By Mark Morey
Yakima Herald-Republic
YAKIMA, Wash. — Two Yakima County corrections officers violated jail policies in the May stabbing death of an inmate, but neither violation contributed to the circumstances leading to the attack by another inmate, according to an internal investigation report.
The county Department of Corrections plans to meet with the two officers before deciding if the violations merit discipline, Chief Scott Himes said Tuesday. Options range from no punishment to termination.
Himes declined to speculate on the disciplinary outcome. “I don’t know at this point because I don’t know what they are going to say,” he said.
The county released the report Tuesday following a public records request from the Yakima Herald-Republic.
DOC Director Ed Campbell requested the internal investigation after inmate Timothy Denton was found fatally stabbed in his cell on the jail’s fourth floor, where maximum-security inmates are held.
Erick Romero, 26, and Hilario Sosa, 19, are accused of attacking the 27-year-old Yakima man in his cell shortly after a corrections officer completed a walkthrough of the unit.
Both are charged with gang-related first-degree murder; separate trials are pending in Yakima County Superior Court.
According to the internal investigation, a booking officer didn’t complete a form intended to help jailers determine where an inmate should be placed, and a corrections officer failed to check on Denton during a cell check.
However, the investigation found that neither violation contributed to Denton’s death.
“The planned assault was secretive and took place discreetly in between security checks. I do not believe that staff could have done anything differently to prevent the assault,” Sgt. Nicholas Perez wrote.
The report says that a booking officer should have completed a computer assessment as part of Denton’s classification process.
Classification allows jail staff to place inmates in the proper holding areas depending on the reason for their arrest, gang ties and criminal history, among other factors.
However, Denton’s placement on the jail’s fourth floor would not have changed, according to the report. That was based on his current arrest, for an allegation of second-degree assault against an ex-girlfriend, as well as previous indications that he had ties to the Norteño gang, as did other members of that fourth-floor pod.
While Denton’s relatives have questioned whether he was properly placed, jail staff have indicated that he expressed no concerns about being placed in a Norteño pod.
On the morning that he was killed, he had asked corrections officers to open his cell, and security video shows he spent time mingling with other inmates. He also appeared to use a broom to sweep his cell, which the internal investigator described as a likely sign that he expected to stay there.
The report said Denton apparently had no indication that he was to be attacked; an autopsy found no sign of wounds showing that he had a chance to defend himself as he was stabbed 133 times in the neck, chest and abdomen with a homemade weapon.
The other alleged policy violation involves the corrections officer assigned to check the cells in Denton’s pod on the morning he was killed.
Under the policy, officers are expected to confirm that each inmate is breathing.
The officer reported that he was checking the second-story row of cells in the pod, where Denton was housed, when he was distracted by someone on the lower tier, possibly Romero.
That distraction led to the officer not discovering Denton’s body until the next scheduled cell check, but Denton was already dead before the missed check, authorities said.
Detectives have said that Denton’s killing appears gang-related, but no clear motive has been established.