We Are Jane Doe E3: What Happens in the Dark Always Comes to the Light

Ali faces down her attacker in court and wins. But will the Central California Women's Facility officers who assaulted her former cell mate and 150 other women see justice? And with the story still unfolding, reporters Madi Bolaños and Anna Sussman unpack the investigation with editor Sukey Lewis in the studio. Part 3 of 3. This episode contains violence against women, sexual assault, and strong language. Please take care while listening. "We Are Jane Doe" is a new 3-part series from KQED’s Snap Studios. Over three episodes, we trace Ali Prout's dramatic fight for justice and the stunning ripple effects that threaten to upend the system of power and control at one of the largest women’s prisons on earth. KQED reporters Anna Sussman and Madi Bolaños spent two years investigating this story. They spoke to more than a dozen women incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility, read through hundreds of pages of internal prison documents, obtained leaked audio, and painstakingly watched hours of video footage to reconstruct one of the most complex and devastating use-of-force incidents in state history. This series was made possible in part with support from The Poynter Institute https://www.poynter.org/. Produced by: Madi Bolaños, Anna Sussman & Sukey Lewis Featured Story Voices: Aliksandria Prout, Catrina Cameron, Christina Wind, Wisdom Mohammed, Elizabeth Lozano and Antoinette Yancey Editors: Sukey Lewis, Nancy Lopez & Mark Ristich Fact-checking: Mark Bettancourt Data Editor: Jeremy Sanchez Rue of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism Original Music & Engineering: Dirk Schwarzhoff Director of Production: Marisa Dodge Executive Producers: Glynn Washington and Mark Ristich Artwork: Teo Ducot Season 17 - Episode 45 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

• 0:07Speaker 00

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• 1:12Speaker 01

  Welcome to the conclusion of our series, We Are Jane Doe. This is part three. If you haven't yet listened to parts one and two, go ahead, listen to those to catch up. If you remember, Alexandria Proud was assaulted in prison by an officer and vowed to herself that when she got out, she would take that officer down. Please note, this series contains violence and sexual assault. Take care. Now, Ally was in the process of making her victimizers accountable when officers inside the prison took 159 women from her unit, locked them in a chow hall, and beat them and gassed them. That was August 2nd, 2024. In the shadow of that attack,

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Ally had to walk into a courtroom.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Were the events of August 2nd on your mind at all?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  They were. The events on August 2nd were on my mind when I went to testify. Because I was not only fighting for me, I was fighting for other women who are still facing injustice.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Two months after the mass use of force incident on August 2nd, Ally drove with her sister and spent the night at a hotel near the Madera County courthouse. And the next morning?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  I listened to my favorite music while I did my makeup.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Sia's Unstoppable.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Wore something I felt really good and comfortable, confident in. Made sure I looked and felt confident.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  She walked from the hotel to the courthouse. She was the first witness called to the stand in the case against Gregory Rodriguez, the former officer charged with raping her and so many others.

• 3:07Speaker 02

  I had to be strong and I was factual. I wasn't highly emotional. I just was stoic and I sat in the courtroom and I just answered the questions. I had to point him out in the courtroom. So when I had to point him out, I did make eye contact with him.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  The DA's office called 13 victims to testify at trial. Ally had seen some of them when she was checking into the hotel the day before.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  And I just remember briefly, you know, running into them and them saying, this is horrible. This is just awful. I can't believe we have to be here. And I'm like, I know it's rough, but you know, it's what's best for us. You know, we just need to get through it.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Their identities, including Ally's, were kept secret. And they each took the stand as a Jane Doe. There's Nicole Doe, Erica Doe, Andrea, Sonia, Sarah, Brandy, Rosa, Nancy, Serena, Paige, Brianne, Jennifer. And of course Alexandria Doe.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  Some of them were women who were transported from the prison where all of this happened.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  At trial, it came out that someone had reported Rodriguez's misconduct all the way back in 2014. CDCR investigated at the time, but dismissed the allegation.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  A striking moment unfolding in Madera Court Monday. Woman after woman recounting abuse they suffered at the hands of Gregory Rodriguez.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  On day 19 of the trial, Rodriguez took the stand in his own defense. He denied everything. And his defense attorney tried to make Ally and the other women appear unreliable, greedy for settlement money, calling them, quote, convicts.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I know a lot of people want to think, let's blame her. Let's blame her. She's a pretty girl. She seduced him. It's her fault. And I hate the way men think because men take no accountability. Like I was an inmate. I couldn't consent.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  By law, any sex between staff and prisoners is considered abuse because prisoners don't have the power to freely give consent.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  In the courtroom, the prosecution also presented DNA evidence. They found semen on that green chair in the BPH room. It was a match to Rodriguez. There were also the duckets. There was camera footage. And in the end, the evidence was overwhelming. The jury found him guilty on 64 counts.

