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3 Corrections Deputies in California Charged With Murder in Death of Mentally Ill Inmate

Published

10 years ago

September 8, 2015

By SARAH MASLIN NIR, The New York Times

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — In a rare step, the sheriff of Santa Clara County on Thursday arrested and filed murder charges against three corrections deputies who work for her, after the discovery last week that a mentally ill inmate had bled to death in his cell as a result of a blunt force trauma, according to the local coroner’s office.

The sheriff, Laurie Smith, said that the victim, Michael James Tyree, 31, had been found unresponsive in Santa Clara County’s Main Jail on Aug. 27 during a routine cell check. Mr. Tyree had been serving a brief sentence for misdemeanor drug possession and petty theft in the jail, according to the sheriff’s office. The deputies — Matthew Farris, Jereh Lubrin and Rafael Rodriguez — were arrested Thursday morning after a report from Dr. Joseph O’Hara, a forensic pathologist with the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s Office, said that Mr. Tyree had been beaten to death.

“As sheriff, it is my sworn duty and the sworn duty of every deputy and commander to follow every lead, no matter where that lead takes the investigation to bring those we believe guilty to justice,” Sheriff Smith said in an email.

The arrests, made less than a week after Mr. Tyree was discovered naked and coated in feces and vomit in his cell, are a departure from the typically drawn-out process that enmesh law enforcement officials when members of their own are suspected of being involved in a crime. At a news conference on Thursday, Sheriff Smith made plain she was taking steps avoid that morass.

“I am compelled again to say it pains me and every member of the sheriff’s office and every member within our law enforcement,” Sheriff Smith said. “Because those who are sworn to protect and serve lose their moral compass and commit criminal acts.”

The three men were relatively new to the force; Mr. Lubrin, the longest serving, had been a Santa Clara corrections officer for a little more than two and a half years.

The autopsy of Mr. Tyree’s body “revealed multiple cutaneous blunt-force injuries such as contusions, abrasions and lacerations in addition to lacerations of the liver and spleen with significant collection of blood in the abdominal space,” Mr. O’Hara of the coroner’s office said in an email.

The speed and openness surrounding the arrest of the corrections officers is highly unusual in such cases, said Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a professor of psychiatry at Yale University and specialist in violence at prisons and jails. “The level of transparency is quite exceptional,” Dr. Lee said. given “a culture of cover-up collusions, even between police departments and correction officers in the past.”

Dr. Lee worked at Rikers Island Jail, which has been rocked over the past year by revelations of endemic abuse of mentally ill and other inmates, who have been brutalized and even killed by corrections staff, who are rarely penalized.

Mentally ill inmates “are certainly more vulnerable to physical brutality, verbal brutality and punitive measures,” Dr. Lee said.

Mr. Tyree was supposed to have been at the county jail only temporarily. He was awaiting a bed to become free at a specialized holding facility for the mentally ill, run by Momentum for Mental Health.

Don Specter, the executive director of the Berkeley, Calif.-based Prison Law Office,which fights to protect prisoners from things like excessive force by guards, said that Sheriff Smith’s move “should send a very strong message to other corrections officers working in jails or prisons, that the rest of their careers — and possibly their liberty — is at risk if they do things like this.”

A decade ago, a grand jury declined to indict several Santa Clara corrections officers after a bipolar inmate at the county jail was sent into a vegetative state from which he later died after being carried to a psychiatric ward with a blanket over his head, which cut off his oxygen. Those officers were fired, but successfully sued to regain their jobs.

At the sheriff’s news conference, Paula Canny, the lawyer for Mr. Tyree’s family, said that Mr. Tyree had “died as a result of blunt-force trauma, sadly administered to him by those who were charged, duty-bound, and took an oath to protect him.”

Ms. Canny thanked the sheriff’s office for the speed of the arrests. Her action, Ms. Canny said, will help demonstrate that an inmate is still “a person of value,” she said, adding: “Michael was somebody’s brother, somebody’s son, somebody’s cousin, somebody’s nephew.”

Oakland Post

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Rest in Peace: A.M.E. Pastor and L.A Civil Rights Icon Cecil “Chip” Murray Passes

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94. “Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

The Rev. Dr. Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, former pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church (FAME) in Los Angeles, died of natural causes April 6 at his Windsor Hills Home. He was 94.

“Today, we lost a giant. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray dedicated his life to service, community, and putting God first in all things. I had the absolute honor of working with him, worshiping with him, and seeking his counsel,” said Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass of the dynamic religious leader whose ministry inspired and attracted millionaires as well as former gang bangers and people dealing with substance use disorder (SUD).

Murray oversaw the growth of FAME’s congregation from 250 members to 18,000.

“My heart is with the First AME congregation and community today as we reflect on a legacy that changed this city forever,” Bass continued.

