Brain dead inmate released from custody, parole cut short
By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press Writer
Last Updated: February 14, 2005, 06:25:16 PM PST
SACRAMENTO (AP) - An inmate who was left brain-dead after being shot by a prison guard last month was freed from custody and his parole ended Monday with an unusual decision of a state prison board.
Daniel Provencio, 28, remains in Bakersfield's Mercy Hospital, hooked to a ventilator and intravenous tubes.
But he no longer is shackled to the bed, nor guarded around the clock at a cost of $1,056 a day as he had been since he was shot in the head with a supposedly non-lethal foam projectile during a prison altercation Jan. 16.
"The whole thing is a tragedy," said state Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, who chairs two corrections oversight committees. "It's just moronic that we were ever in the situation where we were having to guard what for all intents and purposes was a dead man."
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http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/9957421p-10799423c.html