• 5:55Speaker 04

  A former correctional officer at the Central California Women's Facility in Chaochilla was sentenced to 224 years in prison.

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Ally was at home with her daughter when she got a call from her attorney.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Robert called me and said, Ally, he was sentenced to 224 years in prison. It was a female judge. She gave him no empathy, no sympathy, and made sure he was nailed to the cross.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  So why did you decide that this was the time that you were going to speak up about it?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  During the trial, when he was being sentenced, I didn't get a chance to read a victim impact statement. So I felt like doing this would be part of like closure for me. And then I feel like it's important. You know, I still have friends that are incarcerated that are still dealing with the systematic corruption and the retaliation from correctional staff.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  As far as we can tell, no other officers were ever disciplined in connection with Rodriguez's years of criminal abuse.

• 6:59Speaker 05

  Did you feel surprised that an officer was actually criminally convicted?

• 7:04Speaker 06

  I was very surprised that an officer got convicted.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Ally's old roommate, Katrina Cameron.

• 7:10Speaker 06

  I was extremely surprised because normally they protect their own. And now like we're waiting for, let's see if there's somebody that's going to be prosecuted from August 2nd because that's what needs to happen. They assaulted us. So now that's what we're like, we're waiting. Like Rodriguez had to pay for his crimes. Why do they not have to pay for theirs?

• 7:35Speaker 00

  In late 2024, two investigations were getting underway. And they had really different approaches. One was led by the Department of Justice. The feds were coming in from the outside to find out if the Rodriguez case was just an isolated incident or if it pointed to a larger problem of sexual abuse in the prison. And if August 2nd, Operation Breakdown, was a part of that larger problem. The other investigation was led by the prison agency itself. They were coming at this from the inside. And their goal, or at least their stated goal, was to find out what had gone wrong on August 2nd

• 8:19Speaker 00

  and to hold the people responsible accountable.

• 8:23Speaker 07

  Today, we are here to discuss case number, see in parentheses, N V dash C dash C C W F dash 464 dash 24 dash A.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  We're going to start with that internal affairs investigation. We asked for all the tapes, but so far, CDCR hasn't given them to us.

• 8:43Speaker 07

  In a room with me identified as a subject is Chief Deputy Warden Cynthia Rojas and her legal counsel.

• 8:50Speaker 00

  This interview with the Chief Deputy Warden Cynthia Rojas was leaked on YouTube.

• 8:55Speaker 07

  Rojas, on August 1st, you had, did you have a meeting with then Acting Captain Mendoza and Associate Warden Torres?

• 9:04Speaker 08

  Yes.

• 9:05Speaker 07

  Could you?

• 9:06Speaker 08

  But we weren't going to search that day. We were preparing.

• 9:08Speaker 00

  Rojas says the acting captain and the associate warden were coming to her about ongoing problems on D Yard with people smoking and being disruptive.

• 9:19Speaker 08

  They were a little flustered. Like, what are we going to do? We've got to do something with this block. It's, you know, it's getting out of control in there. And so then we decided, you know what? We need to do a mass search in there. Let's get the contraband out. And I did say, I said, we need to take, we need to gain control of that fucking unit. We need, we need to get, we need to, we need to gain control of it. And then I immediately told them, I don't mean it like that.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  The investigator doesn't follow up to ask what she meant.

• 9:52Speaker 08

  You guys know what I mean. I don't mean like that. It needs to be done. It needs to be done right. It needs to be done professionally in the way we know how to search. And they said, oh, we got you, boss. We know what you mean. We know what you mean. And I said, okay.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  Rojas planned to be off the next day, but she gave them the go ahead.

