Inmate Ezequiel Romo, 47, was stabbed multiple times by three other inmates at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County Sunday evening.
Inmates Cristian Moreno, 31, Johnny Garcia, 39, and Christian Hernandez, 41, attacked Romo with inmate-manufactured weapons in a dayroom at the prison. Officers issued verbal orders to break up the attack, but those orders were ignored, which resulted in multiple deployments of pepper spray to stop the attack.
Officers attempted lifesaving measures and Inmate Romo was taken to an on-site medical facility where he was pronounced dead hours later.
Romo had been at Centinela since August 2023 after being sentenced in Los Angeles County to life in prison without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit other murders.
According to a 2023 profile by the Los Angeles Times, Romo was the leader of the Blythe Street gang in Panorama City and was responsible for at least eight deaths after he ordered members of the gang to turn on one another, removing drug addicts, informants, rivals and other people whom he considered “dead weight” from the gang’s ranks.
In prison, he became a soldier of the Mexican Mafia prison gang.
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