who’d been walking alongside Joel. In California, correctional officers like Shinnette are peace officers, so they’re protected by the Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights, which means, going into this interview, he’s got the right to know what it’s about ahead of time and his union lawyer is in the room with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Do you recall that incident?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay. Why don’t you give me your version of that incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yeah, so from the beginning? Uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Let’s go from, uh, yeah, whatever your beginning is. We’ll take it from there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Okay, um…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette says, as they were moving Joel to a different unit, everything was going smoothly…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Where’d you have him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Well, I had him, I hold him with my right hand, his left, like, tricep.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Tricep/elbow area?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Right..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … Until they got through the door and walked into the rotunda of the housing block.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> And then out of nowhere, uh, Uribe just turned around, plu- uh, pulls away from my grip, turns around and hits me with his, his cane. I was able to push him down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> When he fell down on the ground, did he fall on his, on his back, on his stomach?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, no, on his head. I know that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Oh, on his head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay, c- could you tell me o- one side or the other?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, I really don’t remember.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Forehead?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Shinnette says he also slipped and ended up on the ground where Joel kept lashing out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> He’s still hitting me, kicking me, or, you know, hitting me with his, uh… I’m trying to get the cane away. He hit me with his cane. I’m trying to get the cane away. I punched him two to three times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> While he was on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> While we were on, both on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Oh, okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Another officer, or officers, arrived and helped him hold Joel down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> I was able to get the cane away. Then CO Brewer comes in and, um, pins his upper body. I’m pinning his lower body.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So to recap, Shinnette’s version is that they walked inside the housing unit, out of nowhere Joel Uribe hit him with his cane, Shinnette pulled him to the ground, Joel landed on his head, and then Shinnette punched him a couple times to get the cane away, and then they got Joel under control and it was all over. The special agent doesn’t ask Shinnette anything about Officer Joseph Gomez, who’d been assaulted about 10 days before the incident with Joel. His questions were focused on the use of force that day. The special agent talked to the other officers involved too. And we won’t play you all of their interviews, but what is important is these noticeable discrepancies in how officers remembered the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\nFor example, no one can agree on which direction Joel was facing when he was on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer Camacho:\u003c/b> He was on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> And he has his, he has his cane, and he’s face down on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer White:\u003c/b> Yes, sir.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Officer Brewer: \u003c/b> He’s laying, he’s on his back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Uh, he was on his stomach, facing…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Grant Parker:\u003c/b> Okay, so face, face down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eric Shinnette:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To me this is key because, remember, Joel is shackled at the ankles and the waist. If he’s on his stomach, he’d barely be able to move, let alone pose a threat. And if the only force was two or three punches from Shinnette, how did Joel get those injuries, a head injury needing stitches, a concussion, loss of hearing in one of his ears, and three broken ribs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The officers who used force on Joel also wrote reports, but what stood out to me reading through them is that they’re totally inconsistent. Officer Eric Shinnette’s report doesn’t mention Officer Camacho or Officer White using force. Officer Brewer’s report mentions Officer White using force, but does not mention Officer Camacho using force. Officer White’s report mentions Officer Camacho using force, but not Officer Brewer. And, Officer Camacho’s report does not mention Officer Brewer or Officer White using force. Now, that may sound like one of those logic puzzles you get on the SAT, but even after prison supervisors asked some of the guards to clarify these reports, the picture of who actually did what remains confusing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CDCR did not respond to questions about this case. My attempts to contact Eric Shinnette over email were unsuccessful. The oversight agency that monitors prisons did review this investigation and found no evidence that officers planned to beat Joel. They said Shinnette did have bruises on his chest and legs from the cane, and they speculated that Joel could have broken his ribs when he fell on an officer’s boot. In the end, CDCR’s internal investigation didn’t find that the officers did anything wrong and none of them were disciplined; Joel, however, was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a disciplinary hearing a few months after the incident, Joel was found guilty of assaulting a peace officer with a weapon, the cane, and he was sentenced to 42 months, three and a half years, in the SHU, solitary confinement. He says he served more than a year of that before prison officials decided to release him from solitary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> I have a call from Joel Uribe, an inmate at…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I just want to point out that Joel is taking a risk by talking to me, as is anyone who is still incarcerated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice:\u003c/b> This call and your telephone number will be monitored and recorded.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Officers can listen in and hear what they are alleging, and Joel doesn’t have another Steele around to protect him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the incident, Joel was referred to the DA for assault with a deadly weapon, the cane, which could have meant a whole new prison term. The documents that we obtained show that the charges were dropped in the “interest of justice.” As we spoke in that first call, Joel tells me that was because Steele intervened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Within the first two weeks, Sergeant Steele pulled me off then told me that uh, “I’m dropping the DA referral because I already know what’s going on. I know you didn’t do nothing. I know you had nothing to do with this, and that’s the best I could do for you.” And I said, “Man, I appreciate that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he gives me another clue to Steele’s character. Long after the incident, Steele kept in touch with Juana Lopez, Joel’s mom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> He’s gonna make sure, and yeah, no, your son’s okay. He would call and make sure I’m okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel says while he was in solitary, serving out his SHU sentence, Steele would come by and check on him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Do you think your mom might talk to me as well?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, she will.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He gives me his mom’s number. And, I want to call her to hear more about Joel, but also more about Steele, because this feels so unusual, a correctional officer keeping in touch with the family of someone in their custody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Yeah, she’ll talk to you like for sure. And, uh, she knows a lot too, what happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Okay, that’s great. Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Joel Uribe:\u003c/b> Thank you. Okay, bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In his memo, when Steele writes about what happened to Joel Uribe, he says there were “many more of these cases where the man’s injuries didn’t match what officers wrote on their reports.” While we don’t know what incidents Steele was thinking of when he says there were many more cases like Joel’s, we have been doing our own investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So here’s our current list of cases, updated, so…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been fighting to get records on all serious use of force cases from the Department of Corrections. In 2022, we sued, well, KQED’s lawyers did, because CDCR was giving us these records so incredibly slowly. The agency still hasn’t given us all the records we asked for, but with those we have been able to get, we’ve been building a database of incidents and the names of involved officers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And this one involves… Look, who does it involve?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Oh.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Eric Shinnette. Leach, who was also involved in the Uribe incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And that’s also interesting, when you just look at like the kind of order of events, it’s again during an escort and he doesn’t want to go wherever they’re going, you know, placing him in a new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The rules around officer use of force are pretty clear. It’s gotta be proportional, so deadly force can only be used to overcome a deadly threat. Batons, pepper spray, even fists can be used to overcome resistance or to stop a threat, but once the resistance stops or the threat is gone, the officers also have to stop. They’re not allowed to use force in retaliation or as a punishment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve been able to get records of all the serious incidents that happened at New Folsom between 2014 and 2021. In all, according to CDCR, there were 27 of these incidents in which officers severely injured someone or used deadly force. Some of these appear totally lawful — officers shooting to save someone’s life who’s being stabbed or using pepper spray grenades to stop an attack. But in about half of these incidents where the person ended up seriously injured, the circumstances followed a pattern. The reports note that the incarcerated person was resisting in some way. And despite the fact that in most of these cases the incarcerated person was already in restraints, either handcuffed behind their back or handcuffed and shackled at the ankles, in many cases officers used force so severe that the person ended up with really bad injuries, ranging from head lacerations to broken noses and ribs. One man’s femur was even broken. But in many of these cases, in the reports filed by officers, it’s often unclear how the events they describe resulted in such severe injuries. For example, in one report, the officer wrote he used “the minimal amount of physical force needed to place the incarcerated person on the ground.” But the man ended up in the intensive care unit with broken ribs and extensive internal bleeding. Sometimes the officers’ explanations were contradicted by other witnesses or evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And these are just the cases that we actually got reports for. Incarcerated people have told us about incidents that don’t appear in the records at all. A lawsuit filed by one of these men, who was incarcerated at New Folsom in 2016, alleges that his back was broken by officers and that officers poured urine and feces in his mouth. Medical records show that his back was fractured at some point and he required extensive surgery a year later, but CDCR refused to release documents related to the incident, saying it didn’t qualify as a use of force that resulted in great bodily injury. In court filings, CDCR has denied the man’s claims.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We tracked down about a dozen men who were incarcerated at New Folsom who say they were beaten excessively by officers or as retaliation or that they witnessed these beatings. We also got interview tapes from CDCR of incarcerated people telling investigators like Steele what happened to them. Here are their voices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 1:\u003c/b> They would cuff us. They would handcuff us and beat us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was handcuffed as I am now.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> With my hands behind my back, still handcuffed, and my legs…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> He was escorting me with his right hand.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> And then I seen him coming at me, and before I knew it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was forced to the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> He grabbed me. He slammed me on the floor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 5:\u003c/b> Dropping their knees down on my back and my spine, stomping on my…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> He even kicked me in the face two times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> Punches coming to the back of my head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 4:\u003c/b> Grabbing my hair, knocked out my teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 2:\u003c/b> I was pulled to the left and I was hit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 6:\u003c/b> You are knocked out, but you still feel the blows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 3:\u003c/b> And then they threw me in the cage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 5:\u003c/b> And that’s how they broke my back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 6:\u003c/b> Thought I was gonna die. I felt like I was dying, man.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 7:\u003c/b> I was like, you know what? I’m not gonna say nothing, ’cause if I did, they’re gonna beat me again and I might die this time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We have also spoken to four current and former correctional officers who said when they worked at the prison it was well known that some officers would beat up incarcerated people. They all said they witnessed at least one of these beatings firsthand but did not report misconduct because they were afraid of retaliation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I just want to point out that out of the 800+ guards who work at New Folsom, only about 50 were responsible for injuring people in their custody, and there were clear repeat offenders, names that kept showing up in the records. CDCR said they have a new process in place to investigate all complaints of employee misconduct. They also pointed to the new fixed cameras and body cams that they have installed at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 27 serious use of force incidents that we have records for, however, there was almost always the same outcome. It’s what happened with Joel Uribe’s case. There was no discipline for the officers. And more often than not, the incarcerated person was punished.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there is one case that turned out differently from all the rest. It started, as so many of them did, with Sergeant Steele on camera in the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> This is Sergeant Steele, ISU. The date is the 16th of September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s 2016, a little less than a year after Steele joined the ISU squad. A second officer is behind the camera. Steele is wearing his wire-rimmed glasses and checks his black military watch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It’s approximately 10:30 on a Friday morning. Go ahead and introduce yourself?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Um, Ronnie Price…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the video, you can see, again, a man lying in a hospital bed. His name: Ronnie Price. He’s in a dark blue gown, hooked up to an IV, a handcuff around his wrist. You can’t see his face because it’s been blacked out in the video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Go ahead, tell me what happened to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Price tells Steele he transferred to New Folsom a week earlier, and officers were about to move him to a new cell with a cellmate. Price didn’t want to go. That part of the audio is redacted, so it’s not totally clear why he didn’t want to go there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> But you understand, when an officer tells you you gotta go there, that’s what you gotta do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, I, I, but I was willing to, to take the punishment in the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> ‘Cause if, if I go in the cell and get caught up, I’m gonna spend years wishing I had went to the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What this sounds like to me is that Price is afraid he’s going to get caught up in something that he’ll regret. He’d even rather go to the hole or solitary confinement which is the punishment for refusing the cell move than go to this new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We gonna take you to the hole. J- Just cuff up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I said, “Oh, no problem.” So I turned around and they opened the door and they, they cuffed me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But as the officers escorted him, he realized where they were going, and it wasn’t the hole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> So I asked, “Where y’all going? This, this ain’t the way to the hole.” So that’s when they put the, the leg restraints on me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So now he was cuffed behind his back and his ankles were in shackles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> I told them, “I’m not going in that cell with the guy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As they tried to physically move him along…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You were pushing back?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You were resisting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah I was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He says four officers grabbed him, two on each arm, and propelled him forward into the rotunda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> That’s when somebody stepped on my, uh, shackles and-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> From behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> And they, they, they pushed me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He says an officer, or officers, stepped on the shackles around his ankles and pushed him to the ground face first. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he couldn’t even break his fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> I’m gonna have the camera come in here. What happened to your mouth?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> It, it, uh, knocked out two false teeth and, and knocked out two of my, my own teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Two r- regular teet- teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, four teeth got [inaudible 00:32:24].\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> And when, when I raised my head up to spit the teeth out, somebody grabbed my head and s-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You’re on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> You’re on the ground, you raise your head up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> When I raise up, uh, was about to spit the teeth out, somebody grabbed my head and slammed it, slammed it…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> There is some kind of alarm going off, but you can hear Price say they slammed his head on the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> … On the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> How did they do that? How did they slam your head?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> When I, when I raised up, somebody grabbed me by the head and slammed it into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> They’re using their hands to push your head down on the ground?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Is that what they used, their hands?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Yeah, their hands.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele asks a few more questions, Price confirms they took him to see medical and then, by ambulance, to the hospital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> Do you have any questions?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ronnie Price:\u003c/b> Not that I can think.