• 10:08Speaker 07

  It was alleged that you made this statement. I'm tired of their shit. They're going to find out who's in charge. Did you make that statement?

• 10:19Speaker 08

  Not that I recall.

• 10:20Speaker 07

  No, not that you recall? Okay.

• 10:26Speaker 07

  Did you make the statement, these bitches need to be reminded who's in charge? Or words to that effect?

• 10:32Speaker 08

  Not that I recall.

• 10:34Speaker 07

  Not that you recall?

• 10:35Speaker 08

  Yeah, I'm not. No, not that I recall.

• 10:38Speaker 07

  Is that something that, is that language that you would use?

• 10:43Speaker 08

  Do I curse? Yes. Do I refer to the female population as bitches? I do not.

• 10:52Speaker 07

  So my question is, then why we have, we have witnesses stating differently? Why do you think that is?

• 11:02Speaker 08

  I don't recall. I didn't say I did or I didn't. I'm telling you, I don't recall making that statement.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  During the search, the contraband they found was pretty small stuff. Some vapes, cell phones, no drugs.

• 11:17Speaker 09

  Okay, so no weapon stock or weapons?

• 11:21Speaker 08

  Not that I recall, but I have to.

• 11:24Speaker 09

  When I ask you-

• 11:24Speaker 08

  We might have found one. I think we did find one or two.

• 11:28Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Rojas says she didn't realize that this kind of operation, breaking them down and taking their belongings with no notice, was completely out of the ordinary for this prison.

• 11:40Speaker 09

  And the ultimate plan that was created, as far as from, you didn't direct it or it wasn't intended to in any way provoke a female staff or a female inmates, excuse me?

• 11:50Speaker 08

  No, it was not.

• 11:51Speaker 09

  Okay, that's it. You're ordered not to discuss the details of this investigation, except if you're chosen.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  They interview her for about an hour and 15 minutes. But they never ask her, was August 2 actually about retaliation?

• 12:09Speaker 00

  Rojas did not receive any discipline for planning and approving Operation Breakdown. Later, she was promoted and is now acting warden at another prison. CDCR said they did take immediate action and held people accountable. And all 34 officers were disciplined. Most received some type of temporary pay cut.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Three people got fired. But some officers are still fighting their discipline, so that could change.

• 12:43Speaker 00

  We asked some of the women who were there what they thought of this, including Christina Wind, you know, Cameron's girlfriend, who was taken to solitary for about 10 days after officers beat her up.

• 12:55Speaker 05

  So like CDCR has said that this event resulted in the largest disciplinary action ever taken by them with like all of this consequences for officers. What do you make of that?

• 13:07Speaker 10

  I think it's bullshit. I think a couple of people got hung out to dry and a couple of people got punished and were used as ball guys. And I think the rest of the people are just working the CDCR circuit.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Does that feel like accountability to you?

• 13:26Speaker 11

  Absolutely not. A pay cut, transferred so you could abuse somewhere else?

• 13:32Speaker 00

  This is Elizabeth Lozano, who spoke out in those women's circles about her experience of assault.

• 13:38Speaker 11

  To me, if you could openly spray people as if they're rats or roaches, they're not human. You completely disregarded them as human. They could not breathe. They believed they were going to die. You're sadistic. You're an abuser.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  In the free world, if you, a regular citizen, assault someone with pepper spray, with a baton, with your fists, it could land you in prison. In this case, with the discipline that was handed out, not one officer was criminally charged with anything.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  With this internal investigation, the prison agency never got to the bottom of that central allegation that we'd heard, that the operation was meant to stop women from reporting sexual assault. But there was that other investigation, the federal one. They came out with their own findings. I reached out to Antoinette Yancey in prison and read to her from the report.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  Let me tell you a little bit about what I found in this reporting. So I'll just read. The U.S. Department of Justice says California prison officials have failed for years. They say they found an unbroken pattern of staff sexual misconduct dating back to at least 2000. At the Central California Women's Facility- CDCR knew women faced a substantial risk of sexual abuse, but failed to adequately take steps to prevent it. Inadequate investigations and failures to hold employees accountable have amounted to a deliberate indifference and violate incarcerated women's rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment.

• 15:21Speaker 10

  That's profound.