Murray served as Senior Minister at FAME, the oldest Black congregation in the city, for 27 years. During that time, various dignitaries visited and he built strong relationships with political and civic leaders in the city and across the state, as well as a number of Hollywood figures. Several national political leaders also visited with Murray and his congregation at FAME, including Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Murray, a Florida native and U.S. Air Force vet, attended Florida A&M University, where he majored in history, worked on the school newspaper and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. He later attended Claremont School of Theology in Los Angeles County, where he earned his doctorate in Divinity.

Murray is survived by his son Drew. His wife Bernadine, who was a committed member of the A.M.E. church and the daughter of his childhood pastor, died in 2013.

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Court Throws Out Law That Allowed Californians to Build Duplexes, Triplexes and RDUs on Their Properties

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional. Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Charter cities in California won a lawsuit last week against the state that declared Senate Bill (SB) 9, a pro-housing bill, unconstitutional.

Passed in 2021, SB 9 is also known as the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency Act (HOME). That law permits up to four residential units — counting individual units of duplexes, triplexes and residential dwelling units (RDUs) – to be built on properties in neighborhoods that were previously zoned for only single-family homes.

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the cities, pointing out that SB 9 discredited charter cities that were granted jurisdiction to create new governance systems and enact policy reforms. The court ruling affects 121 charter cities that have local constitutions.

Attorney Pam Lee represented five Southern California cities in the lawsuit against the state and Attorney General Rob Bonta.

“This is a monumental victory for all charter cities in California,” Lee said.

However, general law cities are excluded from the court ruling as state housing laws still apply in residential areas.

Attorney General Bonta and his team are working to review the decision and consider all options that will protect SB 9 as a state law. Bonta said the law has helped provide affordable housing for residents in California.

“Our statewide housing shortage and affordability crisis requires collaboration, innovation, and a good faith effort by local governments to increase the housing supply,” Bonta said.

“SB9 is an important tool in this effort, and we’re going to make sure homeowners have the opportunity to utilize it,” he said.

Charter cities remain adamant that the state should refrain from making land-use decisions on their behalf. In the lawsuit, city representatives argued that SB 9 eliminates local authority to create single-family zoning districts and approve housing developments.

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Funds for Down Payments and Credit Repair Given to Black First Time Homebuyers

The California Civil Rights Department (CRD) won a $10,000 fair housing settlement last November against a property management company, CIM Group LP, a global real estate company headquartered in Los Angeles, and property owner, RACR Sora, LLC, for implementing a blanket ban on renting to tenants with criminal histories at Sora Apartments in Inglewood. Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

Published

4 days ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

By McKenzie Jackson, California Black Media

Three months earlier, the department, which enforces California’s civil rights laws, won another $20,000 civil rights settlement against a Lemon Grove property manager, who had targeted a Black tenant with a series of racist actions and threats of violence.

CRD Director Kevin Kish said the department investigates cases of apparent racial bias in housing and sometimes more subtle acts of prejudice like nuisance-free or crime-free housing policies or holding tenants to different standards based on their race.

Kish said, “People will get evicted if they call the police. This can negatively impact victims of domestic violence. We also see these no-crime ordinances, or no-crime policies, used in racially discriminatory ways. If there is some kind of incident, and the police are called and it involves a Black family, then they get evicted, but other folks aren’t necessarily evicted.”

On April 11,1968, a week after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, President Lydon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, and nationality.

Kish noted that William Byron Rumford, the first Black California State Assemblymember, who represented Berkley and Oakland, spearheaded the passing of the Rumford Act in 1963. That law sought to end discriminatory housing practices in the Golden State, five years before the Fair Housing Act became law.
Real estate agent and housing advocate Ashley Garner is the director of the CLTRE Keeper Home Ownership program. That organization gave 25 Black, indigenous, and people of color $17,500 each in down payment and credit repair support to purchase a home in Oak Park, a traditionally Black neighborhood in Sacramento, last fall. CLTRE obtained a $500,000 grant from the city of Sacramento to award the funds to the residents after they completed an eight-week homeownership program.

In 2021, the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) noted that around four in 10 Black California families owned homes, which trails that of White, Asian-American and Latinos.
According to Forbes, the median price for a home in California is over $500,000, which is double the cost of a home in the rest of the country.

Black lawmakers recently introduced their Reparations Priority Bill Package that includes support for Black first-time homebuyers, homeowners’ mortgage assistance and property tax relief for neighborhoods restricted by historic redlining.

California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) spokesperson Eric Johnson said CalHFA helps prospective low-income and moderate-income Californians purchase homes by offering down payment and closing cost aid. “There are lots of people who have steady jobs, good credit scores, constant income, but they haven’t been able to save up the money that traditional banks need or want to see for a down payment,” Johnson stated. “We help those folks out. We give a loan for the down payment to get them over that hurdle.”
CRD and the Department of Real Estate hosted “Fair Housing Protections for People with Criminal Histories” Zoom call on April 10.

On April 25, CRD will also hold Zoom seminars focused on advocating for fair housing for people with disabilities.