Man from Chino prison is first California inmate to die from the coronavirus, CDCR says
An inmate at the California Institution for Men in Chino has died from complications of coronavirus, prison officials announced Sunday, the first fatality reported among the 115 prisoners who have tested positive for the virus so far.
Corrections officials announced the death Sunday afternoon, saying the inmate died at a hospital away from the prison, an institution that has had 59 positive test results among inmates for COVID-19, the most of any of the state’s 35 prisons.
“An exact cause of death has not yet been determined,” the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement. “Next of kin has been notified. No additional information is being provided to protect the individual’s medical privacy.”
The death comes as prison officials say 115 inmates system-wide have tested positive for the virus, with 89 prison staffers testing positive so far.
It also follows warnings from inmates, their families and attorneys for prisoners that overcrowding in the prisons inevitably will lead to fatalities.
“The outbreak at CIM is exactly what we had feared, in that it involved prisoners who were housed in crowded dorms,” said Michael Bien, an attorney who represents tens of thousands of mentally ill inmates and who has been fighting in federal court to win releases for many. “It’s inevitable that the illness will spread more rapidly in that kind of housing situation where social distancing cannot be practiced. Neither can hand washing or other practices that the rest of California has been ordered to follow.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom and a panel of three federal judges have rejected the notion of wholesale releases of inmates to alleviate the danger coronavirus poses in such crowded settings.
Instead, the governor has halted for 30 days the intake of all inmates from county jails – a move that kept roughly 3,000 inmates from being transferred to prisons. He also has ordered the release of about 3,500 inmates who were within 60 days of their parole dates.
But that move sparked sharp criticism from some inmate advocates who say it is inadequate to provide enough room for inmates and staff to distance themselves from others.
And the April 8 release of a CIM inmate despite the fact that he had been exposed to coronavirus has sparked a sharp backlash by county officials.
That inmate had been told on April 7 that he had been exposed to the virus and should be quarantined, county officials say. Instead, prison officials released him the next day with instructions to self-quarantine.
The inmate was expected to report to probation in Stanislaus County, but instead traveled 500 miles to Ukiah in Mendocino County, where he tested positive on Thursday for the virus.
Mendoncino and Stanislaus county officials were livid when they discovered the inmate had been released rather than quarantined in the prison.
Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall said the inmate was not a resident of his county and that allowing him to travel there was like “throwing sparks in the dry grass.”
District Attorney C. David Eyster called the move “state prison inmate dumping.”
CDCR officials did not respond to a query Saturday on why the inmate had not been kept in quarantine at the prison. Instead, they issued a statement saying corrections officials notified Stanislaus County of the inmate’s release. The department added that the county’s probation department “granted the offender a travel pass to Mendocino County where he has a support system” and “that was a decision made at the local level.”
Stanislaus County Chief Probation Officer Mark Ferriera disputed that, saying Saturday that the first time the county was informed of the inmate’s release and exposure was April 9.
He added that the former inmate called the department later that day and said he was in Mendocino County staying with his aunt.
“He provided us with an address and a phone number along with some other information. We gave him a directive to shelter in place, to limit exposure and not travel any more. That was pretty much the extent of it,” Ferriera said. “He didn’t come here. We didn’t put him on a bus, we didn’t give him a bus ticket or pass. That’s completely false.”
This story was originally published April 19, 2020 at 6:17 PM with the headline "Man from Chino prison is first California inmate to die from the coronavirus, CDCR says."