• 15:25Speaker 10

  I think it's profound. I feel, I do feel validated. I do feel that the federal government making this statement is a start because the crimes held against women within prisons are serious and they need to be taken as serious. We're in here, some of us, for far less than what has been done to us.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, Antoinette. I really appreciate that.

• 15:52Speaker 10

  All right, thank you.

• 15:53Speaker 00

  I'm going to get on the phone with the federal government now to talk about this exact same thing, but I will talk to you soon and take care.

• 16:02Speaker 00

  I called up Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexandra Young.

• 16:06Speaker 12

  Yeah, so this investigation actually started two years ago in September of 2024.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  She says federal investigators went to the prison and interviewed women.

• 16:16Speaker 12

  Women, when we went to the facilities, told us about instances where they were subjected to unnecessary room searches and other types of retaliation close in time after they would report staff sexual abuse.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  And the report talks about August 2. Says that the evidence indicates it was retaliation for reporting staff sexual misconduct or abuse. I'm wondering what evidence led the DOJ to that conclusion?

• 16:45Speaker 12

  Based on our interviews and what we were able to review of investigation files related to that incident, we believe that it was based on retaliation for women reporting staff sexual abuse.

• 17:01Speaker 12

  So women were not being protected. It was the cycle that's continuing to happen.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  There are not a lot of ways to create change in the prison system from the outside. The DOJ can't fire anyone, and this is not a criminal investigation, so no one is going to get arrested. But they did demand that the prison agency take more modest steps to fix the blind spots without camera coverage, to punish officers who harass and silence people for reporting, and to make it possible for people to report truly confidentially. They threatened to sue the state if CDCR does not comply. CDCR says that they look forward to working with the DOJ. We'll see what happens.

• 17:50Speaker 00

  In the meantime, Cameron and Wind and Yancey and many others still wake up every day in this place and see those same officers walking the yard.

• 18:02Speaker 10

  Most of them are still working here. We see them all the time.

• 18:06Speaker 13

  Arroyo back. Arroyo's back in the jail right now. They need to get rid of Arroyo forever.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Asidro Arroyo, that sergeant who Yancey said told them to stop filing Pria reports, he was transferred for a while, but now he's back.

• 18:22Speaker 13

  You feel me?

• 18:24Speaker 13

  That ain't even cool. That's not cool. Because my wife is there. My wife is there. She just told me this actually not too long ago, too. Guess who's back? Arroyo. I never-

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Katrina Cameron is now legally blind from getting pepper sprayed in her eyes. She says she's not set foot in the chow hall since August 2.

• 18:51Speaker 05

  If their goal was to scare women off from filing Pria, do you think they succeeded?

• 18:59Speaker 06

  To scare them into silence? I would say perhaps majority of them. But there is a group that isn't going to be silenced, you know? And then hopefully, the more of us that start to speak, the more will follow.

• 19:16Speaker 06

  What happens in the dark always comes to the light.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Thank you both so much for taking us on this journey. And thanks as well to the women who made your investigation possible. The producers of We Are Jane Doe are Madi Bolaños, Anna Sussman, and Sukey Lewis. Editing was provided by Nancy Lopez, Mark Ristich, and Sukey Lewis. The piece was executive produced by myself, Glenn Washington, and Mark Ristich was fact-checked by Mark Bettancourt. Original music and engineering by Dirk Swartzoff. Production support from Marisa Dodge. Jeremy Rue from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism was our data editor. Special thanks to Amika Moda and all the women still inside the Central California Women's Facility brave enough to speak with us.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  The reporting was made possible in part by funding from the Poynter Institute.

• 20:17Speaker 01

  After the break, we sit down with Anna and Mahdi to hear more. Stay tuned.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Snap Judgments, we are Jane Doe. This story was a monumental effort, a sprawling investigation. Madi Bolaños and Anna Sussman spent two years reporting on that story. And we have a lot of questions about trying to report on one of the largest women's prisons on earth. And Sukey Lewis from On Our Watch, an editor of this series, is with Anna and Madi to talk about some of the things that didn't quite make it in.

