In light of the Orange County Register report on Sheriff's Deputy Kevin Taylor, the lead jailer at the center of inmate John Derek Chamberlain's October 2006 death by stomping, finally leaving OCSD, it's worth comparing his future with that of the killers many believe he egged on.
The Weekly's Nick Schou took readers inside Theo Lacy Branch Jail after the incident and later blogged about grand jury documents showing the most bloody murder in the
history of the county's jail system was the result of TV-addicted Taylor being what his colleagues called “lazy” and what inmates under his charge called “a bully.”
While supposedly watching guard over the roughly 150 inmates in Theo
Lacy's F-West Barracks, where John Chamberlain, a Mission Viejo
software engineer arrested for possession of child pornography, was
murdered Oct. 5, 2006, his colleagues say, Deputy Kevin Taylor not only
routinely watched the tube, but also watched films like Blackhawk
Down on a portable DVD player and made personal calls or sent text
messages on his cell phone.
After Taylor and another deputy told inmates that Chamberlain, who was behind bars awaiting trial on misdemeanor charges of possessing
child pornography, was a “molester,” Chamberlain asked to be moved to a safer cell. That never happened, and some inmates decided to gang attack Chamberlain mere feet from deputies who did not intervene, including Taylor, who later asked a colleague to change daily logs to show Chamberlain had not asked to be moved.
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Now, some who were being incarcerated as non-violent offenders
before being charged with murder in the attack await their fates while
the sheriff's personnel who set the incident in motion will do no time.
In fact, Taylor, who refused to testify for fear of incriminating
himself, received 10 months of pay for not working before leaving the
department.
A grand
jury report found jail deputies slept on
duty, played video games and enlisted jailhouse bullies to beat up
inmates who didn't obey, but DA Tony Rackauckas
said he could find no evidence of wrongdoing by OCSD personnel. Of
course, Rackauckas has a long history of finding no evidence of
wrongdoing by OCSD personnel, including an ex-sheriff recently branded
a convicted felon.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.