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> We’re gonna go ahead and conclude this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele checks his watch again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sgt. Kevin Steele:\u003c/b> It’s now about 10:48 on the 16th of September. Again, it is Friday. This concludes this interview.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The very next day, according to internal reports, Price went into a medical emergency around 4:30 in the afternoon and his heart stopped beating. Records show Steele attended his autopsy. The coroner ruled Price’s death a homicide, but that just means death at the hands of another; it doesn’t assign criminal liability or if the use of force was justified. Just like in Joel Uribe’s case, special agents from the Office of Internal Affairs were called in to find out if officers violated policy or broke the law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, we’re on the record. The date is December 5th, 2017. The time’s approximately 1406 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Already this is unusual. As you can hear in this interview, it’s taking place in December 2017. That’s more than a year after the incident happened. Most of these investigations are wrapped up much sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I’m Special Agent Justin Bolden. I’m in charge of this interview and I’m gonna be assisted by, uh, Special Agent Lillia Duarte. Also present is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In the hot seat today is an officer named Arturo Pacheco, one of the officers who escorted Ronnie Price to his new cell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As Bolden goes over Pachecho’s rights at the beginning of the interview, there’s another step he goes through that’s less common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so, um, Officer Pacheco, you’re being interviewed regarding an incident where there are criminal proceedings pending or pe- potential. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The investigation into Price’s death is criminal as well as administrative, so Pacheco has a right not to incriminate himself.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Having been informed of your rights and having your rights in mind, are you willing to talk to us?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I, I wish to invoke…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco’s voice is kind of faint there, but he says he wants to invoke his right to remain silent. This doesn’t mean the interview is over, though. Bolden goes on to issue what’s called a Lybarger Warning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> This is an administrative inquiry, and as such you do not have the right to refuse to answer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What this means is that if Pacheco wants to keep his job, he has to answer their questions. But because it’s a compelled interview, nothing he says in the interview can be used in a criminal case against him; it can only be used for internal disciplinary purposes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Do you understand?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, now we’re gonna do this…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> During the interview, Pacheco’s story about what happened during the escort is different from Ronnie Price’s. He says as they entered the rotunda of the unit…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I had just walked in and we’d took an approximate five steps in. By the time we got to the rotunda, that’s when inmate Price stopped.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And this is fi- towards the office?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Towards the office.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. And-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Right where the lockers are at.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And there’s lockers on what side of the…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> The left side.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> On left side? Okay. So are you next to, standing next to the lockers when Inmate Price stops?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Uh, we were, it was a tight fit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> So once you walk in, I, my partner, I believe, was right behind me, and he stopped, and that’s when he resisted and he s- broke free of my grasp by lunging forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> All I did was just immediately use force, ’cause at the time that’s w- I could use my body weight right there and then, so I brought him down. And I didn’t think nothing of it, so brought him down and…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I’ve listened to a lot of recordings of Internal Affairs interviews. A lot of times, they sound almost collaborative, like the investigators are trying to help the officers tell their story. But this time the Internal Affairs special agent takes a very different tone. He interrupts Pacheco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> … So I used immediate force to overcome Price’s resisting-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so stop right there. W- What is immediate force?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Immediate force is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And you’re referring to your white card-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I’m u- referring to my card.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Um, the use of force to respond without delay to a situation or circumstance that constitute an imminent threat over the security and safety of persons\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He lets Pacheco refer to his report, but he also really presses him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, and in this rotunda, who was in there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> That I know of, just me and my partner and the inmate and the officer bringing me upstage, but-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> You said that you know of. Would there be anybody that didn’t not know of?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> No, it’s, that’s it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco’s report mirrors what he says here, that he was the only officer to use force. But this question of who was there isn’t just the special agent fishing, he’s setting a trap. Over and over, the special agent circles back to this question of who else was there, and Pacheco keeps dodging and denying. Then Bolden springs the trap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, what happened is that, um, I talked to Officer Luna, and Luna said he was [censored]. He said he was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He reveals he knows there was another officer there who also came down on Price who is totally missing from the incident reports.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> And you look kinda surprised, but that’s a fact, um, Officer Luna was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> That’s what he said. And I’m telling you what I did.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I know, but I’m telling you that Officer Luna was there too. You’re, you’re saying that nobody else was there, so-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> No, he said he didn’t know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, so-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> I’m gonna object to your representation of.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> You’re gonna object, that’s fine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s Pacheco’s lawyer jumping in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, um, during the escort, Officer Luna [censored]. Do you recall now him being there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> No. I was focused on the inmate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Well, he, he walked with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> But I wasn’t focused on what’s behind me though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Uh, I’m not saying you weren’t focused or anything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lawyer:\u003c/b> Can we take a break please?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Yeah, we can take a break. The time is, uh, 1503 hours. Taking a break.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They come back from the break, and still Pacheco tries to say, well, he didn’t see the other officer or he doesn’t remember. And a little later, Bolden’s Internal Affairs colleague, who’s been quiet for most of the interview, steps in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lillia Duarte:\u003c/b> I can tell the pressure’s on you, that, uh, all you really have left to do right now is just to, to tell the truth, because it gets worse. It does get worse with the information that we’re gonna share with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Finally, an hour and 30 minutes into the interview, this happens.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> So, uh, during the break, did you have a chance to kinda think things over, um?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. So, what, what’s, what, what changed?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Luna was there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco admits the truth, Officer Luna was also there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Why didn’t you straight up and say, “He was there”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Just a dirtbag I guess.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Who?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I don’t think you’re a dirtbag. I think you made, you probably made a, uh, a wrong decision, okay? And that happens. And then we’re, that’s why we’re here, to kinda cl- clarify and get, get the truth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco doesn’t say he stepped on Price’s shackles, but he does say that they took him down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> And then that’s when we went forward and dumped him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay, and you said we dumped him. Who dumped him down?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Me and apparently Luna.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> How was it apparently Luna?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> He’s on top of him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Other officers confirmed that dumping someone is taking them to the ground. No one said they slammed Price’s face a second time, but Special Agent Bolden isn’t just interested in what they did during the incident. He also has questions about what they did afterwards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> I know it’s a coverup. I know everyone talked. I got everyone’s emails and I know all the reports went back and forth to one main person. And all the information I’m providing you was, was straight facts. I’m telling you straight-up, I’ma look you, you at your face. I’m not he- I’m not here to lie to you. I’m not here to play a joke. I’m not here to play a game. I was, I was pretty straightforward with you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Bolden reveals over their year-long investigation they’ve gotten search warrants of officers’ phones and searched their departmental emails and found that after the incident officers coordinated a coverup. Investigators found multiple versions of the officers’ reports. The sergeant on duty actually changed their reports and removed details about Price saying he didn’t want to make the cell move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Did you ask her wh- uh, why it wasn’t needed about the information that she revised and took off?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> But I did not que- I didn’t question her. She’s the supervisor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> So I just signed it and I was happy with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And finally, the investigator confronts Pacheco with text messages that he sent. They say, quote, “It’s all about how you write your report,” and, “Your partners have your back.” As the interview comes to a close, Pacheco’s voice sounds subdued and almost strangled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> This report, yes, is incorrect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This is a rare moment, an officer admitting his reports were false.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. Looking back at this report and what was done, was it wrong?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> How do you feel about it now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Dirtbag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Again Pacheco calls himself a dirtbag.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Did we, during this investigation, did we treat you okay or fairly?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> Yes. You treated me fairly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Okay. At, uh, closing, is there anything that you would like to include?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I’m sorry all this happened. It wasn’t my intention. I had no intention of, I guess, for him dying, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Justin Bolden:\u003c/b> Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Arturo Pacheco:\u003c/b> I never planned for that, you know, it’s, so I’m just sorry and sorry to everybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco and his partner along with three other officers and the sergeant who changed the reports were all fired for violating policy, including using excessive force or lying about the incident. Pacheco and his sergeant were also referred to the district attorney for potential criminal charges. She couldn’t use the interviews you just heard, but the other stuff, text messages and altered reports, was fair game. However, she declined to prosecute, saying there wasn’t enough evidence to secure a homicide conviction. But it turned out, another agency did think there might be evidence of a crime, the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The FBI investigation into Arturo Pacheco and the other officers involved in the death of Ronnie Price took years. But finally, in October 2022, in a federal courtroom in Sacramento, he was called to account.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Walk me through arriving at the courthouse. What happened, who’d you see, what stood out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Well, Pacheco’s family filled the entire courtroom practically.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Pacheco had pleaded guilty to falsifying records in a federal investigation and depriving Price of his civil rights under color of law. This means he used his authority as an officer to unlawfully injure Price. My co-reporter Julie and producer Steven Rascón attended this hearing, where Pacheco would find out his sentence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> He looked very, um, crisp, clean. He was wearing a crisp blue linen shirt and dark slacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Ronnie Price’s family was there too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Uh, the nephew of Ronnie Price, you know, he wanted to speak. He wanted to read his victim statement. The judge was like, “Well, why, I have it in writing. I don’t need you to present it.” And he’s like, “Well, I want to. You know, I want, I want him to hear this.” Him meaning Pacheco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Takis Tucker:\u003c/b> To prepare this statement has been tremendously difficult and painful. My mom and I cried heavily before we started to write this. We had come to the sense and reality that Ronnie would not be coming home from prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We couldn’t record in court, but Price’s nephew, Takis Tucker, read his victim impact statement for us later.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Takis Tucker:\u003c/b> It is difficult because even though Ronnie may have been a felon and was incarcerated, we never would have imagined that a peace officer who was ordered to monitor and protect would be the cause of Ronnie’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We have suffered. It’s like an empty space that lays on our heart. It is sad to know that he is dead. He had a calm demeanor and it would take an awful lot to get him beside himself. Ronnie was funny. He had a sense of humor and he loved hard candies. I remember a time after he was released he wanted to go with the family and listen to his favorite singer Sade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He was determined to manage his business and get things done whether he was in jail or not. Ronnie was relaxed and a good person and he loved his family. We will miss him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> According to Takis, even while that whole investigation was going on, neither CDCR nor the FBI told Price’s family exactly how or why he died. A lawsuit filed by the Price family says that Steele is the one who called Price’s sister to say that Price was dead, but it alleges in that phone call he said that Price’s cellmate caused his injuries. We can’t confirm that this call happened, but it doesn’t make sense that Steele would cover up the incident, because he didn’t just take Price’s statement, he also attended his autopsy and he told prison officials he believed officers were responsible for Price’s death. But one way or another, according to Price’s nephew, the family didn’t know that officers were to blame until six years later, in 2022, when Pacheco pled guilty for his role in Price’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> At the sentencing hearing, Julie tells me Pacheco also spoke.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> The judge asked Pacheco if he had anything to say for himself, and he said, um, he said, “I am very remorseful. I apologize.” It was very short and he choked up in the middle, and that’s all he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Then it was time for the judge to issue his sentence…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Then the judge said, “This is a very difficult decision for the court.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> … 12 years in federal prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> When the judge said he was gonna be sentenced to, you know, twel- over 12 years, um, it was the daughters, I believe, who started weeping. You know, and his wife, of course, just looked stricken.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit filed by Price’s family is ongoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pacheco’s partner also took a plea deal. She was sentenced to two years in federal prison, but her lawyer said she is currently serving her time in transitional housing rather than in federal prison. Their supervisor, the sergeant who altered their reports, was convicted of conspiracy and falsifying records in a federal investigation. She is set to be sentenced on March 18th.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Somber music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that supervisor’s trial, in December of 2023, prosecutors played the video of Sergeant Kevin Steele standing at Price’s bedside taking his testimony. Without that recording, it is unlikely anyone would ever know what happened to Price. He died the next day. Without that recording, only the officers’ version of the story would have survived. But as the video played in court, no mention was made that the man who made this video and so many others like it was no longer alive—because Steele did not survive to see that justice was served in this case. He died by suicide about a year before Pacheco’s sentencing, on August 20th, 2021.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Phone ringing]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple days after Joel Uribe gave me his mom’s phone number, I called her back. It was dark outside and after 7:00 at night, and I was sitting in my home office with the phone plugged into my recorder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Hello?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Hi, Ms. Lopez?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Yeah, now I’m home. I was just coming from work, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You’re home. All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fact that Sergeant Kevin Steele had spoken to her and stayed in touch with her seemed like another important clue about who Steele had been.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Okay, so your son gave me your phone number. And, is it okay if I record this conversation?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Uh, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s okay? Okay, thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juana Lopez immediately struck me as an impressive woman. She’s an audit inspector and she loves her son fiercely, but she is also a hard-ass. When he went to prison, she told him…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> I am not gonna play around. One tattoo goes on your face, I will stand strong on my word, I will not come and see you. And the reason is because you don’t know how much you’re hurting me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Joel didn’t listen. Lots of people get face tattoos in prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh no, I am not a joke. I am your mother.