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Background: News footage of Salinas Valley State Prison (KTVU). Insets (left to right): Nicolas Young, Joseph Mendoza, and Edgar Frayre (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation).
The family of a man fatally stabbed inside a California prison has initiated legal action, claiming that prison staff recorded the assault instead of intervening to prevent it.
The legal filing, accessed by Law&Crime, details that 36-year-old Joseph Mendoza, serving a 22-year sentence at Salinas Valley State Prison, was found with drugs in January 2025, which he intended to distribute among inmates. Following this discovery, Mendoza reportedly expressed fears for his safety, citing a “predictable and significant threat of violent retaliation” from the Norteño prison gang. Despite making several formal requests to be transferred to protective custody, he remained in the general population.
The lawsuit claims that once other inmates learned of Mendoza’s plea for protection, the danger to his life increased significantly.
Mendoza was allegedly attacked on April 8, 2025, by two inmates, Nicolas Young and Edgar Frayre, both linked to the Norteño gang. The confrontation occurred on the “dayroom floor,” an area recognized by staff as “high-risk.” Young and Frayre reportedly stabbed Mendoza “nearly 180 times” using homemade weapons, inflicting severe wounds to his head, face, neck, torso, and back.
During the three-minute assault, as Mendoza’s time dwindled, armed corrections officers allegedly observed from a higher vantage point, recording the incident on their phones instead of intervening. The lawsuit accuses these officers of “standing by and observing” while Mendoza was “butchered” and succumbed to his injuries on the floor.
The officers allegedly never called for backup, nor did they get medical assistance for Mendoza until it was too late. Mendoza was pronounced dead at the scene.
The lawsuit alleged that the officers who were present for the attack failed to preserve evidence at the scene. Instead, following the attack and Mendoza’s death, employees at the prison shared the video of the attack and posted it to social media. The video of the “graphic assault” and Mendoza’s “mutilated remains” went viral, and it was seen by Mendoza’s family members, who have suffered “profound psychological and emotional trauma” on top of their grief.
During a press conference on Wednesday with Mendoza’s family and their legal team that was covered by local Fox affiliate KMPH, attorney Bryan Harrison said, “This was raw, bloody slaughter and no one had the right to turn his murder into entertainment. It’s perverse.”
In an interview with another local Fox affiliate, KTVU, Mendoza attorney Adante Pointer of Pointer & Buelna LLP, said, “We have not heard a peep from CDCR as to who did this,” adding, “All of the officers involved should be summarily fired.” No officers are identified by name in the lawsuit.
The investigation into the stabbing is still ongoing. In court documents reviewed by Law&Crime, California Attorney General Rob Bonta denied the claims made in the lawsuit. In a press release issued shortly after the killing, the CDCR stated that Mendoza was provided medical aid after the attack.
Mendoza’s father told KTVU, “I’m not looking for revenge.” He wants to make sure “somebody else’s son or daughter doesn’t come home in a box.”