• 21:05Speaker 14

  Anna, Madi, I'm so excited to talk to you both today. There have been some stunning developments in this story that we definitely need to get into. But first, I wanted to give listeners a peek inside your investigation, how you found the story, what it was like to go inside the prison, because you actually went there, and what it's like trying to report a story like this when everything feels so secret. And can you start us off? Madi, how did this whole story get started for you?

• 21:37Speaker 00

  I was getting ready to record The California Report really early in the morning. It was around 5:00 AM the day after August 2nd. And then I got this call from a source inside the prison. They said something really big happened and that I should look into it. And I tried to ask more questions and they were like, well, you're a journalist, so do your work, basically. And so I got off the phone and immediately started digging around. It was especially interesting to me because it was at the women's prison where I grew up, near Chowchilla.

• 22:14Speaker 14

  What can you tell us about the source? Like, I know they want to remain anonymous, so we don't want to reveal too much about them, but can you tell us anything about their orientation to the incident was, or what they thought you specifically could look into about it?

• 22:29Speaker 00

  I know that they weren't a part of it. They were there at the prison that day. And they knew that I was a reporter. And on that day, it seemed like they wanted to use my job to help uncover something.

• 22:51Speaker 14

  And I know you did that initial reporting around it, that aired on KQED, that kind of just said, you know, this use of force incident happened, it was a really big deal, kind of started to detail some of the injuries and some of the fallout. But I think there was this really big question, right, that you still had, which is like, why had this happened?

• 23:12Speaker 15

  I think, to me, what was most interesting about this event was this idea it might be connected to a much larger problem at the prison, that it wasn't an isolated incident, right? And that's what we were trying to unearth, right? In like this, I don't know, when you're like brushing off the sand archaeologically of some artifact, when you're like, what is this?

• 23:34Speaker 14

  Which then led you, in a kind of circuitous way, to Ally. Tell me a little bit about that story.

• 23:42Speaker 15

  We knew that there was a lawsuit, that a lawyer representing 13 women had brought a lawsuit saying, hey, this attack was linked to retaliation for women reporting sexual abuse. So I went to him to say, what evidence do you have? And he told me, you know, what Yancey had said, and he told me, you know, that women had heard Arroyo make these threats. We went over some paperwork in his office, we went over some documents, and I was packing up my things to go. Honestly, I was packing up my things to go. And he said, I have a woman who wants to talk to you. And she's out of the prison, which was good, because we were looking for folks who were out, because they could speak more freely. So I said, great. And I think I called Madi, and I was driving away.

• 24:25Speaker 15

  His office is way up in the mountains, and I said, there's somebody he wants us to talk to. And she said, sure.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Well, I remember you saying, like, you know, setting it up for me. And you were like, I'm not sure if this is going to be related at all. What do you think? Should we talk to her? And I was like, well, sure, why not? But I don't think we, I feel like we went into that conversation not knowing if it was going to be useful or not, but just checking.

• 24:50Speaker 15

  A couple weeks later, he picked me up very early from my house, and we drove two hours, pulled up at this townhouse, and knocked on the door. And she let us in the house and sat down. And as soon as she started talking, I think we knew that something powerful was happening. She started with that opening line, I think, of the whole series, where she said, like, my name is Alexandria Proud, I'm Jane Doe, and I'm speaking for the first time, or something like that. And in that first interview, when we said, do you think that your experience is connected to the events of August 2nd? She was, she was very confident. She felt it was, which I think gave us enough confidence to try and connect those dots.

• 25:33Speaker 14

  So Anna, can you tell me a little bit more about Gregory Rodriguez? You know, what do we know about this man? What were you able to find out about how he was allowed to operate for so long?

• 25:45Speaker 15

  I've never spoken to him. I've written to him in prison via several avenues, and he hasn't gotten back to me. So everything I know is from our reporting. He worked with the corrections department for 27 years, so that's a good, long record. And from the trial, we learned that he had what I'm going to call a system, in which he would write down the names of female prisoners who he was interested in. He would look them up in the kind of prison information system, and he would call them in to his office and offer them kind of perks, jobs.

