FOLSOM – California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials are investigating the Oct. 12, 2024, death of an incarcerated person at California State Prison, Sacramento (SAC) as a homicide.

At 3:55 a.m., staff responded to an alarm and approached a cell occupied by Kyle Cooper and Rahshan Mackey. Responding officers observed Cooper unresponsive in his cell, with head trauma and immediately called for medical assistance and 911.

Life saving measures were initiated and Cooper was transported to an outside hospital for a higher level of care. He was pronounced deceased at 5:40 a.m. by a hospital doctor.

Mackey has been placed in restricted housing pending an investigation by SAC Investigative Services Unit and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office. The Office of the Inspector General was notified, and the Sacramento County Coroner will determine Cooper’s official cause of death.

Cooper, 50, was most recently received from Sacramento County on Aug. 11, 2015, sentenced to 37 years for three counts of second-degree robbery with enhancement of use of firearm as a second striker and possessing/owning a firearm by a felon or addict as a second striker.

Mackey, 38, was received from Alameda County on March 26, 2021, to sentenced to 23 years for voluntary manslaughter with an enhancement for personal use of a dangerous or deadly weapon as a second striker.

While incarcerated, he was sentenced to two years and eight months by Sacramento County on Jan. 26, 2024, for assault by a prisoner with a deadly weapon/instrument as a second striker, an in-prison offense.

SAC opened in 1986 and houses more than 2,100 medium-, maximum- and high-security incarcerated persons. SAC offers academic classes and vocational programs and employs approximately 1,500 people.

Kyle S. Cooper (Deceased)

Mackey Rashan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct. 12, 2024

Contact: OPEC@cdcr.ca.gov

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. – Some people go overboard with Halloween. Nathan and Jodie Fillhardt readily admit they’re among them. They actually embrace the notion.

Every year around this time, the Fillhardts drive several times from their home in Scotts Valley, just north of Santa Cruz, to Bob’s Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay, a two-hour roundtrip. Over the course of those visits they load up on more than 150 of Bob’s best and biggest – at a cost of $1,000 to $3,000 – and they’ll spend days carving them for the elaborate decoration of what their neighbors call “the pumpkin house.’’

The tradition began nearly 15 years ago before they had their daughter, Elizabeth, 8, and has continued to grow, becoming a bigger family celebration than Christmas. After carving 173 pumpkins last year, the Fillhardts are shooting for 200 this fall.

“We load up the back of our car every weekend starting the last week of September,’’ Nathan said. “Every year we try to beat last year’s record. The first year we started with like 20 pumpkins and the next year about 50 and …’’

“Are we going to ever try to get to a thousand pumpkins?’’ Elizabeth says, jumping in. Her parents respond that would take quite a bit of help from the neighbors.

It’s not out of the question. Jodie said their subdivision of about 250 houses and several cul-de-sacs draws more than 1,000 trick-or-treaters, and most neighbors embrace their presence, handing out candy from the driveway instead of constantly opening and closing the front door.

“The entire neighborhood really gets into it, so much so that the weekend before Halloween the neighborhood gets together and hands out awards to different houses for different styles,’’ she said. “We always get the pumpkin award.’’

Half Moon Bay, a coastside enclave of 11,000 less than 30 miles south of San Francisco, offers small-time charm, breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean and a wealth of surfing and hiking opportunities. In the fall it gets transformed into a pumpkin paradise that draws tens of thousands of visitors to its mid-October festival, capping a week that starts with a contest featuring 2,000-pound-plus pumpkins.

That’s all well and good for the Fillhardts, who often have lunch downtown before heading back home. But the object of their desire is the abundance of large orange gourds at Bob’s Pumpkin Farm, the only patch they visit among the numerous options in town.

“We’re here for the pumpkins,’’ Jodie said, “not for all the festivities.’’

FRESNO, Calif. — As voters cast their ballots, they will decide whether the state should borrow $10 billion to build and repair public schools and community colleges.

“Every student in the state deserves to be in a classroom that’s worthy of being educated in,” Yuri Calderon said. He is the Executive Director of the Small School Districts Association.

Proposition 2 would directly impact the campuses Calderon represents — those with less than 2,500 students.

“They are the vast majority of school districts in the state of California,” Calderon said. “They are – over 65% are small.”

Calderon says those schools are often overlooked and underrepresented in state funding and grants because urban schools are better equipped to apply for the money.

“That’s why these provisions are in this bond measure to ensure at least a portion of those funds end up in our rural and small communities,” Calderon said.

The state would distribute Proposition 2 money through matching grants, requiring districts to contribute from local funds.

The prop would not automatically raise taxes, but the state will need to find about $500 million a year to repay the loan.

“It’s just that these school boards are not living within their means,” Francisco Alanis of the Libertarian Party said.

He points out the bond measure will cost taxpayers much more than the proposed $10 billion. Interest will cost $8 billion over 35 years.

“To repay this bond, it’s going to increase property taxes, and I’m not just talking about homeowners,” Alanis said. Renters, as well.”

Proposition 2 goes before voters as Calderon says some school facilities are in poor shape.

“When you see places that don’t have clean drinking water, that they don’t have a sewer system that’s fully operational, that their bathrooms look like worse than a bus station bathroom … These are schools here in California,” Calderon said.

Alanis says Proposition 2 is an expensive ask that is unnecessary in the first place.

“School districts have an annual budget. So, if these repairs were really needed, these repairs should be budgeted in their annual budget,” Alanis said.

Proposition 2 comes four years after voters rejected a $15 billion bond proposal for schools in 2020. The last time voters approved borrowing money for schools was in 2016.

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