VIDEO: Watch Los Angeles Prison Inmates Allegedly Try To Get Coronavirus To Get Out Of Jail

Los Angeles authorities said inmates at a county jail allegedly tried to secure an early release by infecting themselves with the coronavirus ahead of planned tests. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office shared video of the inmates huddled around passing water and a face mask around as evidence to the inmates’ actions.

The surveillance videos were taken from North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, California, on April 26.

In the first video, one inmate is seen filling a bottle with hot water from a wall dispenser and passing it around for everyone to drink from. The second shows several inmates passing a mask around and breathing from it while drinking from the same styrofoam cup.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva said that within a week of when the videos were recorded, 21 inmates had tested positive for coronavirus. The inmates infected all came from the same module where the security footage was taken from.

“It is very disturbing to think that people would do this to themselves deliberately in an attempt to force our hand to release more people from custody,” Villanueva said at a press conference Monday.

Villanueva said he found inmates sharing the cup surprising because they are considered an important commodity in jails and inmates don’t typically share them.

“Every inmate has access to their own cup of water which they jealously guard,” Villanueva said. “It's not something they share person-to-person, and anyone who practices basic hygiene doesn't do that anyway. So, in this environment, and then considering the fact that the 21 tested positive out of that module, shows what their intention was.”

He said none of the inmates would be released and will instead receive treatment at facilities on the jail’s grounds.

Since the pandemic hit in January, the Los Angeles County jail system has isolated around 4,500 inmates in an effort to prevent exposure. Around 5,000 were also released in February to cut down on the system’s population.

As of Monday, over 220 inmates had tested positive for coronavirus and no deaths have been reported.