RivCo Sheriff's Department Admits Booking Flaws Led To Inmate Murder

BANNING, CA — Nearly a year after an inmate was fatally attacked inside the Banning jail by another inmate, the Riverside County Sheriff's Department acknowledged flaws in the sheriff’s booking system contributed to the death.

The Riverside County Board of Supervisors signed off on the grand jury’s findings and recommendations without discussion at Tuesday's meeting. The investigation was triggered by the September stabbing death of Steve Gonzalez, 36, of Moreno Valley at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Gonzalez was killed by an inmate who used an alias to hide his violent criminal record, giving him access to a vocational program for low-risk inmates at the Banning Jail, according to the sheriff's department.

Gonzalez died among a staggering number of inmate deaths reported in recent years, placing Riverside County among the most lethal jail systems in the country. Both the grand jury and a New York Times investigation found a litany of security and training lapses in Riverside County Jail systems.

While the Riverside County Sheriff's Department "wholly disagreed" with some of the grand jury assessments, the department conceded that its booking system was flawed and has worked to remedy or already fixed seven of the issues named by the grand jury.

"With all due respect for the findings, the Sheriff's Office believes there was a single error which contributed to this incident, not the cumulative ten findings contained within the report," said Undersheriff Donald Sharp, who wrote the response.

The grand jury report, published May 5, found that correctional staff at Banning's Robert Presley Detention Center mistakenly placed a felon with a violent past into a vocational program for low-risk inmates at the Banning Jail and failed to correct the error for months until he stabbed Gonzalez to death.

In the sheriff's response, Undersheriff Donald Sharp wrote that the department agreed with the grand jury’s finding that staff failed to update the booking system with accurate information from the Cal-ID Livescan report after discovering an inmate had been booked under an alias with a different number than those previously assigned to his real name and known aliases.

Here are the shortcomings the department has agreed to fix, partially agreed to fix or has already addressed:

• No system for tracking mistakes: The department agreed with the grand jury’s finding that it lacked a continuous improvement process to catch and correct booking errors. In response, it created an electronic database in May 2025 to log and analyze such mistakes.
• Delays in fingerprint identification (Livescan): The department acknowledged there were delays in receiving Livescan reports, which contributed to the misclassification of the inmate charged in the killing.
• Failure to update booking records: It was agreed that staff at Robert Presley Detention Center failed to update the booking system with new information once Livescan results were returned.
• Subjective or inconsistent classification language: In May 2025, the department revised vague language in classification policies — replacing words like "may," "can," and "such as" with firmer, action-based directives.
• Broken biometric equipment: The Integrated Biometric Identification System, which was not functioning when the suspect was booked, has since been repaired and is now in use.
• Policy change to delay housing until ID confirmed: As of March 2025, if an inmate cannot be positively identified, housing placement is delayed until confirmation through Livescan.
• Outdated jail management system: While not yet fixed, the department and county acknowledged that the jail's digital systems are outdated, some over 30 years old, and have committed to a full overhaul of jail software infrastructure by 2027.

The 19-page report is highly critical of Sheriff Chad Bianco's leadership. It comes as the state Attorney General's Office has opened an investigation into the department for the spike in inmate deaths reported in recent years.

The stabbing death of Gonzalez last year by Scott Shelby Lowder, 55, placed a spotlight on the county's troubled jail system.

At issue is the finding that Lowder had been booked into the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside under a fake name. At the time, the department said there were delays in receiving reports from Livescan. This is where the department also agreed with the grand jury's finding that the detention center failed to update the booking system once the new information came in from Livescan.

Consequently, Lowder was classified as nonviolent and a "medium" risk to other inmates. In reality, Lowder had a 35-year history of violent crimes that had resulted in more than a decade behind bars. The grand jury said he should have been classified as higher-risk.

Lowder later came into contact with Gonzalez at a print shop within the Banning jail when he killed Gonzalez on Sept. 5. The grand jury said Lowder was then reclassified as "maximum risk."

Although Sharp, the undersheriff, said the department has rewritten its policy on housing classifications, he disagreed with the grand jury's assessment that a profiling tool was not used correctly and that training was done on the job and not before.

The department also noted that its Integrated Biometric Identification System, which was out of service when Lowder was booked, is now back online and fully operational.

In addition to fixing the faulty equipment, the Sheriff’s Department has taken steps to clarify Livescan procedures, revise booking and business office policies, and upgrade its outdated jail management system, a project officials expect to complete by 2027.

The 19-page report was highly critical of Sheriff Chad Bianco's leadership.

Related: RivCo Has One Of The Deadliest Jail Systems In U.S.: Report

From 2020 through 2023, Riverside County reported the highest homicide rate among large California jails, according to state data cited by the New York Times. In 2022 alone, at least 19 detainees died in county custody, marking the highest annual total reported by the California Department of Justice in more than three decades.

According to The Times, the Riverside Sheriff's Department replaced much of the jail staff around 2022 with less-experienced recruits, who had limited training on security protocols and systems.

There were six in-custody deaths at the Banning jail reported in 2024 alone, according to the report. Recent investigations by The Desert Sun and the New York Times have also placed a spotlight on Riverside County's jail system.