“Get away from those assholes,” he said.“But I like my job,” Jones protested. “But it is kind of overlooked.” What Simmerson did do, according to a civil complaint, was instruct Jones to fill out the injury report with the claim that he hurt himself while mopping. But even if a CO wanted to report abuse, it wasn’t always clear that there was someone to rat to. Even on the week of Jones’ suicide, when Jones told Hartner all that had transpired at High Desert the previous five years, Hartner assumed Jones simply needed to take some time off and relax.Hartner testified at his deposition, “Having worked there, I don’t want to believe that some of the names that Scott had told me over the time were involved in, I’d call it, less-than-honest behavior. Reinertson had known Jones since his supermarket days, and tried to reassure him that they could figure it all out. He failed to file a report on the incident. “There wasn’t a mop in my hand. 2011 is off to a rocky start when a beloved Susanville police officer is found dead. The prison promised better pay and benefits. It was an accidental negligent discharge. The first examined allegations of inmate abuse in Z-Unit, including lost or stolen mail, strip searches in the snow, lack of adequate clothing and claims that “a gang of rogue officers was victimizing inmates.” The OIG officially determined most of the allegations were unfounded, but also that “there were some concerns discovered that should be addressed by prison management staff.” In the second report, High Desert employees told investigators that certain COs incited violence to justify the use of physical force, including the discharge of pepper spray or informing other inmates that certain inmates were sex offenders.

Jones’ father-in-law, Robert Hartner, himself a former High Desert CO, testified that Simmerson told Jones, “You need to write it this way,” meaning fill out the workers’ comp form in a way that would not implicate any other officers. “They think they really got it good because they are in there twice this week, when actually we were recording everything that they were doing.”Initially, at least one Z Unit supervisor was apparently aware of the hidden recorder. Officers are investigating an early morning crash that resulted in the death of an unidentified pedestrian. “He wouldn’t partake in treating inmates in an inappropriate manner,” she says.

In June 2006, the Susanville City Council approved promoting McElrath from reserve officer to police officer. CDCR, which employes 30,000 officers to watch over 130,000 inmates, also provides full medical coverage and a guaranteed retirement fund.Jones enrolled in the 16-week-course at the Richard A. McGee Correctional Training Center in Galt, where cadets learn everything from prison policy guidelines to the use of batons, pepper spray and hand-to-hand submission techniques. '”  At Jones’ funeral, Hartner asked Reinertson whether he passed along any of the information Jones told him the day before he killed himself. “His thing was, ‘I’m here to babysit, not to be a dick.

Compared to Rausch’s massive size, Jones was a mere 6’1″ and 180 pounds. Janelle brought their son home and discovered the gun was missing from the safe. He had endured years of harassment and unwarranted scrutiny, the constant suggestion that he wasn’t man enough for the job or his wife, and fear of being caught in a lie and losing his workers’ compensation.

It still happens today.”Much like the initiation rituals of fraternity brothers, the practice of correctional officer hazing — though technically forbidden by the CDCR — appeared to be a means of imposing rank-and-file fealty at High Desert. Inmates can hide shivs as along as seven inches in their rectums. In his deposition, Hartner said, “Immediately that turned me off.”A Susanville police officer found Jones’ Toyota Tacoma on a logging road in the Lake Forest area.