Around 10:30 a.m., the California Department of Corrections said 36-year-old Mario Renteria began “striking” 46-year-old Julian Mendez. Officials said prison staff ordered the men to stop, but they failed to comply.

According to officials, staff used chemical agents to stop Renteria’s attack against Mendez, but 30 additional inmates rushed Renteria and began striking him.

“Orders to stop were ignored and staff used multiple blast grenades to quell the violence,” officials said in a news release.

Mendez received multiple wounds in the attack. Officials did not specify the nature of his injuries, but an improvised weapon was found at the scene.

Mendez was taken to the prison’s treatment facility, where a doctor pronounced him dead at 11:05 a.m.

Renteria remains in restricted housing pending investigation into the case, officials said.

Mendez was received from Riverside County on Dec. 2, 2004. He received a condemned sentence in 2002 for the first-degree murder of two teenagers, a 15-year-old boy he beat and shot twice and a 14-year-old girl who witnessed the murder.

Renteria was incarcerated on April 27, 2022, after he was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole for first-degree murder and arson.

KVSP’s Investigative Services Unit and the Kern County District Attorney’s Office are investigating the incident.

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