Should Violent Criminals Fight Wildfires In California?

ORANGE COUNTY, CA —An inmate firefighter took a Cal Fire engine truck for a joyride, escaping his work battling a brush fire in El Dorado County this week.

Cameron Zoltan Horvath, 31, was serving a 10-year prison sentence for a spree of carjackings in Orange County when he joined the fire crew. On the 4th of July, he took off from the fire line and stole the engine, which he later drove into a ditch.

The stunt has sparked controversy between the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation—which identifies prospective inmates for the fire crew program in conjunction with Cal Fire—in a program that provides necessary resources to assist firefighters, and the Orange County District Attorney's Office, which disagrees with the way volunteer participants are selected for the program and the long-run benefits they may receive.

Corrections department spokesperson Dana Simas called Horvath's joyriding case an isolated incident and that it should not be a magnifying glass for viewing the inmate hand crew program. Horvath is no longer eligible to participate as an inmate firefighter, having lost his privileges after the stunt.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer sees a larger problem at hand. That has to do with identifying proper inmates for the program.

Should Horvath have been a candidate at all?

The July 4th incident was not the first time Horvath stole an emergency vehicle. In 2015, he stole an Orange County Sheriff's Department patrol car during a carjacking spree that ultimately landed him in prison.

Horvath began serving his 10-year sentence in 2015 after being convicted of six felonies, a misdemeanor and a felony enhancement for carjacking an older victim in Orange County, Spitzer said. He also had a prior “strike” conviction in a 2014 attempted carjacking.

Horvath admitted stealing a vehicle from a residential complex, getting in an accident and subsequently carjacking the older driver of the other vehicle. He led the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol in their pursuit of the stolen vehicle.

After his arrest, he was taken to a hospital where he fought with deputies, attempted to gain control of an officer's weapon and battled with a nurse, according to court records.

He joined the fire crew, which, according to a new California law, would have helped in reducing his overall sentence. Stealing the fire truck and evading authorities put an end to that.

But with his history of violent crime, stealing cars and evading authority, should he have been allowed to work on an inmate fire crew at all?

Spitzer said, "No."

On Thursday, he slammed "the lack of screening of convicted felons by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to allow inmates convicted of violent felonies" on such crews. Having Horvanth serve on the minimum-security inmate fire crews put public safety at risk, he said.

But the importance of the conservation camp program and its participants, all volunteers, should not be judged based on the acts of one person, Simas said. All participants must meet "numerous criteria in a manner that is consistent with public safety," she told Patch.

Currently, there are 35 conservation camps in all 25 California counties to provide support to state, local and federal agencies during emergencies such as fire, floods and other disasters. As of May, some 1,600 inmates were working at fire camps across the Golden State.

Work at the camps is on a volunteer basis. All inmates must have "minimum custody status," the lowest classification for inmates, based on "good behavior" while in prison, Simas said.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the only felons prohibited from being assigned to a fire camp include arsonists, registered sex offenders, prisoners with a history of escape with force or violence, and those serving life sentences.

The minimal restrictions allowed convicted felons sent to state prison for violent felonies — including carjacking, armed robbery, weapons and firearms offenses and even attempted murder — to serve on inmate firefighting crews while serving time in state prison, according to the Orange County District Attorney's office.

Inmate firefighters also received increased “good time” credits from the corrections department, resulting in most inmates only serving about one-third of their sentences, Spitzer argued. Violent felons assigned to fire crews serve only about 40 percent of their sentence due to the corrections department’s increased good time credits, he said.

The district attorney’s office did not have a say in which inmates were assigned to inmate fire crews, according to Spitzer. That decision-making authority rests entirely with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“Violent felons are sent to state prison because they have committed such heinous crimes they must be taken out of our communities,” Spitzer said. “It is unconscionable that the very entity responsible for housing dangerous felons continues to allow these same violent felons back into our communities and expect them to miraculously be less dangerous because they are dressed in firefighting gear instead of a prison uniform. It doesn’t work that way. This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to shorten the sentences of dangerous criminals and get them out of prison and back on the streets as quickly as possible. Our communities — and our victims — deserve better.”

The joyriding fire engine incident was just the latest involving violent felons assigned to inmate fire crews attempting to escape from the minimum-security fire crews, Spitzer's office said.

A History Of Problems With Inmate Firefighters

Spitzer's office offered up the following examples of problems with inmate firefighters.

• In 2005, inmate firefighter Marlon Ruff walked away from the Eel River Conservation Camp in Humboldt County. Ruff was serving a prison sentence for beating and robbing an armored vehicle guard. While on the run, Ruff shot and killed San Francisco police Officer Bryan Tuvera and then killed himself.
• In 2010, Jeffory Lynn Shook led law enforcement officers on a chase across four counties before SWAT teams captured him in a trailer park in rural Siskiyou County with Aryan Brotherhood gang members he had met in prison. When Shook escaped from fire camp, he had already been shot and wounded by police twice in previous high-speed pursuits, including one in Orange County, and tried to run over a detective in Placer County. Former Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner called Shook “one of the most violent and dangerous suspects we’ve encountered in a long time,” according to Spitzer's office.

New Laws, New Rules For Inmates Returning From Fire Camp

A new law that went into effect in January allows inmates who participate in fire camps to immediately have their convicted expunged when they are released from prison, according to Spitzer's office.

According to the law, inmates who have volunteered to serve as firefighters can petition for an expunging of their records. However, that will ultimately be granted or denied by a judge.

Inmates who serve successfully in a fire camp can now "hide their convictions as if they never happened," Spitzer said. An inmate can now conceal a child abuse conviction when applying for a daycare center license or conceal an elder abuse conviction when applying to work in an assisted living facility, he argued.

Under the new law, even the most serious and violent crimes — including attempted murder, carjacking, mayhem, robbery and weapons and firearms offenses — are eligible for expungement in exchange for participating in Fire Camp, Spitzer argued.

That is not to say that has happened. Yet.

“By pretending these crimes never happened, we are pretending victims were never victimized and that past behavior is not a predictor of future behavior,” Spitzer said. “We cannot release violent felons back into target-rich environments with only the hope that they learned their lesson and they won’t re-offend. Hope only goes so far.”

Difficult Fire Season Ahead

With drought across the Southwest, heatwaves and threats of wildfires, the CDCR has provided ready access to workers on the firelines and in clearing brush, fallen trees and maintaining parks and open land for flood protection and reforestation.

"The actions of one person should not overshadow the crucial and difficult work many of our incarcerated hand-crews do to protect the state from wildfires and other disasters," Simas says. "They work hard to serve their time productively and give back to the state and local communities."

Do you feel inmates should serve on fire crews? Let us know in the comments or by emailing your Patch editor.