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She hasn’t seen his face in over 12 years, but they’re still close. They talk on the phone all the time. And after he wound up in the hospital, she says they filed a lawsuit, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, and it is very, very frustrating, very frustrating. The only good thing that kept me going, there was this officer. His name is Mr. Steele. I would keep touch with him, but, um, I haven’t called him lately. It’s usually at, um, Christmas, you know, “Merry Christmas or you, how are you doing? How is Joel doing?” If it wasn’t for him, my son wouldn’t be alive today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Really? Wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm. He was the one that, uh, seek medical attention for him. I think he was one of the reasons that he helped him transfer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh, he helped him to go to a different facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Yeah, mm-hmm. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> And I, I’m very appreciative of Mr. Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I realize as she’s talking that Juana doesn’t know yet that Steele passed away. Did you hear that he had died?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Who?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mr. Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah. I’m really sorry to be telling you that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> He… They, uh, that’s, uh, foul play. Foul play, honestly. He- And I was gonna… Oh, wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She immediately suspects that he was killed, but I have to tell her that seven months after he moved to Missouri, he actually took his own life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> \u003ci>[Sobs]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He, um, um, he, he committed suicide they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> No, no. \u003ci>[crying]\u003c/i> No, he was a very sharp, was, he was very, very… Uh-uh. I cannot accept that. I cannot accept that, none. I mean, I knew him talking to him like I’m talking to you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> But with him, I felt a comfort. He goes, “No, Ms. Lopez, you don’t worry about your son. I am here. I am here.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. Um, I’m really sorry I, I had to-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I had told your son and I thought he might, might have already told you. I’m really sorry to be giving you this information in this way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. He was, he was a true officer. When did this happen?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Um, about a year ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Ugh. Oh, wow. Ugh. Ugh. I know the torment he went through.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Oh, wow. They took a little angel. So please get to the bottom of this. Everybody needs justice, especially him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Guitar picking music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I will do my best.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> Okay, you have a good night, and I’m gonna, I’ll stay in touch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You too. Okay, stay in touch, sounds good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> And… O- Okay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Thank you so much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Juana Lopez:\u003c/b> You’re welcome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Bye.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, Val Senior tells us about the project Steele was working on when he died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> That’s the name of his book?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> The title is How to Kill a Cop.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I’m assuming it would be like, “This is how you demoralize a cop. This is how you undermine. This is the pattern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Exactly. The pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And finally, we learn what was in the black drug bindle that Mimi found in their home when they were ripping out the carpets after Valentino died.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did you share the email?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> I am just sending it to you now. I have not opened it yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Thank you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And we finally get in touch with someone who was close to Sergeant Steele.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His big question for me was, which side of the blue line are you on?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Credits music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’re listening to On Our Watch, \u003ci>Season Two\u003c/i>: New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review in Apple Podcasts. The series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts and executive produced the series. Meticulous fact checking by Mark Betancourt. Additional research by Laura Fitzgerald and Kathleen Quinn, students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, KQED Health Correspondent April Dembosky, and to our in-house counsel, Rebecca Hopkins. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network. We got tremendous support from David Barstow, Chair of the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, and graduate students Elizabeth Santos, Cayla Mihalovich, Julietta Bisharyan, William Jenkins, Armon Owlia, Vera Watt, and Junyao Yang. Thanks also to UC Berkeley’s Jeremy Rue, Amanda Glazer, and Olivia Chu for their data analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The internal records highlighted in this podcast were obtained as part of the California Reporting Project. Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and The California Endowment. Thank you to our Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Otis R Taylor, Jr., Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our Vice President of News, and KQED Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan. Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino’s unexpected death just days after a confidential meeting with the prison’s warden leaves his grieving father with a tangle of questions and suspicions. When law enforcement and prison leadership fail to act, Val Sr. finds an ally in Sgt. Kevin Steele, a senior officer who’d taken Valentino under his wing. The two men have a shared mission–to find justice for Valentino. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5 id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6682214865\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer: \u003c/b>Before we start, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references drug use and a violent homicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Nine days after Valentino Rodriguez died, Valentino’s family held a viewing and then a memorial mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> We had mass outside, underneath a big oak tree at the local, uh, grammar Catholic school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>After the mass, Val Sr. and his other son, Gregory, and some of the other guys in the family, carried the casket to the hearse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> We put him inside and then we took our gloves off and left them on the casket with a flower. I could’ve sat there all day. Even though he was in that box, I knew he was there, I knew he was close, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> And then we had, a- a celebration of life after, but we had that celebration of life at the same place where we had our wedding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Family and friends were there, setting up food and talking to each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> I just remember just sitting there. Like with my arms crossed, just looking into the crowd like… I was dancing right there with him, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was difficult to wrap her head around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> I just- just looked past all of it, just like, what are we celebrating? And I was just so hurt and I went home and just screamed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells my colleague Julie Small he was also overwhelmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I- I ended up finding my way to a corner, away from people and just a small group of cousins and friends and they opened up a bottle of tequila and I just drank and then, uh, after that I didn’t feel anything, you know. And- and that was helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> When did you first see Sergeant Steele?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> After they closed the casket. Uh, people were sort of lining up to hug us. You know, I noticed I’d seen somebody out of place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A man, bald, with piercing blue eyes stood a little ways back in the line and Val Sr. had the sense that he was intent on getting to the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> As he got- as he got closer, I- I could see his face was sad. Uh, but he just seemed so strong, you know, coming up. I- I still didn’t know his name, but he grabbed my shoulders and- and he said, “If you need me for anything, I can help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme song]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When a death is so unexpected and its timing feels so coincidental, it’s bound to raise questions. Some of them are big and unknowable, but there are others that do have answers. In the days after his son’s funeral, Val Sr. began to look for them and what he didn’t know yet is that he’d find a partner in that pursuit, a man who also wanted justice for Valentino, but whose mission also went far beyond that. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i> Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple weeks after the funeral, the results of the coroner’s investigation had come back. It determined that Valentino had accidentally overdosed on fentanyl and notes smoking paraphernalia was found at the scene. But to Val Sr., that just answered the question of what killed him, but not why or where the lethal drug had come from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My agenda was to find out the source of the fentanyl, where it came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr., with help from his wife Erma, started going through Valentino’s phone records, tracking where he went on the last day of his life, and all the people he spoke to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I had her identify every number, whether they were clients of Val’s from our company or friends or whoever. I just wanted his track, uh, what he was doing, uh, 24 hours before that and all the way up to his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In his living room, Val Sr. shows me the call log from Valentino’s phone provider. It’s got Erma’s handwriting on it, where she’s written people’s names next to the phone numbers they were able to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, who’s [redacted]?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> A guy in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What was his- What was his relationship with-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He sells- he sells drugs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh really?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s why I went to visit him. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This guy I’m asking Val Sr. about was a man who lived nearby who’d known Valentino for a long time. He’d even been invited to the wedding, but according to Val Sr., and according to text messages in Valentino’s phone, he was also someone who could get you pain pills. This man did not agree to go on the record with us, and because these are potentially criminal allegations, we’ll just call him a guy from the neighborhood. On the last day of his life, Valentino made six short calls to this guy’s number.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> You can see they’re all-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> … One minute, one minute like-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Val Sr. thinks maybe he couldn’t get through and he tried someone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He calls this number here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It’s a burn phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He calls it a burner phone, but we don’t actually know if that’s true. We do know these calls came in from numbers that were not in Valentino’s contacts. We tried calling these numbers too, and one goes to a generic voicemail. We left a message, but no one got back to us. The other was associated with the nearby Air Force base, but we weren’t able to identify why anyone would be calling him from that number. These calls — to the guy from the neighborhood, from unknown numbers — for Val Sr., these were clues that could lead to the source of the fentanyl, but he needed help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> The West Sacramento Police Department were the first people that I tried to push to find out where this came from. I needed someone to search his phone records, burn phones. Where did this come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He thought the police, who had collected evidence the night Valentino died – you know, Ring cameras, his medication, his gun – would be looking on the streets for the source of the fentanyl. But there was another possibility that Val Sr. couldn’t shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> If it didn’t come from the street then where’d it come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Had the fentanyl come from someone at the prison? And as Val Sr. went through Valentino phone himself, it was this possibility that seemed to gain more and more weight. He read through his son’s texts and there was the harassment and slurs, but he also found messages between Valentino and other officers that appeared to be about secrets being kept, evidence lockers being left open, an emoji of a red and yellow pill. We still don’t know exactly what these text messages meant, but Val Sr. couldn’t help wondering, was this evidence that other officers knew about Valentino’s drug problem and used it as leverage in some way? And who else knew that Valentino had been in the warden’s office just days before he died? Val Sr. knew at least one person who did, Sergeant Kevin Steele, the man who’d hugged him at his son’s funeral and offered to help, the man who’d also texted Valentino on the last day of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So, I remember sitting in my office, trying to concentrate on working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He tells my colleague Julie that he decided to send Steele a text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I asked him, “Are you still running the race?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What were you thinking when you first sent Steele that text message?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It meant that Kevin found out that Val had came forward to turn in some, uh, information of corruption, um, that there’s two sides over there and Val talks about the two sides and he talks about it in that- in that text message, that he doesn’t want anyone on this side or that side to know that he came forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That text message goes on. Valentino says, “It took a lot out of me to relive the truth.” In reply, Steele writes, “Dude, you are my superhero. It is bad right now. Stay strong, I got you. Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading these text messages after Valentino’s death, Val Sr. didn’t yet know exactly who was on the other side, but it appeared at least Steele was on the side of his son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Could you trust Sergeant Steele when you first met him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My feelers came up right away. I just couldn’t find any reason not to. I- I had just realized that whether I trust him or not, this is a way for me to, uh, get my voice over there, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Over where?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> To that prison. I’m gonna start by talking to somebody ’cause nobody’s talking to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says that day in his office, Steele texted him back right away, “Valentino’s voice will never be silenced. I promise.” And Steele again offered his help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He always said that he would facilitate anything I needed, you know, as far as who to contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele had worked for CDCR for about 20 years when he met Val Sr., and he’d risen to the rank of sergeant and was in the Investigative Services Unit, The Squad at New Folsom. People who worked with him say he was really respected and he had a lot of responsibilities, from drug testing officers to leading annual trainings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He used to tell me that he would get there, uh, 30 minutes before to start working and wouldn’t even clock in. He said, “Val I just- I just love my job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He also had a lot of connections. As part of his role in the ISU prepping criminal cases and evidence, he communicated with the district attorney’s office, the FBI, and the prison’s internal affairs team on big investigations. This world of the prison and law enforcement that Val Sr. was just dipping his toe in, it was the water that Steele swam in every day, and so when someone from CDCR got in touch, Val Sr. turned to Steele to help him decide who to trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him who Chris McGraw was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Over text, Steele told him McGraw is a special agent from CDCR’s office of internal affairs and not just a local guy from New Folsom, but from headquarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him, “Are they good guys?” Because I didn’t know who to reach out to or who to turn to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele responded, “Yes, that is the best course to move forward. Steele” Just a note in case you’ve noticed, yes, Steele signs his text messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He said they were- they were- they were good guys and I just told him, “I’m- I’m trusting you, Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> With Steele’s assurance, Val Sr. talked to McGraw, who he says told him to file a formal written complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He told me that, “The first thing you have to do is send a complaint, that way you’ll have, uh, rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> McGraw did not respond to our request for comment. Val Sr. says he gave McGraw a digital copy of his son’s phone. Internal affairs would focus on the allegation that officers in the ISU discriminated against Valentino and harassed him, which could result in discipline or firing, or even a criminal referral if investigators found officers broke the law. Steele also put Val Sr. in contact with another agency, the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin gave me some cards and said, “Hey, you need to talk to this guy Val, he’ll help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If there was a public corruption element to Valentino’s case, if somehow Valentino had been targeted by other officers aiming to silence him, if officers abused their position for their own gain in some other way, the FBI would be the ones to look into it. In December, Val Sr. handed off Valentino’s physical phone to an FBI agent named Sean Lister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I straight up told him, “I feel that the fentanyl was sent to get rid of him because he knew of a lot of bad things.” And he goes, “That would be interesting.” I says, “Well, it would be interesting, but very hard to prove.