By Matthew Ormseth
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Faced with seven homicides in the first nine weeks of the year, California prison authorities announced they have restricted inmate movement and revoked privileges such as visits and phone calls at high-security facilities across the state.
In a statement dated March 8, officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation cited a “surge” in violence directed at both inmates and staff as the reason for the crackdown at 11 prisons.
CDCR officials declined an interview request from The Times. Authorities are conducting a “comprehensive investigation” into causes of the violence, said Terri Hardy, a spokeswoman for the department.
At the current pace, 2025 would nearly double last year’s reported total of 24 homicides inside state prisons.
Authorities didn’t say for how long visiting, phone use and other privileges would be restricted on high-security yards at Calipatria State Prison, Centinela State Prison, California Correctional Institution, High Desert State Prison, Kern Valley State Prison, California State Prison-Los Angeles County, Mule Creek State Prison, Pelican Bay State Prison, California State Prison-Sacramento, Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and Salinas Valley State Prison.
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The day before the department announced the “modified program,” three inmates were killed in attacks at three different prisons.
The first homicide was discovered at 6:13 a.m. on March 7, when guards found Jake Kennedy dead in the cell he shared with Tyler Yates at California State Prison, Sacramento, authorities said in a statement.
Two weeks earlier, Kennedy and Yates allegedly stabbed to death Jonathan Rude, a convicted car thief from Butte County, according to officials.
If found guilty of killing Kennedy and Rude, Yates will have been convicted of killing three people in prison. The 30-year-old, who went to prison in 2017 to serve an eight-year term for burglary and assault, was sentenced in 2022 to life without parole for murdering Nathan Marcus at California State Prison, Sacramento.
The Sacramento lockup has become one of the most violent prisons in the state, recording four homicides in 2024 and three this year. On March 5, a melee broke out at the prison between 40 inmates, some armed with knives, officials said. Five prisoners were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.
About an hour after Kennedy’s body was found, Terrance Shaw killed Joshua Peppers at California State Prison, Los Angeles County in Lancaster, CDCR officials said in a statement.
Peppers, 39, was imprisoned for robbery. Shaw, 42, was sentenced in 2023 to serve 14 years for assault, battery and possessing a weapon as a prisoner in Monterey County.
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A third prisoner, German Merino, was killed at 5:47 p.m. at Kern Valley State Prison in Delano. CDCR officials identified Merino’s killers as Gilbert Garcia and Rodolfo Cortez. Garcia, 43, is serving 11 years for assault. Cortez, 33, is halfway through a 24-year term for robbery, carjacking and assaulting a police officer.
A member of the SDK gang, short for “Surenos Do Kill,” Merino, 37, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering a man in South Los Angeles in 2009, according to an appellate decision that summarized evidence at his trial.
The recent homicides continue an enduring problem in the California prison system: Inmates already serving life sentences — and who have nothing to lose by incurring more time — committing killings seemingly with impunity.
Mario Campbell, 36, was imprisoned for sexual assault, assault with a firearm, burglary, robbery, false imprisonment and intimidating a witness when he was killed Jan. 15 at California State Prison, Sacramento.
His alleged killers, Cody Taylor and David Gomez, are both serving life sentences for murdering inmates, CDCR officials said in a statement.
Taylor stabbed to death a defenseless inmate who was handcuffed to a chair in 2019, according to reporting by KQED radio station.
A convicted rapist, Gomez received a second life term for murder in 2015, according to CDCR officials. He strangled, beat and slashed his cellmate, later telling a psychologist the killing was a “freebie” because he was already serving life, the Monterey County Weekly reported.
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