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| 2 supervisors seek probe of slaying at jail |
| By Los Angeles Times |
| Published: 05/10/2004 |
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Los Angeles County (Calif.) Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke called last Friday for an independent review of the jailhouse killing two weeks ago of a witness in a murder case. The inquiry would be in addition to the investigation launched last week by Sheriff Lee Baca, whose department runs the Men's Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, where the slaying took place. "This was something out of a crime novel from the 1930s," Yaroslavsky said. "It's bad enough they are in jail. If we can't keep people reasonably safe, we have a problem; the justice system has a problem." Burke said she was particularly concerned because a judge had ordered that the victim be protected in jail. Sheriff's deputies discovered Raul Tinajero dead in his cell April 20. Just two weeks earlier, he had testified as the key witness against former neighbor Santiago Pineda, who was on trial for murder. Pineda is the prime suspect in the killing of Tinajero, authorities said. The supervisors, who have been embroiled in a public dispute with Baca over funding levels for his department, suggested that the independent review could be conducted by Merrick Bobb, a special counsel to the board. They also want Bobb to examine past killings at the jail. In a report last September, Bobb warned that deputies were given inadequate training in the use of force, leaving them potentially unable to defend themselves or to control violent inmates. The review found that deputies transferred to work in the jail system frequently didn't receive formal training until sometime after they started the job. Baca said that he planned to change procedures to provide his staff with more data on both witnesses and accused murderers taken to the jail. He proposed ranking the accused murderers to ensure that the most dangerous were watched more closely. Baca also said the paperwork on accused murderers and protected witnesses should be more informative. |
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