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says he got the sense the FBI weren’t really that interested in his son’s case, but Steele had a lot of faith in both internal affairs and the feds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He always thought that they were gonna do something right, and in my mind I was thinking, “No, no they’re not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But at this point, Val Sr. has communicated with three different agencies about different aspects of the case. He’d spoken to the West Sacramento Police to see if they were looking for the source of the fentanyl on the street, he’d filed a formal written complaint about Valentino’s harassment with the office of internal affairs, and he’d handed the phone to the FBI. If there was a public corruption element, the FBI could investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> One day Kevin told me, “Hey, Val.” I go, “Yeah.” He goes, “You know, this story’s much bigger than your son.” And I says, “I know. I realize that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And Steele started to share with Val Sr. what he’d been communicating about with the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> His biggest agenda was that homicide that took place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The stabbing of Luis Giovanny Aguilar in the day room, that video that Valentino had shown his dad at the Christmas party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin told me that he told Sean Lister that that was a perfect murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The FBI special agent Sean Lister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I was thinking in my head, “What? My son?” But Kevin told me, no, um, the perfect murder was this homicide that had happened on — the B8 homicide he called it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele called it the B8 homicide because that was the name of the housing unit at New Folsom where it happened. We reached out to Special Agent Lister, but he declined to comment on the case. The FBI says they can’t comment, but an agent did confirm the investigation is still pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To understand some of the reasons why Sergeant Kevin Steele may have thought the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar was worth reporting to the FBI, Julie and I got on a Zoom call with this woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zoom voice:\u003c/b> Recording in progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> My name is Claudia Bohorquez and, um, I’m an, an attorney. Luis Giovanny Aguilar is, uh, my, my client’s son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Aguilar’s mother is pursuing a lawsuit against prison officials, including the officers who were on duty in the unit that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Either they weren’t there or they were deliberately indifferent, they didn’t care, uh, what was going on, or as we alleged, they, they planned it. They were part of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In court filings, prison officials deny these allegations. A CDCR spokesperson said there is an active investigation involving outside law enforcement, and that the agency cannot comment on this case. At the time, B8 was a super high security segregation unit, the type that is often used to hold people who are considered especially violent or dangerous, or as a punishment for people who’ve committed new crimes while in prison. They’re generally held in solitary cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Anytime they’re out of their cell they’re handcuffed, they’re shackled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Claudia explains the day of the murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Basically, on that day, December 12th, 2019…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Three men…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Mr. Aguilar and the other two inmates who, who participated in the stabbing, Anthony Rodriguez and Cody Taylor…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> …Were brought down the stairs from their cells on the second tier of the unit into the day room, an open area with fixed desks and chairs on the first floor, outside the lower tier cells. All three were shackled by their ankles to metal chairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Our allegation is that the two inmates, Rodriguez and Taylor, uh, were able to uncuff themselves, free themselves, and that they ran up, uh, or walked up the stairs to, um, another cell that was on the second floor and retrieved weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They got makeshift metal knives from the cell of a man named Dion Green who was a shot caller in the prison. Taylor and Rodriguez then came back down the stairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> And, um, proceeded to stab my client to death fif- more than 55 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And no officer used deadly force to stop them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit that Claudia filed claims Aguilar was targeted by officers in retaliation for attacking a guard about a week before he was killed. And there are three big pieces of evidence or arguments the lawsuit relies on to back up its allegations: what I call the rumor, the practice run, and the Britt case. First off, there was the rumor. The lawsuit claims that officers spread a rumor that Aguilar was a child sex offender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> It’s common knowledge that, um, inmates that go in as child molesters and sex offenders get treated [laughs] very badly in prison. They don’t like sex offenders, they especially don’t like child sex offenders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit alleges that officers did this on purpose to put a target on Aguilar’s back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> “How do we get some inmates to help us out and get this guy Aguilar? Well, let’s tell them he’s a sex offender, then they’ll go, go along with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Prison officials have denied that officers spread this rumor in court filings. And to be clear, Aguilar was in prison for stealing a vehicle and fleeing police. He also had an earlier conviction for domestic violence. But our review of his criminal record from CDCR found no convictions for child molestation or sexual offenses. Secondly, there was the practice run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> One of the inmates who actually, who was one of the inmates that stabbed my client, he, a week earlier, in the same day room, had taken off his restraints from the day room, the chair, and gone upstairs, um, and come back down. And, um…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So basically like, “Okay, I’m gonna try this, see what happens if I take off my restraints and go up and get it.” Or something?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Yeah. Uh, yeah, I can’t really explain it other than it was done, and again, no repercussions seem to have come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was captured by surveillance cameras in the unit according to sources who have seen the video. A man slipping out of his shackles in full view of the control booth. Again, this is in a restricted unit where no one’s allowed to go anywhere without an officer escort and restraints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final big anomaly Claudia references in this suit is the Britt Case, an incident that at the very least should’ve put prison officials on notice. Two months before the Aguilar murder, the same three men, Taylor, Rodriguez and Green coordinated a nearly identical attempted murder of a man named Michael Britt. Taylor and Rodriguez slipped their shackles and stabbed him repeatedly in the day room. Dion Green claimed responsibility, saying he ordered the hit. Britt was an enemy of his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Britt was, he wasn’t killed, but he was assaulted very badly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> By the same guys. And so, have you… do you have any idea, like, how they were allowed to remain together at the same facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> No. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was kind of shocking. These three men had clearly conspired to kill someone and proven they could outsmart the security measures, even in a restricted unit like this. But the prison didn’t separate the men or move them to a different area. A CDCR spokesperson told me that they have a robust system to keep enemies apart, and that as a general matter, they do separate people they identify as crime partners. CDCR would not comment on why this did not happen in this case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> This was horrific, this was unfair, this should’ve never happened. It just should’ve never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit against CDCR is ongoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From internal records and what he told Val Sr., it seems like Steele had gotten involved in the case as he usually did. It was his job to prep the evidence for criminal charges against Green, Rodriguez and Taylor for the district attorney. The official explanation that was reflected in Valentino’s report was that it was a gang killing. But as Steele looked through the evidence and talked to the suspects, he began to discover these anomalies and have doubts about that as a motive. And it seems like Steele did what he always did, he reported what he was finding to prison leaders and to the FBI. But now, more than a year after the murder, he told Val Sr. he was frustrated. Prison officials weren’t taking his allegations seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Sometimes he was so, uh, passionate about what was going on, and angry, that he couldn’t bottle it and he would just tell me, and, and I would listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. listened to him, but he says all these incidents and details of the homicide, that was all Steele’s agenda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’ll, I’ll be really honest, I, I just didn’t care. I… Mine was I wanna know why the hell Val wrote this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It wasn’t unusual for someone in Valentino’s position to be tapped to write a report like this. But Val Sr. still questioned why he was picked on this particular case. There were other officers in the gang unit who’d collected evidence right after Aguilar was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They had been here for 15 years, they are the ones that write this stuff. They were there that night, but they gave it to him. Why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As Val Sr. learned more about the homicide from Steele, and the evidence of a potential conspiracy involving officers, he had to wonder if writing that report was connected to his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Who told him to? You know, why did they encourage him to and congratulate him as airtight? I, I… That’s what I wanted to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What Val Sr. is referring to are these text messages on Valentino’s phone from two supervisors in the ISU. They appear to be coaching him about how to establish the connection between the homicide and the gang motive. Once he turns the report in, his boss texts again saying gang investigators were happy with this report and had called it, quote, “airtight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From one angle, these texts could be innocent, just a boss giving their subordinate direction and encouragement. But to Val Sr., everything was beginning to look suspect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My son’s passing was very coincidental and it benefited some really bad people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Because if Valentino had inside knowledge that officers played a role in Aguilar’s homicide, that knowledge died with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Valentino Rodriguez died, his wife Mimy couldn’t stay in their house. But bit by bit, she did start the hard task of going through their stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>A friend of mine at the time, she came with me to the house to help just clear things out. I mean, we just found so many empty baggies, and I was just, I was distraught, and she was shocked. It was right in front of me, but I didn’t, I didn’t know what I was looking for, little plastic twisted up baggies that were ripped at the end. There was so many of them, and I just remember being so angry at myself, like, why didn’t I see this before? Why didn’t I notice something? Why didn’t I push more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Another time, she and Valentino’s sister Monique had a plan to rip out the old carpets in the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> That day I felt like crap, and I texted her, I said, “Monique, I’m so sorry, I, I, I can’t go today. It’s just been hard.” And she texted back like, “It’s okay. It’s hard every day.” But she went and ripped it up, and I remember the carpets were thrown out on the side of the house, and there’s a sliding door there, and I went out there just to look at the carpets. There was a little balloon there, a little black balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was like, “What the heck? What is this?” So I grab it and I open it because I’m curious, and there’s just white powder in there, and I got scared. So I call Val Sr. and I go, “I found something.” And he goes, “What is it?” And he immediately came to the house, and I showed him, I was like, “What is this?” He’s like, “Where did you find it?” And I was like, “It was, it was sitting blank- just right there on the floor next to the carpets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She gave Val Sr. the balloon along with some white pills she’d found while cleaning out the kitchen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They were slid all the way in the corner in the back of, like, a box of oatmeal that was unopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To Val Sr., the pills, the black balloon, it all looked like evidence, evidence from the prison or evidence that might be tied to his son’s death. Thanks to his son’s work as an investigator, Val Sr. knew that in prison, drugs are often wrapped in balloons into little packages called bindles that can be passed from person to person, swallowed and then later fished out of the toilet, hopefully still protected by the plastic balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he died, Valentino hadn’t worked at the prison for nine months, so what was he doing with this bindle in his house? Val Sr. says he went to the three different agencies he believed were investigating different aspects of his son’s death: CDCR, the West Sacramento Police Department, and the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I told each one of them that I, I found this, this drug bindle, it’s from the prison. “Well, how do you know?” “Because my son’s… that’s what he did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did anybody take, um, possession of the bindle? No agency that was investigating-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They don’t even wanna talk about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I, I remember it was in, in the a- in the afternoon at work. Erma had run in with her phone and said, “Val, Val, I got him on the phone,” because I, I wasn’t having any luck with anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was the West Sacramento Police Chief on the phone. Val Sr. asked the chief what they were doing. Had they made any progress finding the source of the fentanyl? But the chief said his department wasn’t investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I began to get emotional on the phone and I told him, “You guys don’t care about him, he was a whistleblower, this is what happened, that was what happened.” And he goes, “Val, we do care about your son.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We spoke to the West Sacramento Police Chief later and he confirmed that he spoke with Val Sr., but they have very different memories of what was said in this conversation. According to what Val Sr. remembers…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s when he told me, “I was told not to investigate this,” plain and simple. I’m not gonna lie about that. Um, I says, “Well, so there’s not, uh, there’s not an investigation?” He goes, “Not, not with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> According to the chief, he never said they were told not to investigate. The police had not found any evidence of a crime at the scene, and their policy at the time was not to do a further investigation of accidental overdose cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I says, “So just look for the source of the fentanyl. I can do that. I have everything, you know, I have his phone records.” And that’s when he told me, “Val, they’re not looking on the streets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What did it mean to you when the police chief said, “They’re not looking on the streets”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That meant exactly what I was thinking, that they’re looking into the prison to see if it came from there, that’s… that’s the way I took it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. took this to mean that they meant the Feds and Internal Affairs. And this statement from the chief was a signal that while the police investigation was closed, those agencies were still investigating his son’s death, and that those agencies thought the source of the fentanyl was inside New Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chief told us Val Sr. misunderstood him, that he meant something much more procedural, that the prison would not be the ones to look on the streets, that just wasn’t their jurisdiction. Without a recording of this call, it’s impossible to know whose version is accurate, but whatever was really said during this call, what Val Sr. took away from it, was an acknowledgement of his suspicions that everything he uncovered pointed back to New Folsom, and a belief that someone was still looking into the source of the fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I wept and I started talking. I says, “They… I think they killed him.” You know? “I think they sent that shit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. really had no one to talk to about his suspicions and fears, except for Sergeant Steele. The two men had bonded over their shared grief, and they began to share other aspects of their lives. Steele told Val Sr. about his time in the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He served a couple of terms in Iraq.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They shared their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He would send me scripture, I’d send him scripture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And country music songs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Um, He’s… He was like the complete package, and uh, we had, uh, a lot of stuff in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b>They’re around the same age, in their fifties, and both loved antique cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He used to call me his kindred spirit all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But, Val Sr. says there was an undercurrent to their relationship. He could feel that Steele was torn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was feeling that it was his civil duty to be, uh, on my side, my son’s side. I got the impression. But, at the same time, he was still an officer who- with Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And that conflict was heating up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> Hi there, Sergeant Steele. Special Agent Chris McGraw, calling you again, February the 8th-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Since Valentino’s death, Steele had received multiple direct orders from the warden, and from that internal affairs agent, Chris McGraw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> … to immediately seize all forms of communication with all members of the Rodriguez family, unless I am present or if I am participating in the communication along with you, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR did not want Steele talking to Val Sr., or anyone else in his family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> … um, please review your email. I will send you a follow-up email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was an order that Steele disobeyed. And the reason we have this voicemail, is because he sent it to Val Sr..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> Uh, thank you so much, and have a good day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That decision to stay in contact with Val Sr. in defiance of his superiors, would have far-reaching implications, for Steele’s job, and his life. And from what we know of Steele, it seems probable that he didn’t make that decision lightly. According to multiple people who knew him well, each of the steps that Steele took were governed by his exacting and deeply held principles, and feeling of duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was an officer. He took an oath and he was just doing what an officer should do. You know, and be just, that was his job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And as 2020 turned to 2021, that feeling of duty led him to do something radical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On January 4th, he sent a memo to the warden. Here’s Julie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> The subject line is, “ISU entrenched corruption and uninhibited harassment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s a document that we requested from CDCR, but so far, the agency has not disclosed it. But we did get a copy from Val Sr.. Steele shared it with him. It’s nine pages long, so we’re not gonna read all of it, but Steele talks about ISU staff claiming false overtime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Rodriguez also shared details of how some of the ISU officers would plant drugs and weapons on inmates, in an effort to have to work overtime hours to finish the reports.