• 26:29Speaker 15

  And in exchange for the jobs, you would get an extra phone call, or you would get a bottle of vodka. In some of the cases, he would really cultivate the relationship, going so far as to like make a little bed in a closet where he would bring somebody in order to sexually assault them. And in some of the cases, it seemed that he really felt he had, from my reading of it, like, he really felt like he had relationships with some of these women. And some of them, it was real more kind of quick and dirty, like, he would assault them behind, like, literally behind a curtain, like in a mop station. It seemed to me he knew exactly where there were no cameras, and he knew where to take women to do what he wanted with them.

• 27:13Speaker 15

  And when we were at the prison, Madi, I remember you and I peering down that hallway where we knew he had done all of this, and you kind of, you got chills, and you were like, this is chilling.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it was within the first five minutes of our tour. I felt sick, and I don't consider myself to be someone who gets queasy very easily, but it just, yeah, immediately being put in that space was a very uncomfortable feeling.

• 27:38Speaker 14

  I want to get more into the tour in a second, but there's one more thing that I want listeners to kind of know and clock before we go move on to that, which is about the timing of the investigation, what we uncovered through, you know, that conversation that you had, Anna, with that secret source, and then also through the trial transcripts, and from CDCR's own communication with Yumadi, which is that they clearly stated that Rodriguez was under investigation in June of 2022. And this is when Ally is at the prison, and he goes on to assault her while he is under

• 28:19Speaker 14

  investigation, twice at least, in July and in August, before she is finally released.

• 28:25Speaker 15

  I believe, you know, that he was allowed to flourish and do this, because nobody believed that these women deserved any better.

• 28:34Speaker 14

  All right, now, I want to turn to the tour. You guys both were able to go to this place that kind of loomed so large in your investigation for so long, and also in your life, Madi, since you were a child. Can you walk listeners through, walk me through, the gates of the prison?

• 28:56Speaker 00

  I drove from my mother's home, which was only 30 minutes away from the prison. And I don't know, it seemed just like a very, like, stale, hollow, I don't know how to describe it.

• 29:10Speaker 15

  I think, as opposed to kind of the TV version of prisons, which are very, like, clanky and noisy and busy, it's got a vast emptiness, which is very eerie and very unsettling. After you go through kind of checkpoints and metal detectors, there's a moment when you step out into this blazing hot desert type of yard, and you step into a sallyport, right, a kind of fenced-in chamber. The fences tower above you, three stories up, and one of them moves shut and clanks. And for a moment, you're in a box, and you're waiting for the next clank for the, for the next fence to open.

• 29:53Speaker 15

  And I find that, kind of maybe four seconds, it's like a portal, right? It's a portal to a world where the rules are different, and your rights are different, and you're hoping the gate opens, and you're hoping it doesn't open, and that's when everything shifts, I think.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think at that point, I got the sense that everything we were doing was being watched from every angle.

• 30:16Speaker 15

  At one point, we saw, being walked across this, again, vast, empty yard, a woman kind of hunched over, and she was heavily shackled, and there were four officers, four or five officers, surrounding her, and she had a hood tied over her head. Before we even asked, they said, you might wonder what's happening over there. Because we probably stopped in our tracks, you know, and stared at it. And they said, that's adseg inmate. And so we have to have that spit hood over their head to protect the officers.

• 30:53Speaker 14

  Was there any moment when you were walking through the prison, when you were walking through those yards, where you could connect with any of the women or speak to them? What was that like?

• 31:03Speaker 15

  To enter any place and be told, you are not allowed to speak to the people here, I feel like is already an uncomfortable ask. Imagine, this is like, you were human, and you were told you can go into the McDonald's, but you may not speak to a single person there. You would automatically feel like, this is weird. You're putting up a wall, and it's, it's an uncomfortable setup. But for a journalist in a prison, there's added layers of concern. And then...

• 31:30Speaker 15

  Two points women shouted out to us. They treat us terrible in here. They treat us like crap. They treat us like animals. And we had to just absorb it and not respond. And our guides heard it and they pretended they didn't. And Madi and I looked at each other. Did you hear that?

• 31:51Speaker 00

  And then we saw a guard approach them.

• 31:55Speaker 15

  Right. At one point, a guard walked down one of the hallways and said, is there a problem down here?

• 32:04Speaker 01

  More We Are Jane Doe, right after the break. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. We Are Jane Doe, already in progress.

• 32:29Speaker 14

  Now, Madi, did CDCR give you a reason why you both couldn't speak to any of the women?

