SACRAMENTO — Months after being convicted of ordering killings in California’s prison system, an imprisoned leader of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang allegedly attacked two corrections officers who were escorting him to his cell.
Ronald Dean Yandell, 62, allegedly brandished a knife at two prison guards as they escorted him to his cell after a medical appointment at the California State Prison in Sacramento on November 22. No staff members were injured in the scuffle, but they deployed pepper. sprayed at Yandell, forcing him to drop the weapon, according to a news release from the state prison system.
The incident came two months after another corrections officer injured Yandell during transport, allegedly knocking him down and punching him while he was handcuffed. Yandell had filed a lawsuit, alleging that the prison and federal authorities retaliated against him for his political advocacy work just days before he was injured.
Yandell, a former West Contra Costa resident, has not been charged in connection with the Nov. 22 incident, but it appears to be a double attempted murder, authorities said. Jail officials said they plan to refer the case to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
Yandell is currently awaiting sentencing in a federal racketeering case, in which he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, trafficking drugs and other contraband into prison, and being the leader of the notorious prison gang. Most of the convictions centered on a wiretap of Yandell’s contraband cell phone in the late 2010s, conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Tensions are brewing in the Sacramento jail where Yandell and his co-defendants are being held. One of his co-defendants, Brant Daniel, recently accused prison staff of trying to prepare him for his death through a planned transfer to a Corcoran prison. Another of Yandell’s co-defendants, Danny Troxell, exchanged death threats with him during their trial last March, before both men were convicted.
Yandell is also known for his political advocacy work, helping to broker a peace treaty between rival prison gangs and leading a prison-wide hunger strike in the early 2010s. strike helped reduce the widespread use of solitary confinement. He accused law enforcement of retaliating against him by filing a racketeering case, although a federal judge recently denied a motion to overturn the convictions based on those grounds.
If Yandell is charged in Sacramento court, it is unlikely to have much effect on his life trajectory. He is already serving a life sentence for murder and manslaughter in Contra Costa, and faces a life sentence in the federal case.
The incident is the third act of violence treated as attempted murder against a prison staff member in California so far this month. The three incidents occurred in different prisons and do not appear to be related.
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