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he writes that Valentino told him that ISU officers would threaten to plant drugs in places that would get him in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “This was used as a point of leverage to keep CO Rodriguez from reporting this unscrupulous behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He writes a lot about Valentino’s boss, Sergeant David Anderson, and how Steele also felt harassed and intimidated by him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Sergeant Anderson called me a snake in front of other ISU IGI officers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Anderson did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But while significant, Steele’s allegations go far beyond the dysfunction of the ISU squad. It’s clear, Steele is a person who keeps track. Like a prosecutor building his case, he lays out these bullet points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Inmates discovered at the hospital with injuries in consistency with-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Incarcerated people with broken ribs, head injuries and busted teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “… for example, mental health staff, asphyxiation, carbon monoxide poisoning. Mail room staff, drug overdose and decease, suicidal staff, times two…”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> An alarming number of employees in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “… CSP Sacramento is sending more water instead of urine for testing than any other institution-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A dangerously inadequate drug testing program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “…the 2019 B8 homicide inconsistencies were immediately-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. The list touches on nearly every aspect of the institution. His language is forceful, he names names and points fingers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “You should consider the very likely possibility that during your superintendence of CSP Sacramento, more staff will be charged for criminal activity than any other institution within the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR said Warden Jeff Lynch cannot speak to us about personnel matters. A spokesperson said the agency takes all allegations of officer misconduct seriously and has a process to make sure all complaints are, “properly, fairly, and thoroughly reviewed.” They did not respond to specific questions about whether Steele’s allegations in this memo were investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Julie and I read through this memo, we were pretty stunned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> How startling of a document is this, in comparison, you know, to what you’ve seen over your years of reporting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I mean, the allegations about ordering murders are- are very shocking. To have an- a correctional officer, a high-ranking sergeant in an investigative unit, releasing this kind of, um, detailed report about misconduct, illegal activity, even murder, I don’t know of another time that that’s happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> We’d been trying to understand the system from the outside, and it was amazing to discover there’d been someone trying to expose it from the inside, and he’d left behind this memo, like a map for us to follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/strong> The first step was into our own files. We’d built up a database of hundreds of internal records and dozens of recordings, related to violent and even deadly use of force incidents. All the stuff that was supposed to be public record under a new transparency law, but that we’d spent the last four years fighting, and even suing for. When we cross-referenced the names from Steele’s memo with our database, we discovered that we had those cases in our files, and we realized that his memo could help us unlock the meaning of these incidents, the patterns that they showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were three names in particular of incarcerated people who ended up in the hospital with injuries that didn’t make sense. We decided to try and contact them. One of them had died, but it looked like two of them were still in prison, and so I wrote to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dear Mr. Navaro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dear Mr. Uribe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a reported with the NPR station-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… I received some records from CDCR that detail an incident-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… badly injured on March 31st.-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… On May 2nd, 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… Please give me a call on the number below, or send me a letter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I put these letters in the mail and hoped someone would call me back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did Kevin know that handing him that memo would probably end his career?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He didn’t seem concerned when he sent that, he didn’t say, “Oh, man, this is gonna end my career.” He just felt that he was doing the right thing and there wasn’t a problem with it, to be really honest. So, he didn’t see beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And it was weird because I did. I definitely knew he was en- he was ending his- his career with CDCR. He had other priorities. He had other obligations, and that was to tell the truth. He just had tunnel vision for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. remembers Steele reading the memo to him over the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I says, “Holy smokes, this is very powerful. The walls are gonna fall, you know,” and it didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We don’t know exactly how the warden reacted when he got Steele’s memo in his inbox, but we do know Steele decided he was done with the institution, and it was time for him to leave. So he put together a plan, he was gonna move across the country, to Miller County in Missouri, a place he’d visited as a reserve officer for the Air Force. A place where he hoped no one could find him. But he wasn’t quitting, he’d accrued a ton of leave that he’d never taken. He’d use that up and then retire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he left town, Val Sr. and his wife, Erma, invited Steele to come over to the house for a barbecue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> We made tri-tip and we had our kids there, we gave him a little gift. He was there with his wife, Lily, and his dad. So, my parents were there, my mother-in-law and my kids, and we just sat around and talked and he was talking to everybody, and his wife was hugging everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He just glowed, man. This is how he was, he was so polite and respectable and considerate. And he just moved around and I just, “Ah, I don’t have to talk to him,” ’cause he was just, like, just talking to everybody, so that was cool for me ’cause I was cooking, I was busy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> After they ate, Val Sr. presented him with a plaque that he’d had made. A clear pyramid with a photo of his son Valentino inside, and a brass name plate. Steele had always called Valentino a superhero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I put on here, “From your superhero, to my kindred spirit,” picture, and he cried, and then, uh, he had a hard time taking. (laughs) Uh, so then, he got in the- in the car and left after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele and his wife and their dogs made their way across the country to Miller County. The two men were now nearly 2000 miles away from each other, but in their talks on the phone, they grew even closer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He would even tell me, “I love you,” you know, which was kind of odd for me, as a man. We just- I didn’t grow up- you know, throwing that word around. (laughs) I don’t think he did either, you know, but, uh, I remember one day I walked in and I had him on speakerphone and he goes, “I love you man,” and I go, “Oh, okay.” (laughs) And I hung up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Erma overhead the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> Like, “Why don’t you say, ‘I love you’ back?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> “Uh, I’m just not that kind of person,” (laughs) and I just- he feels- yeah, he just feels weird. (laughs) I think you end up did saying it one time, didn’t you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah. I told him, um, and that felt funny, but I told him, “I love you buddy.” (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In fact, Val Sr. was one of the few people who knew where Steele was living. Steele didn’t feel safe. He told people he was close to that after he’d confronted prison leaders with evidence he’d collected about officer misconduct, he’d been getting weird text messages, and vaguely threatening voicemails from unknown numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his calls with Val Sr., Steele talked about how easy it would be for his enemies to hire someone to kill him. But if they came, he was prepared. He had guns and two doberman pinschers. So those fears didn’t stop him, he’d left California, but he hadn’t abandoned his friend or their mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He assured me that he would be able to work laterally and do more outside the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I didn’t understand what he meant by that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In February 2021, Steele fired off another memo. This one addressed to the head of the entire state agency: Secretary Kathleen Allison. It’s about what he calls the corruption and failed leadership at New Folsom. This memo has fewer details, but the focus is on the inaction of higher-ups. How multiple supervisors were aware of the harassment Valentino received, and failed to do anything about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “No staff member or person should have been the victim of what correctional officer Rodriguez endured at the hands of CSP Sacramento ISU office supervisors and staff members.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And in his writing, you can really feel Steele’s frustration, and even more than that, the betrayal. He’d been a true believer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “I’m not a disgruntled employee seeking vengeance. Instead, I was a witness to an ISU which became engulfed in corruption and watched as integrity was forced to cower in terror and fear of retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Around the same time this memo was sent, a notice was posted at the entrance gate of New Folsom prison. Beneath a photograph of Steele’s face, it states, “Effective immediately, Kevin Steele is not to be permitted on institution grounds.” CDCR did not respond to questions about why Steele was banned from the prison. Steele himself would come to find out he was under investigation by internal affairs. He felt he had no choice but to work outside the system he’d been a part of for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two men, Val Sr. and Kevin Steele, with their twin agendas, started working to expose the prison and put pressure on those supposedly ongoing investigations in another way, this time through the press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> How did you come to that decision?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That was hard decision to make.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells Julie, at first he wanted to give prison officials and law enforcement the chance to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I waited, and then finally I just- I just got tired of waiting. So, I made the call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He spoke to a newspaper reporter named Wes Venteicher, who worked at the local paper, The Sacramento Bee. He now writes for Politico. Wes says he’d covered prisons before, but this story was different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> It was certainly kind of one of the darkest places I’ve (laughs) gone as a reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When you were going through this process and talking to people, you talked to correctional officers, you know, was it difficult to get people to go on the record for it because of fears, or…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> Yes, of course. Uh, everybody’s really scared of retaliation, and that’s part of the whole story with Val. You know, some people described it as like a high-school-like atmosphere, where everybody knows everybody, and then, um, it’s really easy for someone to be shunned, and then that makes them, makes their work more dangerous and their job more dangerous. So, nobody who was s- an employed correctional officer, and even a couple of the retired ones I talked to were not willing to go on the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Wes says something that really stuck out to him, and that there just isn’t enough research on, is the long-term impact of doing this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> One thing I had wanted to look into was just the pattern of the mental health treatment, and the medications that people are prescribed, and does anyone actually end up healing or getting better after suffering through some of this stuff? Or is there just this trail of broken former correctional officers out there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We tell him this is something we are looking into. Wes’s article, titled Correctional Officer’s Death Exposes Hazing, Toxic Culture at California Prison, published in April of 2021. It’s how we first heard about Valentino’s death, and it goes into the discrimination that Valentino faced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Once that article hit, Garland was walked off, and a lot of stuff started to happen over there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Daniel Garland, the guy who’d called Valentino homophobic slurs, Marcus Jordan, the one who’d used the N-word, were both under investigation, along with other officers in the ISU. Steele texted, “Justice is beginning to simmer, Steele.” But Val Sr.’s response was a lot more measured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I thought that, “Okay, that’s, uh, that’s nu- step one. That’s good. Everything else from here on out is going to be systematic. They’re doing something,” but they didn’t do shit after that. It was just like, “Here’s a piece of raw meat,” and that’s it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That internal affairs investigation that had started with Chris McGraw, resulted in the dismissal of Marcus Jordan and Daniel Garland. Among other things, the department found their treatment of Valentino violated state employee laws and the department’s code of conduct. Two other guys on the squad got a 10% pay cut. One of them had called Valentino Half-Patch, and they’d both chimed in with derogatory texts in the group thread. But these four officers appealed their discipline. Like all correctional officers, they’d have access to an extensive appeals process and representation by union lawyers. The lawyer for those four officers declined to let us speak to her clients for this podcast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wrote in an email, “CDCR imposed excessive and unreasonable discipline against my clients for personal communications between work friends on their personal cell phones that took place almost entirely off duty.” And she said her clients are still fighting to overturn this discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a big shakeup in the squad, and the institution reassigned basically all the officers who’d worked with Valentino. But the people who were really in charge, like Warden Jeff Lynch, remained in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What were you hoping would happen when the Sacramento Bee article came out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I was hoping for what I’m hoping for now, closure, and everyone throws that J-word around, but just justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Upbeat music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The article did get some important attention, though. A guy in the district attorney’s office for Yolo County, where West Sacramento is located and where Valentino died, saw his death by fentanyl as part of a pattern. Overdoses from the lethal drug were skyrocketing in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> Mostly from fentanyl overdoses, last year in California alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And in the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> We’ve seen over a dozen people die of fentanyl-related overdoses in the last year-and-a-half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In June, this is two months after the article came out in the paper, the DA’s office issued a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> DA Reisig compares it to DUI offenders who break the law again and kill someone in the process. They’ll be looking at…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They were changing their policy. Fentanyl deaths were now going to be investigated as potential homicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> If you’re selling that drug knowing that it may be laced with fentanyl, and somebody dies, you should pay the price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> …a few grains of salt of fentanyl can kill you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> DA Jeff Reisig is confident the policy will hold up if challenged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And these cases would be investigated by a special regional task force called Safe Streets, that involved the FBI, Sacramento County Law Enforcement, and a representative from the Yolo County DA’s Office. At the bottom of their release, the DA’s office included a photo of one of the victims of the recent uptick in fentanyl poisoning. It was Valentino Rodriguez, in his CDCR uniform, on the day he graduated from the academy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new FBI agent on the case, part of that Safe Streets task force, got in touch with Val Sr. via email. Quote-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “We are looking into/investigating the death of your son with several groups inside the FBI, as well as our local agency partners. Being as there are several complications to your son’s passing, the investigation is going to be more complex and time-consuming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Initially, I was told, “This is a very complicated case. It’s going to take time. You need to be patient for several reasons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But just a little while later, Val Sr. says the agent called back and said he was closing his investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him why, he goes, “There’s nothing on the phone.” I says, “There’s all kinds of stuff on the phone.” He’s got phone records, he’s got two burn calls, I mean there’s all kinds of stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In an email, the FBI said they could not comment on the Safe Streets task force or any potential investigation into Valentino’s death. Val Sr. felt like he was stuck in a game of hot potato, being passed from one agency to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> This, all this is like, like overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And this long journey of disappointments he’s been on, it’s part of why he’s agreed to talk to Julie and me, and share all the evidence he’s gathered, so we can try to figure out what’s going on here, and if there’s something law enforcement missed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did you find the bindle ever?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On one of our trips to Val Sr.’s home in West Sacramento he goes to a bookshelf in his living room and he pulls out a plastic pill bottle. He hands it to Julie, who holds it up to the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So in there is, um, a balloon, small balloon-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Inside the bottle there’s a zip-lock baggie with a white pill and two capsules in it, and a small round package about the size of a nickel, wrapped in black plastic, which Val Sr. believes came from New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> … and then these baggies, which on Val’s phone, shows these are the way he, you would log into evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I don’t know what’s inside the capsules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Okay, well s- we’ll try to figure out what we can do to have this analyzed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’m curious what’s in the balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We want to find out if what’s in the bindle or the pills matches the drugs in Valentino’s system when he died, so Julie and our producer, Steven Rascón, ship it off to a place that does forensic drug testing for law enforcement, and then we jump on a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sound FX – Zoom chime]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So do you have to, um, like package this a certain way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah. It gets a special packaging, double plastic zip-lock bags, and also the canister that you dropped it into, and twisted, and closed, and, um, yeah, and then bubble wrap around that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right, cool. So it’s on its way? It’s like literally in the mail on its way to the-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> Yeah, so that’s like you, we can cross that off, which is great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company says it’ll take 30 to 60 days to get the results back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Outro Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, we start to get a sense of what it was like to be incarcerated at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Incarcerated Man:\u003c/b> They would cuff us, you know, handcuff us and beat us, you know? And, um, wasn’t a whole lot we could do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And one of the guys I wrote to from Steele’s memo calls me back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Incarcerated man:\u003c/b> You got to be strong, man. Come on, Sukey. If you let shit like this get to you, then, man, all this shit’s for nothing, man. You got to stay strong. Don’t worry about me. I can handle my own. You got to stay strong. You got to f- do this til the end, how they say like ’til the wheels fall off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Finally, we get a deeper sense of Steele’s mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman:\u003c/b> The only good thing that kept me going, there was this, uh, officer. His name is Mr. Steele. If it wasn’t for him, my son wouldn’t be alive today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Credits Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You’re listening to \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i> Season 2, New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts, and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact-checking by Mark Betancourt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair, David Barstow, provided valuable support for the whole series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED health correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor Jr., Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our vice president of news, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">View the full episode transcript.