When Valentino Rodriguez graduated from the academy to become a correctional officer for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, he was promised a brotherhood. At his graduation, the new officers took an oath to protect the innocent, be honest and hold each other accountable, Reveal News reports. When he started his job at the high-security prison in Sacramento, known as New Folsom, he found the opposite. He told his wife and father about misconduct in the prison and harassment, threats and mistreatment of incarcerated people. KQED reporters Sukey Lewis and Julie Small learned of Rodriguez’s experience after he was found dead, just six days after reporting the misconduct he witnessed. Their series, On Our Watch, follows Rodriguez’s case and his father’s investigation into his son’s death.
One episode opens with Lewis and her team meeting the Rodriguez family at their home. They tell the reporters about who Rodriguez was and his journey through New Folsom. In the prison, Rodriguez earned a spot as a member of an elite unit investigating crimes committed in the prison. His colleagues made it clear they didn’t think he deserved the promotion and demeaned his work. As the job weighed on Rodriguez and his mental health, his father, Val Sr., started to see him change. After his son’s death, Val Sr. collected all the evidence he can on his son’s experience in the prison and shared it with the reporters. This includes a copy of Rodriguez’s cellphone that he used for work, with proof of the misconduct he reported from members of his unit. Through this personal record of Rodriguez’s life, along with disciplinary records obtained through a recent transparency law passed in California, Lewis and Small found a pattern of misconduct that goes deeper than Rodriguez’s experience.