Three Norteño gang members who were inmates at the San Joaquin County Jail were convicted of first-degree murder for the 2021 killing of another inmate.
The San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday said 49-year-old inmate Armando Salgado was “viciously” targeted on June 24, 2021, as he entered the Honor Farm facility.
“Armando Salgado was murdered in cold blood, and that’s something we’ll never accept,” San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said in a statement.
Prosecutors said Salgado had no gang affiliations, but three inmates had confronted him and demanded to know his gang ties. They tore off Salgado’s shirt to check for tattoos and when he remained silent, they began punching, stabbing and stomping him until he lost consciousness, prosecutors said.
The gang members then dragged Salgado to the barracks bathroom, where they beat and drowned him.
At the time of the Salgado’s death, the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office identified his killers as 21-year-old Joseph Corral, 22-year-old Nathan Oliveridoan and 22-year-old Angelo Velasquez.
According to a news conference held the day following the death, Salgado was found at about 10 p.m. on June 24, 2021, by a correctional officer in the bathroom of the building where he was being housed.
Salgado had only transferred to the facility from the main jail an hour prior to the attack.
San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow said that it had been the worst known attack at the low-level security facility to date.
“We’ve never had a violent murder like this at our Honor Farm,” he said at the news conference.
Salgado had been housed in a barrack designated for quarantining at the Honor Farm, Withrow said, where he was supposed to quarantine for two weeks as a COVID-19 precaution before being allowed into the facility’s other housing units.
The victim was described by authorities as a low-risk inmate who did not have “some type of high profile that might bring attention to him or cause this type of incident.”
This article originally appeared on The Record: 3 Norteño gang members convicted of killing San Joaquin County inmate