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Valentino’s unexpected death just days after a confidential meeting with the prison’s warden leaves his grieving father with a tangle of questions and suspicions. When law enforcement and prison leadership fail to act, Val Sr. finds an ally in Sgt. Kevin Steele, a senior officer who’d taken Valentino under his wing. The two men have a shared mission–to find justice for Valentino. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003ch5 id=\"embed-code\" class=\"inconsolata\">\n\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC6682214865\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/h5>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Resources\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are currently in crisis, you can dial 988 [U.S.] to reach the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SAMHSA National Help Line\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://988lifeline.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.nami.org/help\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Helpline\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/programs/prevention-and-wellness/mental-health-substance-abuse/index.html\">US Health and Human Services\u003c/a>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://warmline.org/warmdir.html\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Warmline Directory\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://journalism.berkeley.edu/programs/mj/investigative-reporting/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Investigative Reporting Program\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism was a key partner in making Season 2 of On Our Watch.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The records obtained for this project are part of the\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://projects.scpr.org/california-reporting-project/\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> California Reporting Project\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a coalition of news organizations in California. If you have tips or feedback about this series please reach out to us at \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"mailto:onourwatch@kqed.org\">\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">onourwatch@kqed.org\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Producer: \u003c/b>Before we start, I just wanted to give you a heads up that this episode references drug use and a violent homicide. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ve got links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Nine days after Valentino Rodriguez died, Valentino’s family held a viewing and then a memorial mass.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> We had mass outside, underneath a big oak tree at the local, uh, grammar Catholic school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis: \u003c/b>After the mass, Val Sr. and his other son, Gregory, and some of the other guys in the family, carried the casket to the hearse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> We put him inside and then we took our gloves off and left them on the casket with a flower. I could’ve sat there all day. Even though he was in that box, I knew he was there, I knew he was close, yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> And then we had, a- a celebration of life after, but we had that celebration of life at the same place where we had our wedding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Family and friends were there, setting up food and talking to each other.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> I just remember just sitting there. Like with my arms crossed, just looking into the crowd like… I was dancing right there with him, you know?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was difficult to wrap her head around.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> I just- just looked past all of it, just like, what are we celebrating? And I was just so hurt and I went home and just screamed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells my colleague Julie Small he was also overwhelmed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I- I ended up finding my way to a corner, away from people and just a small group of cousins and friends and they opened up a bottle of tequila and I just drank and then, uh, after that I didn’t feel anything, you know. And- and that was helpful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> When did you first see Sergeant Steele?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> After they closed the casket. Uh, people were sort of lining up to hug us. You know, I noticed I’d seen somebody out of place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A man, bald, with piercing blue eyes stood a little ways back in the line and Val Sr. had the sense that he was intent on getting to the front.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> As he got- as he got closer, I- I could see his face was sad. Uh, but he just seemed so strong, you know, coming up. I- I still didn’t know his name, but he grabbed my shoulders and- and he said, “If you need me for anything, I can help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Theme song]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When a death is so unexpected and its timing feels so coincidental, it’s bound to raise questions. Some of them are big and unknowable, but there are others that do have answers. In the days after his son’s funeral, Val Sr. began to look for them and what he didn’t know yet is that he’d find a partner in that pursuit, a man who also wanted justice for Valentino, but whose mission also went far beyond that. I’m Sukey Lewis. This is \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i> Season Two: New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A couple weeks after the funeral, the results of the coroner’s investigation had come back. It determined that Valentino had accidentally overdosed on fentanyl and notes smoking paraphernalia was found at the scene. But to Val Sr., that just answered the question of what killed him, but not why or where the lethal drug had come from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My agenda was to find out the source of the fentanyl, where it came from.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr., with help from his wife Erma, started going through Valentino’s phone records, tracking where he went on the last day of his life, and all the people he spoke to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I had her identify every number, whether they were clients of Val’s from our company or friends or whoever. I just wanted his track, uh, what he was doing, uh, 24 hours before that and all the way up to his death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In his living room, Val Sr. shows me the call log from Valentino’s phone provider. It’s got Erma’s handwriting on it, where she’s written people’s names next to the phone numbers they were able to identify.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, who’s [redacted]?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> A guy in the neighborhood.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What was his- What was his relationship with-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He sells- he sells drugs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Oh really?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s why I went to visit him. Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This guy I’m asking Val Sr. about was a man who lived nearby who’d known Valentino for a long time. He’d even been invited to the wedding, but according to Val Sr., and according to text messages in Valentino’s phone, he was also someone who could get you pain pills. This man did not agree to go on the record with us, and because these are potentially criminal allegations, we’ll just call him a guy from the neighborhood. On the last day of his life, Valentino made six short calls to this guy’s number.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> You can see they’re all-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> … One minute, one minute like-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Yeah.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Val Sr. thinks maybe he couldn’t get through and he tried someone else.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He calls this number here.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It’s a burn phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He calls it a burner phone, but we don’t actually know if that’s true. We do know these calls came in from numbers that were not in Valentino’s contacts. We tried calling these numbers too, and one goes to a generic voicemail. We left a message, but no one got back to us. The other was associated with the nearby Air Force base, but we weren’t able to identify why anyone would be calling him from that number. These calls — to the guy from the neighborhood, from unknown numbers — for Val Sr., these were clues that could lead to the source of the fentanyl, but he needed help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> The West Sacramento Police Department were the first people that I tried to push to find out where this came from. I needed someone to search his phone records, burn phones. Where did this come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He thought the police, who had collected evidence the night Valentino died – you know, Ring cameras, his medication, his gun – would be looking on the streets for the source of the fentanyl. But there was another possibility that Val Sr. couldn’t shake.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> If it didn’t come from the street then where’d it come from?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Had the fentanyl come from someone at the prison? And as Val Sr. went through Valentino phone himself, it was this possibility that seemed to gain more and more weight. He read through his son’s texts and there was the harassment and slurs, but he also found messages between Valentino and other officers that appeared to be about secrets being kept, evidence lockers being left open, an emoji of a red and yellow pill. We still don’t know exactly what these text messages meant, but Val Sr. couldn’t help wondering, was this evidence that other officers knew about Valentino’s drug problem and used it as leverage in some way? And who else knew that Valentino had been in the warden’s office just days before he died? Val Sr. knew at least one person who did, Sergeant Kevin Steele, the man who’d hugged him at his son’s funeral and offered to help, the man who’d also texted Valentino on the last day of his life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So, I remember sitting in my office, trying to concentrate on working.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He tells my colleague Julie that he decided to send Steele a text.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I asked him, “Are you still running the race?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What were you thinking when you first sent Steele that text message?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> It meant that Kevin found out that Val had came forward to turn in some, uh, information of corruption, um, that there’s two sides over there and Val talks about the two sides and he talks about it in that- in that text message, that he doesn’t want anyone on this side or that side to know that he came forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That text message goes on. Valentino says, “It took a lot out of me to relive the truth.” In reply, Steele writes, “Dude, you are my superhero. It is bad right now. Stay strong, I got you. Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading these text messages after Valentino’s death, Val Sr. didn’t yet know exactly who was on the other side, but it appeared at least Steele was on the side of his son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Could you trust Sergeant Steele when you first met him?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My feelers came up right away. I just couldn’t find any reason not to. I- I had just realized that whether I trust him or not, this is a way for me to, uh, get my voice over there, you know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Over where?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> To that prison. I’m gonna start by talking to somebody ’cause nobody’s talking to me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says that day in his office, Steele texted him back right away, “Valentino’s voice will never be silenced. I promise.” And Steele again offered his help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He always said that he would facilitate anything I needed, you know, as far as who to contact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>[Music]\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele had worked for CDCR for about 20 years when he met Val Sr., and he’d risen to the rank of sergeant and was in the Investigative Services Unit, The Squad at New Folsom. People who worked with him say he was really respected and he had a lot of responsibilities, from drug testing officers to leading annual trainings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He used to tell me that he would get there, uh, 30 minutes before to start working and wouldn’t even clock in. He said, “Val I just- I just love my job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He also had a lot of connections. As part of his role in the ISU prepping criminal cases and evidence, he communicated with the district attorney’s office, the FBI, and the prison’s internal affairs team on big investigations. This world of the prison and law enforcement that Val Sr. was just dipping his toe in, it was the water that Steele swam in every day, and so when someone from CDCR got in touch, Val Sr. turned to Steele to help him decide who to trust.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him who Chris McGraw was.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Over text, Steele told him McGraw is a special agent from CDCR’s office of internal affairs and not just a local guy from New Folsom, but from headquarters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him, “Are they good guys?” Because I didn’t know who to reach out to or who to turn to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele responded, “Yes, that is the best course to move forward. Steele” Just a note in case you’ve noticed, yes, Steele signs his text messages.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He said they were- they were- they were good guys and I just told him, “I’m- I’m trusting you, Steele.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> With Steele’s assurance, Val Sr. talked to McGraw, who he says told him to file a formal written complaint.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He told me that, “The first thing you have to do is send a complaint, that way you’ll have, uh, rights.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> McGraw did not respond to our request for comment. Val Sr. says he gave McGraw a digital copy of his son’s phone. Internal affairs would focus on the allegation that officers in the ISU discriminated against Valentino and harassed him, which could result in discipline or firing, or even a criminal referral if investigators found officers broke the law. Steele also put Val Sr. in contact with another agency, the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin gave me some cards and said, “Hey, you need to talk to this guy Val, he’ll help you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> If there was a public corruption element to Valentino’s case, if somehow Valentino had been targeted by other officers aiming to silence him, if officers abused their position for their own gain in some other way, the FBI would be the ones to look into it. In December, Val Sr. handed off Valentino’s physical phone to an FBI agent named Sean Lister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I straight up told him, “I feel that the fentanyl was sent to get rid of him because he knew of a lot of bad things.” And he goes, “That would be interesting.” I says, “Well, it would be interesting, but very hard to prove.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. says he got the sense the FBI weren’t really that interested in his son’s case, but Steele had a lot of faith in both internal affairs and the feds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He always thought that they were gonna do something right, and in my mind I was thinking, “No, no they’re not.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But at this point, Val Sr. has communicated with three different agencies about different aspects of the case. He’d spoken to the West Sacramento Police to see if they were looking for the source of the fentanyl on the street, he’d filed a formal written complaint about Valentino’s harassment with the office of internal affairs, and he’d handed the phone to the FBI. If there was a public corruption element, the FBI could investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> One day Kevin told me, “Hey, Val.” I go, “Yeah.” He goes, “You know, this story’s much bigger than your son.” And I says, “I know. I realize that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And Steele started to share with Val Sr. what he’d been communicating about with the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> His biggest agenda was that homicide that took place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The stabbing of Luis Giovanny Aguilar in the day room, that video that Valentino had shown his dad at the Christmas party.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Kevin told me that he told Sean Lister that that was a perfect murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The FBI special agent Sean Lister.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I was thinking in my head, “What? My son?” But Kevin told me, no, um, the perfect murder was this homicide that had happened on — the B8 homicide he called it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele called it the B8 homicide because that was the name of the housing unit at New Folsom where it happened. We reached out to Special Agent Lister, but he declined to comment on the case. The FBI says they can’t comment, but an agent did confirm the investigation is still pending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To understand some of the reasons why Sergeant Kevin Steele may have thought the homicide of Luis Giovanny Aguilar was worth reporting to the FBI, Julie and I got on a Zoom call with this woman.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zoom voice:\u003c/b> Recording in progress.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> My name is Claudia Bohorquez and, um, I’m an, an attorney. Luis Giovanny Aguilar is, uh, my, my client’s son.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Aguilar’s mother is pursuing a lawsuit against prison officials, including the officers who were on duty in the unit that day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Either they weren’t there or they were deliberately indifferent, they didn’t care, uh, what was going on, or as we alleged, they, they planned it. They were part of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In court filings, prison officials deny these allegations. A CDCR spokesperson said there is an active investigation involving outside law enforcement, and that the agency cannot comment on this case. At the time, B8 was a super high security segregation unit, the type that is often used to hold people who are considered especially violent or dangerous, or as a punishment for people who’ve committed new crimes while in prison. They’re generally held in solitary cells.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Anytime they’re out of their cell they’re handcuffed, they’re shackled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Claudia explains the day of the murder.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Basically, on that day, December 12th, 2019…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Three men…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Mr. Aguilar and the other two inmates who, who participated in the stabbing, Anthony Rodriguez and Cody Taylor…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> …Were brought down the stairs from their cells on the second tier of the unit into the day room, an open area with fixed desks and chairs on the first floor, outside the lower tier cells. All three were shackled by their ankles to metal chairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Our allegation is that the two inmates, Rodriguez and Taylor, uh, were able to uncuff themselves, free themselves, and that they ran up, uh, or walked up the stairs to, um, another cell that was on the second floor and retrieved weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They got makeshift metal knives from the cell of a man named Dion Green who was a shot caller in the prison. Taylor and Rodriguez then came back down the stairs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> And, um, proceeded to stab my client to death fif- more than 55 times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And no officer used deadly force to stop them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music ends]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit that Claudia filed claims Aguilar was targeted by officers in retaliation for attacking a guard about a week before he was killed. And there are three big pieces of evidence or arguments the lawsuit relies on to back up its allegations: what I call the rumor, the practice run, and the Britt case. First off, there was the rumor. The lawsuit claims that officers spread a rumor that Aguilar was a child sex offender.