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Joseph Mendoza: California man stabbed 180 times in jail; family sues prison as stabbing video goes viral
Joseph Mendoza of Merced was stabbed 180 times in Salinas Valley prison in April 2025. A viral video of it prompted his family to file a civil rights suit.
Joseph Mendoza, a man from Merced, California, was stabbed 180 times in prison in April 2025, and a video of the stabbing was captured by an unidentified individual and shared on social media.
The video went viral, with thousands of views, bringing the Salinas Valley prison authorities in Soledad, California under scrutiny. Now, the family of Mendoza has filed a Civil Rights lawsuit accusing the prison authorities of "deliberate indifference.” The lawsuit was filed in December 2025 at the Northern District of California, the family confirmed.
Mendoza, who was serving a 22-year sentence for robbery and attempted murder at the time of his death, was captured on video being stabbed 180 times with a makeshift knife at the Soledad facility. The inmates behind the stabbing, Edgar Frayre and Nicolas Young were identified by the California Department of Corrections.
Who Was Joseph Mendoza And Why His Family Is Suing The Prison
Joseph Mendoza was a 36-year-old prisoner at the Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, California. He was stabbed fatally in a prison attack on April 8, 2025. Along with his 22-year-old sentence for robbery and attempt to murder, Mendoza received additional four years for possession and manufacture of a deadly weapon by a prisoner and for battery on a non-prisoner.
Mendoza was attacked on the evening of April 8 with "improvised weapons," the Department of Corrections said. In the viral video, the two inmates could be seen driving the weapon in Mendoza's body multiple times.
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Why Is Mendoza's Family Suing The Prison
Joseph Mendoza's family alleges negligence on the part of prison staffers to respond to the incident timely manner. They accused the officials of not taking any definite action while Mendoza “was butchered and left to die.” The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, however, maintains that their staff made “several verbal commands to stop, which were ignored.”
The second point of contention is the video being taken and leaked. A 2020 California law bars first responders from sharing footage of dead victims. The attorneys with Mendoza's family argue that the footage being leaked was a violation of the law.
Bryan Harrison, one of the attorneys, called for the prison staffers involved in the incident to be "summarily fired." Another one of the attorneys, Adante Pointer, called it an inside job. "We know that this is an inside job," he said, adding that someone "sent it out to others."
"We have not heard a peep from CDCR as to who did this….All of the officers involved should be summarily fired," Pointer said.
The state attorneys have denied any fault in the case and maintain that the action taken at that moment was appropriate. Both parties have sought a jury trial in the case.
