CALIFORNIA INMATES
Giuseppe Ricapito, The Union Democrat
Sierra Conservation Center prison inmate Adam Gray knelt on one knee in the freshly painted red walls of the new City of Sonora-commissioned Santa’s Workshop Tuesday morning, installing the final interior design paneling with an electric drill.
Santa’s elves were finally set in place, and Gray, 34, serving a two-year sentence for grand theft auto, swiped his densely tattooed hands across his California Department of Corrections dungarees.
Keith Rains last seen Nov. 16
KCRA 3 News
PLACERVILLER, Calif. (KCRA) — Corrections officials are looking for a convict who walked away from a home in the Alternative Custody Program.
Keith Rains, 46, was last seen Thursday evening at the home on Newton Road, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said. Rains is part of the Jesus Our Boss program in Placerville.
CBS Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Authorities were on the hunt Wednesday for a 24-year-old convict who walked away from a re-entry program in Los Angeles.
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials were looking for Jessie Barraza after they were alerted about 8:10 p.m. Tuesday that his GPS device had been removed while out on an approved pass, authorities said.
Tracey Petersen, My Mother Lode
Sonora, CA — State corrections officials have updated photos that include tattoos on the escaped inmate from North Kern State Prison who could be hiding in the Mother Lode.
California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation wants the public to take a close look at the photos in the image box in hopes that someone may have seen or could recognize 31-year-old Daniel Salazar, who is considered armed and dangerous. As reported here earlier this month, Salazar, who was behind bars for second degree robbery and using a fake ID to obtain personal information, was possibly heading to Tuolumne County as sheriff’s officials reported he had ties to the region.
CALIFORNIA PRISONS
Wes Woods, LA Daily News
A correctional officer was punched and stomped on the face, which resulted in a fractured orbital bone during an inmate attack Monday at the state prison in Lancaster, authorities said.
Sharvon Fredrick, 32, was arrested on suspicion of rushing a control booth officer and punching him in the face, which knocked him unconscious, and then stomping on the guard’s face, authorities explained.
The crime was reported at 2:07 p.m. Monday during the afternoon yard and shift change at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, on 60th Street West in Lancaster, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said.
Stephen Magagnini, The Sacramento Bee
When Johnny Cash sang one of the most famous lyrics in American history –“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” – at Folsom State Prison nearly 50 years ago, both the singer and the penitentiary became etched in popular culture.
Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” song, first released in 1956, anchored a live album recorded in front of hundreds of inmates in the cafeteria on Jan. 13, 1968. It went triple platinum, rose to No. 1 on both the pop and country western charts and revitalized Cash’s career.
CALIFORNIA PAROLE
Lauren Keene, Davis Enterprise
WOODLAND — A prison inmate’s bid for compassionate release was rejected Tuesday after the Yolo Superior Court judge who presided over the Woodland man’s homicide trial deemed him a continued threat to public safety.
Jeffrey Lemus, 57, is about a year into a seven-year sentence for the Dec. 5, 2015, fatal stabbing of Kelly Mason Choate, with whom Lemus had a long-standing rivalry.
CORRECTIONS RELATED
Miguel Diaz, a Salinas resident, has turned his life around after 40 months in prison.
Cristian Ponce, The Californian
Salinas native Miguel Diaz Jr., 36, has a lot to be grateful for in recent years, going from spending his days in the streets and prison to becoming a youth mentor and boxing champion.
Diaz grew up in a neighborhood near Soledad Street, attending Lincoln Elementary, Washington Middle School and Salinas High School.
Diaz said he began getting himself into trouble as a result of being entrenched in gang culture as he grew up.
Amika Sergejev, The Mercury News
For two and a half years, I worked as a firefighter and lead engineer at Cal Fire Station 5 in Madera. Because we were a rural department, our firehouse was not only responsible for responding to fires in the area, we were also first responders rushing to the scenes of traffic accidents and all kinds of local emergencies.
Our training was first rate. We learned everything from CPR to how to use the Jaws of Life. We learned to run hoses off a fire truck, fight vehicle fires and structure fires, and how to cut a car open and pull out a trapped victim. I did things I never could have imagined I could do.