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| Calif. prisons overseer is fired |
| By San Francisco Chronicle |
| Published: 01/20/2004 |
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A state investigator who wrote a report condemning the way Folsom State Prison officials handled a riot in 2002 has been fired by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger days before the deputy was to testify at state Senate hearings on California's troubled Department of Corrections. John Chen, who was chief deputy director of the state agency that acts as an independent watchdog over the penal system, was given less than eight hours to pack his belongings and get out of his office Friday. Chen is expected to testify this week that the Office of the Inspector General should be beefed up to better handle oversight of the state's 33 prisons -- an idea that runs counter to Schwarzenegger's proposal to eliminate the office. The firing was fiercely criticized by state Sen. Jackie Speier, D- Hillsborough, and Sen. Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who are chairing the prison hearings that begin today. Speier called Chen's dismissal "a move of questionable timing'' and said she would call him to testify as a private citizen. A spokesman for Schwarzenegger denied that Chen's removal had anything to do with the hearings, saying the governor was simply replacing a Davis appointee, as he has done throughout state government. An investigator with 25 years' experience auditing prisons, Chen concluded in an October 2003 report that several officials at Folsom State Prison had mishandled a brawl there. The confidential report, detailed in a story in The Chronicle on Saturday, played a role in the firing of the warden at Folsom in December and is expected to get its first public airing at the hearing today. Chen alleged that prison staff had improperly released dozens of members of two rival gangs into an exercise yard at the same time, sparking the riot, and then tried to cover up mistakes. Schwarzenegger, who has the right to fire Davis appointees, moved Monday to replace Chen with a former prison officer who has risen through the ranks to hold several oversight posts within the Corrections Department. Regis Gene Lane takes over as the highest-ranking official in the state Office of the Inspector General. |
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