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> It’s common knowledge that, um, inmates that go in as child molesters and sex offenders get treated [laughs] very badly in prison. They don’t like sex offenders, they especially don’t like child sex offenders.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit alleges that officers did this on purpose to put a target on Aguilar’s back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> “How do we get some inmates to help us out and get this guy Aguilar? Well, let’s tell them he’s a sex offender, then they’ll go, go along with it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Prison officials have denied that officers spread this rumor in court filings. And to be clear, Aguilar was in prison for stealing a vehicle and fleeing police. He also had an earlier conviction for domestic violence. But our review of his criminal record from CDCR found no convictions for child molestation or sexual offenses. Secondly, there was the practice run.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> One of the inmates who actually, who was one of the inmates that stabbed my client, he, a week earlier, in the same day room, had taken off his restraints from the day room, the chair, and gone upstairs, um, and come back down. And, um…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> So basically like, “Okay, I’m gonna try this, see what happens if I take off my restraints and go up and get it.” Or something?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Yeah. Uh, yeah, I can’t really explain it other than it was done, and again, no repercussions seem to have come from it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was captured by surveillance cameras in the unit according to sources who have seen the video. A man slipping out of his shackles in full view of the control booth. Again, this is in a restricted unit where no one’s allowed to go anywhere without an officer escort and restraints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final big anomaly Claudia references in this suit is the Britt Case, an incident that at the very least should’ve put prison officials on notice. Two months before the Aguilar murder, the same three men, Taylor, Rodriguez and Green coordinated a nearly identical attempted murder of a man named Michael Britt. Taylor and Rodriguez slipped their shackles and stabbed him repeatedly in the day room. Dion Green claimed responsibility, saying he ordered the hit. Britt was an enemy of his.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> Britt was, he wasn’t killed, but he was assaulted very badly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> By the same guys. And so, have you… do you have any idea, like, how they were allowed to remain together at the same facility?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> No. (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was kind of shocking. These three men had clearly conspired to kill someone and proven they could outsmart the security measures, even in a restricted unit like this. But the prison didn’t separate the men or move them to a different area. A CDCR spokesperson told me that they have a robust system to keep enemies apart, and that as a general matter, they do separate people they identify as crime partners. CDCR would not comment on why this did not happen in this case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Claudia Bohorquez:\u003c/b> This was horrific, this was unfair, this should’ve never happened. It just should’ve never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The lawsuit against CDCR is ongoing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From internal records and what he told Val Sr., it seems like Steele had gotten involved in the case as he usually did. It was his job to prep the evidence for criminal charges against Green, Rodriguez and Taylor for the district attorney. The official explanation that was reflected in Valentino’s report was that it was a gang killing. But as Steele looked through the evidence and talked to the suspects, he began to discover these anomalies and have doubts about that as a motive. And it seems like Steele did what he always did, he reported what he was finding to prison leaders and to the FBI. But now, more than a year after the murder, he told Val Sr. he was frustrated. Prison officials weren’t taking his allegations seriously.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Sometimes he was so, uh, passionate about what was going on, and angry, that he couldn’t bottle it and he would just tell me, and, and I would listen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. listened to him, but he says all these incidents and details of the homicide, that was all Steele’s agenda.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’ll, I’ll be really honest, I, I just didn’t care. I… Mine was I wanna know why the hell Val wrote this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It wasn’t unusual for someone in Valentino’s position to be tapped to write a report like this. But Val Sr. still questioned why he was picked on this particular case. There were other officers in the gang unit who’d collected evidence right after Aguilar was killed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They had been here for 15 years, they are the ones that write this stuff. They were there that night, but they gave it to him. Why?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> As Val Sr. learned more about the homicide from Steele, and the evidence of a potential conspiracy involving officers, he had to wonder if writing that report was connected to his son’s death.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Who told him to? You know, why did they encourage him to and congratulate him as airtight? I, I… That’s what I wanted to know.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> What Val Sr. is referring to are these text messages on Valentino’s phone from two supervisors in the ISU. They appear to be coaching him about how to establish the connection between the homicide and the gang motive. Once he turns the report in, his boss texts again saying gang investigators were happy with this report and had called it, quote, “airtight.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From one angle, these texts could be innocent, just a boss giving their subordinate direction and encouragement. But to Val Sr., everything was beginning to look suspect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> My son’s passing was very coincidental and it benefited some really bad people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Because if Valentino had inside knowledge that officers played a role in Aguilar’s homicide, that knowledge died with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After Valentino Rodriguez died, his wife Mimy couldn’t stay in their house. But bit by bit, she did start the hard task of going through their stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez: \u003c/b>A friend of mine at the time, she came with me to the house to help just clear things out. I mean, we just found so many empty baggies, and I was just, I was distraught, and she was shocked. It was right in front of me, but I didn’t, I didn’t know what I was looking for, little plastic twisted up baggies that were ripped at the end. There was so many of them, and I just remember being so angry at myself, like, why didn’t I see this before? Why didn’t I notice something? Why didn’t I push more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Another time, she and Valentino’s sister Monique had a plan to rip out the old carpets in the house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> That day I felt like crap, and I texted her, I said, “Monique, I’m so sorry, I, I, I can’t go today. It’s just been hard.” And she texted back like, “It’s okay. It’s hard every day.” But she went and ripped it up, and I remember the carpets were thrown out on the side of the house, and there’s a sliding door there, and I went out there just to look at the carpets. There was a little balloon there, a little black balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And I was like, “What the heck? What is this?” So I grab it and I open it because I’m curious, and there’s just white powder in there, and I got scared. So I call Val Sr. and I go, “I found something.” And he goes, “What is it?” And he immediately came to the house, and I showed him, I was like, “What is this?” He’s like, “Where did you find it?” And I was like, “It was, it was sitting blank- just right there on the floor next to the carpets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> She gave Val Sr. the balloon along with some white pills she’d found while cleaning out the kitchen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mimy Rodriguez:\u003c/b> They were slid all the way in the corner in the back of, like, a box of oatmeal that was unopened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> To Val Sr., the pills, the black balloon, it all looked like evidence, evidence from the prison or evidence that might be tied to his son’s death. Thanks to his son’s work as an investigator, Val Sr. knew that in prison, drugs are often wrapped in balloons into little packages called bindles that can be passed from person to person, swallowed and then later fished out of the toilet, hopefully still protected by the plastic balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he died, Valentino hadn’t worked at the prison for nine months, so what was he doing with this bindle in his house? Val Sr. says he went to the three different agencies he believed were investigating different aspects of his son’s death: CDCR, the West Sacramento Police Department, and the FBI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I told each one of them that I, I found this, this drug bindle, it’s from the prison. “Well, how do you know?” “Because my son’s… that’s what he did.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did anybody take, um, possession of the bindle? No agency that was investigating-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> They don’t even wanna talk about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I, I remember it was in, in the a- in the afternoon at work. Erma had run in with her phone and said, “Val, Val, I got him on the phone,” because I, I wasn’t having any luck with anybody.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It was the West Sacramento Police Chief on the phone. Val Sr. asked the chief what they were doing. Had they made any progress finding the source of the fentanyl? But the chief said his department wasn’t investigating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I began to get emotional on the phone and I told him, “You guys don’t care about him, he was a whistleblower, this is what happened, that was what happened.” And he goes, “Val, we do care about your son.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We spoke to the West Sacramento Police Chief later and he confirmed that he spoke with Val Sr., but they have very different memories of what was said in this conversation. According to what Val Sr. remembers…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That’s when he told me, “I was told not to investigate this,” plain and simple. I’m not gonna lie about that. Um, I says, “Well, so there’s not, uh, there’s not an investigation?” He goes, “Not, not with us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> According to the chief, he never said they were told not to investigate. The police had not found any evidence of a crime at the scene, and their policy at the time was not to do a further investigation of accidental overdose cases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I says, “So just look for the source of the fentanyl. I can do that. I have everything, you know, I have his phone records.” And that’s when he told me, “Val, they’re not looking on the streets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What did it mean to you when the police chief said, “They’re not looking on the streets”?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That meant exactly what I was thinking, that they’re looking into the prison to see if it came from there, that’s… that’s the way I took it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. took this to mean that they meant the Feds and Internal Affairs. And this statement from the chief was a signal that while the police investigation was closed, those agencies were still investigating his son’s death, and that those agencies thought the source of the fentanyl was inside New Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The chief told us Val Sr. misunderstood him, that he meant something much more procedural, that the prison would not be the ones to look on the streets, that just wasn’t their jurisdiction. Without a recording of this call, it’s impossible to know whose version is accurate, but whatever was really said during this call, what Val Sr. took away from it, was an acknowledgement of his suspicions that everything he uncovered pointed back to New Folsom, and a belief that someone was still looking into the source of the fentanyl.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I wept and I started talking. I says, “They… I think they killed him.” You know? “I think they sent that shit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. really had no one to talk to about his suspicions and fears, except for Sergeant Steele. The two men had bonded over their shared grief, and they began to share other aspects of their lives. Steele told Val Sr. about his time in the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He served a couple of terms in Iraq.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They shared their faith.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He would send me scripture, I’d send him scripture.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And country music songs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Um, He’s… He was like the complete package, and uh, we had, uh, a lot of stuff in common.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b>They’re around the same age, in their fifties, and both loved antique cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He used to call me his kindred spirit all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But, Val Sr. says there was an undercurrent to their relationship. He could feel that Steele was torn.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was feeling that it was his civil duty to be, uh, on my side, my son’s side. I got the impression. But, at the same time, he was still an officer who- with Folsom Prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And that conflict was heating up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> Hi there, Sergeant Steele. Special Agent Chris McGraw, calling you again, February the 8th-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Since Valentino’s death, Steele had received multiple direct orders from the warden, and from that internal affairs agent, Chris McGraw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> … to immediately seize all forms of communication with all members of the Rodriguez family, unless I am present or if I am participating in the communication along with you, uh-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR did not want Steele talking to Val Sr., or anyone else in his family.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> … um, please review your email. I will send you a follow-up email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> This was an order that Steele disobeyed. And the reason we have this voicemail, is because he sent it to Val Sr..\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris McGraw:\u003c/b> Uh, thank you so much, and have a good day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That decision to stay in contact with Val Sr. in defiance of his superiors, would have far-reaching implications, for Steele’s job, and his life. And from what we know of Steele, it seems probable that he didn’t make that decision lightly. According to multiple people who knew him well, each of the steps that Steele took were governed by his exacting and deeply held principles, and feeling of duty.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He was an officer. He took an oath and he was just doing what an officer should do. You know, and be just, that was his job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And as 2020 turned to 2021, that feeling of duty led him to do something radical.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On January 4th, he sent a memo to the warden. Here’s Julie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> The subject line is, “ISU entrenched corruption and uninhibited harassment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> It’s a document that we requested from CDCR, but so far, the agency has not disclosed it. But we did get a copy from Val Sr.. Steele shared it with him. It’s nine pages long, so we’re not gonna read all of it, but Steele talks about ISU staff claiming false overtime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Rodriguez also shared details of how some of the ISU officers would plant drugs and weapons on inmates, in an effort to have to work overtime hours to finish the reports.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Driving music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And he writes that Valentino told him that ISU officers would threaten to plant drugs in places that would get him in trouble.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “This was used as a point of leverage to keep CO Rodriguez from reporting this unscrupulous behaviors.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He writes a lot about Valentino’s boss, Sergeant David Anderson, and how Steele also felt harassed and intimidated by him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Sergeant Anderson called me a snake in front of other ISU IGI officers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Anderson did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But while significant, Steele’s allegations go far beyond the dysfunction of the ISU squad. It’s clear, Steele is a person who keeps track. Like a prosecutor building his case, he lays out these bullet points.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “Inmates discovered at the hospital with injuries in consistency with-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Incarcerated people with broken ribs, head injuries and busted teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “… for example, mental health staff, asphyxiation, carbon monoxide poisoning. Mail room staff, drug overdose and decease, suicidal staff, times two…”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> An alarming number of employees in crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “… CSP Sacramento is sending more water instead of urine for testing than any other institution-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> A dangerously inadequate drug testing program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “…the 2019 B8 homicide inconsistencies were immediately-”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And the murder of Luis Giovanny Aguilar. The list touches on nearly every aspect of the institution. His language is forceful, he names names and points fingers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “You should consider the very likely possibility that during your superintendence of CSP Sacramento, more staff will be charged for criminal activity than any other institution within the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> CDCR said Warden Jeff Lynch cannot speak to us about personnel matters. A spokesperson said the agency takes all allegations of officer misconduct seriously and has a process to make sure all complaints are, “properly, fairly, and thoroughly reviewed.” They did not respond to specific questions about whether Steele’s allegations in this memo were investigated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Julie and I read through this memo, we were pretty stunned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> How startling of a document is this, in comparison, you know, to what you’ve seen over your years of reporting?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> I mean, the allegations about ordering murders are- are very shocking. To have an- a correctional officer, a high-ranking sergeant in an investigative unit, releasing this kind of, um, detailed report about misconduct, illegal activity, even murder, I don’t know of another time that that’s happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> We’d been trying to understand the system from the outside, and it was amazing to discover there’d been someone trying to expose it from the inside, and he’d left behind this memo, like a map for us to follow.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/strong> The first step was into our own files. We’d built up a database of hundreds of internal records and dozens of recordings, related to violent and even deadly use of force incidents. All the stuff that was supposed to be public record under a new transparency law, but that we’d spent the last four years fighting, and even suing for. When we cross-referenced the names from Steele’s memo with our database, we discovered that we had those cases in our files, and we realized that his memo could help us unlock the meaning of these incidents, the patterns that they showed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were three names in particular of incarcerated people who ended up in the hospital with injuries that didn’t make sense. We decided to try and contact them. One of them had died, but it looked like two of them were still in prison, and so I wrote to them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Dear Mr. Navaro.