California has reached a tentative agreement to pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of incarcerated women who were sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray during an August 2024 operation at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. The lawsuit stems from an incident in which officers moved more than 150 women into the facility’s dining hall for a unit search, then deployed chemical weapons against them not once, but twice.
According to KQED, the class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of women sprayed with tear gas and pepper spray during the 2024 incident at the prison, which is California’s largest women’s correctional facility. On August 2, 2024, correctional officers moved the women to the dining hall for a unit search, and, according to the suit, sought to seize personal belongings that did not fit inside a 6-cubic-foot box. The women were confined for hours in the cafeteria without access to food, water or medication, KQED reports.
Per internal documents cited by the station, tensions escalated as women shouted and banged on tables. Officers then deployed chemical grenades and pepper spray inside the chow hall, and again later in the outside yard, where the women were zip-tied and seated. One of the women, Christina Wind, was beaten by officers with batons, the outlet reports. Women suffered seizures, stroke and loss of eyesight, according to the same reporting.
Officers' Own Words, According to Internal Records
Internal documents obtained by KQED quote officers saying “put them down with gas” and “fun, fun, fun, baby” during the operation. Angelina Hernandez, who was present during the incident and is no longer incarcerated, told the outlet she still has PTSD. “There’s no amount of money that can fix what we went through that day,” she said. Hernandez added that she believes the agency should do more, saying, “I feel like [CDCR] should do a lot more,” and that officers involved in the incident “should be walked off.”
CDCR has described the mass use-of-force event as having led to the largest corrective action tied to a single incident in state history, per the agency. Three officers were fired over the incident, and 31 additional officers received discipline ranging from reprimands to temporary pay cuts, the station’s report notes. No one was criminally charged, and several of the disciplined officers are appealing the actions against them.
Settlement Terms and a Related Prior Case
Under the newly reached agreement, $7.45 million would be split among class members, while $2.5 million would go to the women’s attorneys. Mark Merin, who represents the women in the class action, said the episode was “a gross violation of constitutional rights.” The agency has not admitted fault in this suit or in a separate, earlier case tied to the same incident, and CDCR did not respond to a request for comment, per the outlet's reporting.
This settlement follows a separate $1.9 million agreement reached in March 2026 on behalf of 13 women injured in the same use-of-force incident, with individual payouts in that case ranging from $50,000 to $200,000, the station notes. Combined, the two settlements total nearly $12 million. If the new agreement is approved, claim forms and notices would be mailed to the 142 women represented in the class action, and a judge is scheduled to review the settlement on December 4.
A Pattern of Abuse Allegations at the Facility
A KQED investigation found that the mass use-of-force incident occurred amid a sharp rise in Prison Rape Elimination Act sexual-assault complaints at the facility, and five women told the outlet they believed the operation was intended to stop that increase in complaints. Documents obtained by the station do not show that the agency investigated those retaliation allegations. The facility's receiving and release yard, where some women were held, is normally used to process incarcerated people entering and leaving the prison.
The incident unfolded against a broader backdrop of scrutiny at California’s women’s prisons. A Justice Department investigation found an “unbroken pattern” of sexual abuse and retaliation in the state’s women’s facilities, according to KQED's reporting, and the department had launched a civil-rights investigation into staff sexual-abuse allegations at women’s prisons in both Chowchilla and Chino. An Office of Inspector General audit found that at least 279 women had sued CDCR, accusing at least 83 prison employees of sexual misconduct. In September 2026, the CCWF warden was transferred and demoted amid a new investigation into sexual abuse by prison officers, the outlet reports.
Use-of-force incidents are not rare within California’s prison system. According to the American Friends Service Committee, state prison staff documented 22,315 uses of force against prisoners from 2021 through 2023, including pepper spray deployed 11,751 times and tear gas used 113 times during that span. The Chowchilla case also echoes a far larger federal reckoning: in December 2024, the federal Bureau of Prisons reached a $115.8 million settlement — the largest in its history — with more than 100 women assaulted at the former Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, according to Prison Legal News.
