HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE – As of Jan. 31, 1980, 98.2 percent of prison escapees for the years 1945 through 1978 have been apprehended. The rate for women escapees for those same years was 96.6 percent.
JUNE 13, 1980 – Ranch inmate Fred Bunker, 33, from San Bernardino County, received a deep cut on his forearm during an altercation last Sunday. Bunker claimed he injured his arm during a fall, but an investigation revealed that he had an altercation with two other inmates.
JUNE 20, 1980 – A Marin County superior court judge has ordered San Quentin officials to reinstate a reporter for the San Quentin News. Reporter Robert Scott had been fired for writing an article on unsanitary conditions in the prison mess hall that had upset Warden George Sumner. Scott was represented by the Prison Law Office.
JUNE 20, 1980 – A prisoner only 21 days from his parole was stabbed four times on the lower yard. Russell Salinas, 34, is in good condition at the prison hospital after the attack by several Mexican-American convicts. All 392 Mexican-American inmates on San Quentin’s mainline were locked down pending investigation.
JUNE 20, 1980 – A warning shot was fired on the lower yard when a con resisted attempts to search him and was wrestled to the ground by several officers.
JULY 4, 1980 – A prisoner who escaped from his job June 21 at the S.Q. Hobby Shop, which is just outside the front gate, was recaptured in Lovelock, Nevada Thursday night. Donald Frank Bonita, 44, came to S.Q. in Aug 1978 from Santa Cruz County.
JULY 4, 1980 – A warning shot fired Friday on the upper yard stopped an inmate who ran from an officer to avoid a search. The search turned up nothing.
JULY 4, 1980 – A disturbance involving eight cons broke out on death row Saturday night. The cons – protesting conditions on the row – wrecked TVs, burned mattresses and sheets and destroyed a typewriter.