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dear Mr. Uribe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’m a reported with the NPR station-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… I received some records from CDCR that detail an incident-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… badly injured on March 31st.-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… On May 2nd, 2017.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>… Please give me a call on the number below, or send me a letter.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I put these letters in the mail and hoped someone would call me back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did Kevin know that handing him that memo would probably end his career?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He didn’t seem concerned when he sent that, he didn’t say, “Oh, man, this is gonna end my career.” He just felt that he was doing the right thing and there wasn’t a problem with it, to be really honest. So, he didn’t see beyond that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And it was weird because I did. I definitely knew he was en- he was ending his- his career with CDCR. He had other priorities. He had other obligations, and that was to tell the truth. He just had tunnel vision for that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. remembers Steele reading the memo to him over the phone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I says, “Holy smokes, this is very powerful. The walls are gonna fall, you know,” and it didn’t.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Dramatic music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We don’t know exactly how the warden reacted when he got Steele’s memo in his inbox, but we do know Steele decided he was done with the institution, and it was time for him to leave. So he put together a plan, he was gonna move across the country, to Miller County in Missouri, a place he’d visited as a reserve officer for the Air Force. A place where he hoped no one could find him. But he wasn’t quitting, he’d accrued a ton of leave that he’d never taken. He’d use that up and then retire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before he left town, Val Sr. and his wife, Erma, invited Steele to come over to the house for a barbecue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> We made tri-tip and we had our kids there, we gave him a little gift. He was there with his wife, Lily, and his dad. So, my parents were there, my mother-in-law and my kids, and we just sat around and talked and he was talking to everybody, and his wife was hugging everyone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He just glowed, man. This is how he was, he was so polite and respectable and considerate. And he just moved around and I just, “Ah, I don’t have to talk to him,” ’cause he was just, like, just talking to everybody, so that was cool for me ’cause I was cooking, I was busy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> After they ate, Val Sr. presented him with a plaque that he’d had made. A clear pyramid with a photo of his son Valentino inside, and a brass name plate. Steele had always called Valentino a superhero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I put on here, “From your superhero, to my kindred spirit,” picture, and he cried, and then, uh, he had a hard time taking. (laughs) Uh, so then, he got in the- in the car and left after that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Steele and his wife and their dogs made their way across the country to Miller County. The two men were now nearly 2000 miles away from each other, but in their talks on the phone, they grew even closer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He would even tell me, “I love you,” you know, which was kind of odd for me, as a man. We just- I didn’t grow up- you know, throwing that word around. (laughs) I don’t think he did either, you know, but, uh, I remember one day I walked in and I had him on speakerphone and he goes, “I love you man,” and I go, “Oh, okay.” (laughs) And I hung up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Erma overhead the whole thing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> Like, “Why don’t you say, ‘I love you’ back?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> “Uh, I’m just not that kind of person,” (laughs) and I just- he feels- yeah, he just feels weird. (laughs) I think you end up did saying it one time, didn’t you?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Yeah. I told him, um, and that felt funny, but I told him, “I love you buddy.” (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Erma Rodriguez:\u003c/b> (laughs)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In fact, Val Sr. was one of the few people who knew where Steele was living. Steele didn’t feel safe. He told people he was close to that after he’d confronted prison leaders with evidence he’d collected about officer misconduct, he’d been getting weird text messages, and vaguely threatening voicemails from unknown numbers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In his calls with Val Sr., Steele talked about how easy it would be for his enemies to hire someone to kill him. But if they came, he was prepared. He had guns and two doberman pinschers. So those fears didn’t stop him, he’d left California, but he hadn’t abandoned his friend or their mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> He assured me that he would be able to work laterally and do more outside the prison.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> And I didn’t understand what he meant by that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In February 2021, Steele fired off another memo. This one addressed to the head of the entire state agency: Secretary Kathleen Allison. It’s about what he calls the corruption and failed leadership at New Folsom. This memo has fewer details, but the focus is on the inaction of higher-ups. How multiple supervisors were aware of the harassment Valentino received, and failed to do anything about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “No staff member or person should have been the victim of what correctional officer Rodriguez endured at the hands of CSP Sacramento ISU office supervisors and staff members.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And in his writing, you can really feel Steele’s frustration, and even more than that, the betrayal. He’d been a true believer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “I’m not a disgruntled employee seeking vengeance. Instead, I was a witness to an ISU which became engulfed in corruption and watched as integrity was forced to cower in terror and fear of retaliation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Around the same time this memo was sent, a notice was posted at the entrance gate of New Folsom prison. Beneath a photograph of Steele’s face, it states, “Effective immediately, Kevin Steele is not to be permitted on institution grounds.” CDCR did not respond to questions about why Steele was banned from the prison. Steele himself would come to find out he was under investigation by internal affairs. He felt he had no choice but to work outside the system he’d been a part of for 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Ad break]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two men, Val Sr. and Kevin Steele, with their twin agendas, started working to expose the prison and put pressure on those supposedly ongoing investigations in another way, this time through the press.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> How did you come to that decision?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> That was hard decision to make.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Val Sr. tells Julie, at first he wanted to give prison officials and law enforcement the chance to investigate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So I waited, and then finally I just- I just got tired of waiting. So, I made the call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> He spoke to a newspaper reporter named Wes Venteicher, who worked at the local paper, The Sacramento Bee. He now writes for Politico. Wes says he’d covered prisons before, but this story was different.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> It was certainly kind of one of the darkest places I’ve (laughs) gone as a reporter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> When you were going through this process and talking to people, you talked to correctional officers, you know, was it difficult to get people to go on the record for it because of fears, or…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> Yes, of course. Uh, everybody’s really scared of retaliation, and that’s part of the whole story with Val. You know, some people described it as like a high-school-like atmosphere, where everybody knows everybody, and then, um, it’s really easy for someone to be shunned, and then that makes them, makes their work more dangerous and their job more dangerous. So, nobody who was s- an employed correctional officer, and even a couple of the retired ones I talked to were not willing to go on the record.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Wes says something that really stuck out to him, and that there just isn’t enough research on, is the long-term impact of doing this work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Wes Venteicher:\u003c/b> One thing I had wanted to look into was just the pattern of the mental health treatment, and the medications that people are prescribed, and does anyone actually end up healing or getting better after suffering through some of this stuff? Or is there just this trail of broken former correctional officers out there?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We tell him this is something we are looking into. Wes’s article, titled Correctional Officer’s Death Exposes Hazing, Toxic Culture at California Prison, published in April of 2021. It’s how we first heard about Valentino’s death, and it goes into the discrimination that Valentino faced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Once that article hit, Garland was walked off, and a lot of stuff started to happen over there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Daniel Garland, the guy who’d called Valentino homophobic slurs, Marcus Jordan, the one who’d used the N-word, were both under investigation, along with other officers in the ISU. Steele texted, “Justice is beginning to simmer, Steele.” But Val Sr.’s response was a lot more measured.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I thought that, “Okay, that’s, uh, that’s nu- step one. That’s good. Everything else from here on out is going to be systematic. They’re doing something,” but they didn’t do shit after that. It was just like, “Here’s a piece of raw meat,” and that’s it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That internal affairs investigation that had started with Chris McGraw, resulted in the dismissal of Marcus Jordan and Daniel Garland. Among other things, the department found their treatment of Valentino violated state employee laws and the department’s code of conduct. Two other guys on the squad got a 10% pay cut. One of them had called Valentino Half-Patch, and they’d both chimed in with derogatory texts in the group thread. But these four officers appealed their discipline. Like all correctional officers, they’d have access to an extensive appeals process and representation by union lawyers. The lawyer for those four officers declined to let us speak to her clients for this podcast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She wrote in an email, “CDCR imposed excessive and unreasonable discipline against my clients for personal communications between work friends on their personal cell phones that took place almost entirely off duty.” And she said her clients are still fighting to overturn this discipline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a big shakeup in the squad, and the institution reassigned basically all the officers who’d worked with Valentino. But the people who were really in charge, like Warden Jeff Lynch, remained in charge.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> What were you hoping would happen when the Sacramento Bee article came out?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I was hoping for what I’m hoping for now, closure, and everyone throws that J-word around, but just justice.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Upbeat music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> The article did get some important attention, though. A guy in the district attorney’s office for Yolo County, where West Sacramento is located and where Valentino died, saw his death by fentanyl as part of a pattern. Overdoses from the lethal drug were skyrocketing in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> Mostly from fentanyl overdoses, last year in California alone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And in the county.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> We’ve seen over a dozen people die of fentanyl-related overdoses in the last year-and-a-half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In June, this is two months after the article came out in the paper, the DA’s office issued a press release.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> DA Reisig compares it to DUI offenders who break the law again and kill someone in the process. They’ll be looking at…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> They were changing their policy. Fentanyl deaths were now going to be investigated as potential homicides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> If you’re selling that drug knowing that it may be laced with fentanyl, and somebody dies, you should pay the price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> …a few grains of salt of fentanyl can kill you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Newscast:\u003c/b> DA Jeff Reisig is confident the policy will hold up if challenged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And these cases would be investigated by a special regional task force called Safe Streets, that involved the FBI, Sacramento County Law Enforcement, and a representative from the Yolo County DA’s Office. At the bottom of their release, the DA’s office included a photo of one of the victims of the recent uptick in fentanyl poisoning. It was Valentino Rodriguez, in his CDCR uniform, on the day he graduated from the academy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new FBI agent on the case, part of that Safe Streets task force, got in touch with Val Sr. via email. Quote-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> “We are looking into/investigating the death of your son with several groups inside the FBI, as well as our local agency partners. Being as there are several complications to your son’s passing, the investigation is going to be more complex and time-consuming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> Initially, I was told, “This is a very complicated case. It’s going to take time. You need to be patient for several reasons.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> But just a little while later, Val Sr. says the agent called back and said he was closing his investigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I asked him why, he goes, “There’s nothing on the phone.” I says, “There’s all kinds of stuff on the phone.” He’s got phone records, he’s got two burn calls, I mean there’s all kinds of stuff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> In an email, the FBI said they could not comment on the Safe Streets task force or any potential investigation into Valentino’s death. Val Sr. felt like he was stuck in a game of hot potato, being passed from one agency to another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> This, all this is like, like overwhelming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And this long journey of disappointments he’s been on, it’s part of why he’s agreed to talk to Julie and me, and share all the evidence he’s gathered, so we can try to figure out what’s going on here, and if there’s something law enforcement missed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Did you find the bindle ever?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> On one of our trips to Val Sr.’s home in West Sacramento he goes to a bookshelf in his living room and he pulls out a plastic pill bottle. He hands it to Julie, who holds it up to the light.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> So in there is, um, a balloon, small balloon-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Inside the bottle there’s a zip-lock baggie with a white pill and two capsules in it, and a small round package about the size of a nickel, wrapped in black plastic, which Val Sr. believes came from New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> … and then these baggies, which on Val’s phone, shows these are the way he, you would log into evidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/strong> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I don’t know what’s inside the capsules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Mm-hmm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Okay, well s- we’ll try to figure out what we can do to have this analyzed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valentino Rodriguez, Sr:\u003c/b> I’m curious what’s in the balloon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> We want to find out if what’s in the bindle or the pills matches the drugs in Valentino’s system when he died, so Julie and our producer, Steven Rascón, ship it off to a place that does forensic drug testing for law enforcement, and then we jump on a call.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Sound FX – Zoom chime]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So do you have to, um, like package this a certain way?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yeah. It gets a special packaging, double plastic zip-lock bags, and also the canister that you dropped it into, and twisted, and closed, and, um, yeah, and then bubble wrap around that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> All right, cool. So it’s on its way? It’s like literally in the mail on its way to the-\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Julie Small:\u003c/b> Yes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Steven Rascón:\u003c/b> Yeah, so that’s like you, we can cross that off, which is great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> That’s awesome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company says it’ll take 30 to 60 days to get the results back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Outro Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Coming up next time, we start to get a sense of what it was like to be incarcerated at New Folsom.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Incarcerated Man:\u003c/b> They would cuff us, you know, handcuff us and beat us, you know? And, um, wasn’t a whole lot we could do.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> And one of the guys I wrote to from Steele’s memo calls me back.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Incarcerated man:\u003c/b> You got to be strong, man. Come on, Sukey. If you let shit like this get to you, then, man, all this shit’s for nothing, man. You got to stay strong. Don’t worry about me. I can handle my own. You got to stay strong. You got to f- do this til the end, how they say like ’til the wheels fall off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> Finally, we get a deeper sense of Steele’s mission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Woman:\u003c/b> The only good thing that kept me going, there was this, uh, officer. His name is Mr. Steele. If it wasn’t for him, my son wouldn’t be alive today.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>[Credits Music]\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sukey Lewis:\u003c/b> You’re listening to \u003ci>On Our Watch\u003c/i> Season 2, New Folsom, from KQED. If you have any tips or feedback about the series, you can email us at onourwatch@kqed.org. You can also leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This series is reported by me, Sukey Lewis, and Julie Small. It’s edited by Victoria Mauleón. It’s produced and scored by Steven Rascón and Chris Egusa. Sound design and mixing by Tarek Fouda. Jen Chien is KQED’s director of podcasts, and she executive produced the series. Meticulous fact-checking by Mark Betancourt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Additional research for this episode by Kathleen Quinn and Laura Fitzgerald, students in the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism, whose chair, David Barstow, provided valuable support for the whole series.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Special thanks to Rahsaan Thomas of Ear Hustle, Sandhya Dirks of NPR, and KQED health correspondent April Dembosky. Original music by Ramtin Arablouei, including our theme song. Additional music from APM Music and Audio Network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Funding for On Our Watch is provided in part by Arnold Ventures and the California Endowment. And thanks to KQED’s Otis R. Taylor Jr., Managing Editor of News and Enterprise, Ethan Toven-Lindsey, our vice president of news, and Chief Content Officer Holly Kernan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thanks for listening.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"radiolab": {
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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"reveal": {
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"science-friday": {
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