Violent incidents lead to lockdown in Fairfield jail

FAIRFIELD – Two recent violent incidents inside the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield have put the Solano County Sheriff’s Office on “high alert” and led to a lockdown at the jail that’s expected to last more than a week, a sheriff’s captain said Thursday.

The incidents include a riot when 11 inmates refused to return from a recreation yard for nine hours and another incident when inmates ambushed two correctional officers, severely injuring one of them and injuring the other as well as a nurse, sheriff’s Capt. Bill Elbert said.

Officials with the sheriff’s office, which operates the 365-bed maximum security jail, received their first clues of a possible uptick in violence when they found three shanks over the last four weeks.

Then on Saturday, 11 inmates refused to leave the recreation yard and locked themselves in, taunting jail guards and threatening them with violence, Elbert said.

The inmates allegedly pulled a metal plumbing plate off of a sink and used it to smash the glass in the yard. There weren’t enough jail guards to contain the situation, so the guards attempted to wait out the inmates while calling personnel from other areas, including patrol deputies.

The incident lasted from 6 p.m. until 3:30 a.m., when the sheriff’s office finally had enough staff there to contain the inmates, who then voluntarily returned to their cells.

“We've never had something like that happen before where the inmates tried to take over the mod,” Elbert said.

Then on Tuesday, two guards were ambushed and beaten severely, Elbert said. One of them was severely injured and a nurse was injured in the incident as well. Elbert said that it appears that the incident involved separate inmates than those who were involved in the riot over the weekend.

Elbert said that for the sheriff’s office to conduct its investigation and prevent further violence it had to temporarily suspend inmate rights in the facility, including their rights to time out of their cells and visitation. The sheriff’s office obtained permission from the Board of State and Community Corrections to lock down the facility for 10 days, until Sept. 2.

The sheriff’s office has also suspended remote visits and is taking extra precautions with court visits to prevent inmates from coordinating with one another, Elbert said.

“For us to manage that, we have to change the way we do business,” Elbert said. “We can't allow certain groups out together… it puts our staff in a precarious position when dealing with [maximum security] inmates.”

It’s at least the second time in the last two months that the jail has been on a prolonged lockdown. In June, all three jails in Solano County were locked down because of a salmonella outbreak that sickened 117 people.

Elbert said he didn’t think that incident had anything to do with the current spate of violence. He said that some of the inmates who have been involved in the recent incidents are people serving long prison sentences for violent crimes who have been moved to the local jail for court appearances in Solano County.