Tuesday, May 19, 2015 | 3:29 p.m.
Officers at High Desert State Prison will be armed with guns that fire rubber pellets to break up disturbances before resorting to firing more dangerous birdshot, a prison official said.
The state Department of Corrections outlined the new security measure today to equip tower officers with the rubber rounds.
The protocol now is for officers to first verbally issue orders, then fire a blank shot with another verbal warning and then fire birdshot into the ground, which skips into the inmates.
Under the new protocol, officers will fire the rubber pellets before birdshot.
The change comes after inmate Carlos Manuel Perez Jr. was killed and inmate Andrew Jay Arevalo was wounded in shooting in November after getting into a fight in a shower hallway.
The fight ended when an officer trainee fired a warning shot and three live shotgun blasts down the hallway, according to an incident report. The trainee reported that Perez and Arevalo ignored verbal commands to stop fighting.
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