• 32:38Speaker 00

  They did not. But other than that, we did save our questions about August 2nd to, for the end of the tour. It was as we were walking back to that space that Anna described with the really tall fences that I decided to ask the public information officer of the facility. You know, you seem really proud of the work that you do here. I imagine August 2nd is kind of a stain on that. What do you think? And that's when he said that he would direct any questions about August 2nd to the agency's public information officer. So, once we got back to the original building where we had to, you know, go through the

• 33:19Speaker 00

  metal detectors and all of that, I did ask her, we had been learning that there was allegations of sexual assault or of retaliation for sexual assault complaints, like had the agency's investigation looked into that. And she seemed pretty flustered by that question and ultimately said that that's something that they would have to get back to us on.

• 33:43Speaker 14

  And that's a question I don't believe they ever answered.

• 33:46Speaker 00

  No, they did not answer.

• 33:48Speaker 14

  I just want to be clear that the documents that you asked for right after the August 2nd incident happened, so more than two years ago, those are public documents. The body cam footage, the internal affairs interviews, all of the surveillance footage, like none of this we have received, all of. We were able to get a little bit of preliminary disciplinary documents and they did release limited surveillance footage. So, it makes it really hard to get a full picture of their own investigation, which is part of, I think, the role that you two are playing in this, the role of journalists to interrogate systems of power and see how they go about the business of holding themselves accountable.

• 34:29Speaker 14

  And so, you know, that was really stymied by their lack of transparency. And then, one of the things that you both were able to help kind of build this picture because CDCR was so closed off was through these leaked tapes. Listeners already heard some of that from Cynthia Rojas. Maybe Anna, you can set this up for us, play a little bit of this interview with an officer who was there that day, who was one of the people who actually ended up getting fired.

• 34:58Speaker 15

  So, the prison does its own investigation after August 2nd to figure out what went wrong and who might be at fault for what. They're interviewing an officer who was there. His name is Jordan Chavira. And at this point in the interview, they're asking him about some things that they found out, he said, on his body worn camera.

• 35:18Speaker 16

  And then, did you hear yourself on your body worn camera approximately 12:46, 17 hours? You randomly stated, get some baby or were to those, to that effect. Do you recall hearing that?

• 35:32Speaker 17

  Yes.

• 35:33Speaker 16

  And what would be the purpose of you saying that?

• 35:35Speaker 17

  I don't remember the purpose of me saying that. I just remember, I did hear it on my body camera though.

• 35:41Speaker 16

  And you have a reason why you would say that?

• 35:45Speaker 17

  No. I do know I was trying to close my baton though.

• 35:49Speaker 16

  And then, at approximately 12:46, 46 hours, also on your body worn camera, when you approached Officer Ricky, or, excuse me, Castro, Officer Castro, you stated something to the effect of fun, fun, fun, baby. Did you hear yourself say that?

• 36:08Speaker 17

  Yes.

• 36:09Speaker 16

  And what was the point of saying that?

• 36:10Speaker 17

  It was a sarcasm. Like, it's not really fun, but it's a little incident.

• 36:15Speaker 15

  I think it's fair to say that, like, there was, there is a lot about corrections officer culture in this prison that is very concerning, deeply concerning.

• 36:30Speaker 14

  I remember, you know, both of you kind of describing this feeling of going on the tour like a metaphor for so much of your reporting in this story. You can see it, but you can't touch it kind of feeling. Can you talk about that a little bit, Anna, and how this like barrier of secrecy really prevents, you know, full insight into places like this?

• 36:55Speaker 15

  People talk about a black box, right? To talk about a place with no transparency, where no information gets in and out, right? And it's like this small black box on an airplane where data is protected. To me, it feels like a massive black box with 2,000 people inside, that like nothing gets in or out. I talked to this trauma expert who's done a lot of work with the prison on helping the prison try to be more trauma informed in the way that they interact with prisoners. And she said this thing that really stuck with me, I'll play it for you right now.

• 37:27Speaker 18

  I mean, our prisons are public institutions. They're like our libraries. They're like our hospitals. They're like our public schools. This is also a public institution, but you cannot walk in. So, the prison system is what we call a closed system. It is not open. We often talked about closed family. When a family is a closed family and isolated, there's greater risk of harm within that family. And so, these closed systems always have higher risk for harm.

