Convicted Riverside Co. Murderer On San Quentin's Death Row Beats Guard

SAN QUENTIN, CA -- A Riverside gang member on California's Death Row beat a correctional officer, inflicting major injuries, San Quentin State Prison officials said today.

Jesse Manzo, 28, attacked the prison guard about 5 p.m. Thursday as the convicted murderer was being escorted back to his cell from the showers, according to the California Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation.

Agency spokesman Sam Robinson said that Manzo managed to slip out of one of his handcuffs and used the loose cuff to strike the guard multiple times.

"The officer suffered cuts and wounds and a significant facial injury," Robinson said. "The officer was taken to an outside hospital for treatment and is expected to make a full recovery."

There was no word on what, if anything, provoked the attack, which happened in the prison's East Block Housing Unit -- one of five cell blocks where the state's 747 Death Row inmates are housed, officials said.

Possible repercussions for the assault were not disclosed.

Manzo was convicted and sentenced to capital punishment in 2013 for fatally shooting 23-year-old Raymond Franklin of Riverside on May 2, 2008.

Manzo, an admitted member of the East Side Riva street gang, shot the father of four without warning as the victim stood next to his vehicle in the 1700 block of Matthews Street. Franklin was targeted in part because he was black, but also because he had reportedly made anti-gang comments.

He was studying to become a correctional officer.

Manzo has a history of violence in correctional facilities. While awaiting trial and locked up at the Robert Presley Detention Center, he committed several injurious assaults.

One of the more brutal occurred when he organized a group of Hispanic inmates to attack two white detainees in the jail recreation yard, beating them to the ground and then stomping their heads, all of which was revealed in detail during the penalty phase of his trial.

--City News Service/File photo