• 38:02Speaker 15

  And, and there's no, not even a metaphor here. There's just massive walls. It's very simple. I think something that was really hard for us to hear, or really moving for us to hear, was when we spoke with women who had reported sexual assault and told us, if I could go back, I wouldn't have done that. And I can promise you, I'll never do it again.

• 38:24Speaker 14

  I believe you spoke to one of Gregory Rodriguez's victims, right?

• 38:28Speaker 15

  Yeah. I mean, we had to speak very carefully because she is very scared, but she did report abuse at the hands of Gregory Rodriguez and felt that, ever since she did that, she's been targeted inside by officers. So, she had a laundry list of incidents that she felt were retaliation. We don't know if they were or not, but that's the life she's living. And she said, if I had to do it over again, I would not have reported the sexual assault because it's too dangerous for me in here to have reported that. And she said, and moving forward, there have been sexual assaults, and if there are any more, I will not report them. It's not safe for me.

• 39:11Speaker 14

  So, we were literally completely wrapping up this story, and this was kind of the state of play, as things were, when, Madi, you got another call. Please tell us what you have found out about what is happening inside the Chowchilla Women's Prison.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Right. So, I learned that the warden at the California, Central California Women's Facility was transferred and demoted. She's now at the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla. Actually, it's right down the street from there. And then, in the course of reporting that out, I learned that several officers had been walked off the yard, which means that they were taken off the premises of the prison. And it's related to sexual misconduct. We reached out to CDCR, and of course, they said that they could not comment, but they did say that there was an ongoing investigation.

• 40:04Speaker 14

  I know this is still really kind of fresh information and that it's still developing, but what have you been hearing from advocates and people inside the prison about their reaction to this? Are they glad the warden is being taken out of there? Do they hold her responsible? This is Anissa Dela Cruz, you know, not Cynthia Rojas, who is the chief deputy warden. But what are their reactions?

• 40:27Speaker 00

  It's interesting. I think that they are glad that action is being taken, but all the advocates and the women that I spoke to say that, you know, it's not just one person that allowed this to happen. I spoke to Lisa Nomura, who is a formerly incarcerated advocate with the California Coalition for Women Prisoners. And she really feels like this is just something that they're doing because there's pressure on them to make moves.

• 40:56Speaker 19

  This whole thing is not uncommon. You know, it's more like a Band-Aid on a gaping wound, right? And like, Warden Dela Cruz being removed and demoted and going from institution to institution, that's a common response to things like this, where action is, is expected.

• 41:22Speaker 14

  They are under scrutiny, you know, from the DOJ, but they're also, they also know that, you know, this investigation is coming out shortly. Do you think it played any kind of role?

• 41:32Speaker 15

  I think that they have heard from us a lot in the last two years, particularly in the last six months. They've heard from us increasingly. We're in their inboxes, we're on their phones, we are asking them over and over again for documents. They know that we are relentless. People ask me sometimes, do you think they know who you are? I think so. And I think that counts as pressure, right?

• 41:58Speaker 14

  Well, I, I want to just thank both of you for your tremendous work on this series. I think it shows some, you know, beautiful and important and tender and terrible moments inside a system that can largely get flattened from the outside and really adds this kind of depth and insight for the public to kind of understand what happens inside this prison that we all, you know, pay for and that we're all responsible for in some way. So, I want to thank you both, but I know you guys also want to thank some people, so.

• 42:35Speaker 15

  We just really want to thank the women who spoke to us. I mean, they are being incredibly brave and going out of their way to meet with us and to talk to us on the phone that's being recorded, to get their story out there. And we are very grateful to them.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Thank you all so much for taking us on this journey. And thanks as well to the women, some of whom we cannot personally credit, who made your investigation possible. If you missed even a moment, you can hear Snap's We Are Jane Doe series in its entirety on the Snap Judgment Podcast, KQED in San Francisco, allows Snap to broadcast stories like this one. On Team Snap, the union representative producers, artists, editors, and engineers, and members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Department of America, AFL-CIL Local 51.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  And this is not the news. No way is this the news because sometimes the news does not care, but we do. And this is PRX.