Man Accused Of Attacking Nurse In Jail Will Face A Murder Trial

An inmate accused of killing a nurse in an unprovoked attack in Contra Costa County jail last October was ordered to stand trial for murder today following a preliminary hearing.

Aaron Nygaard, 35, of El Cerrito, has been charged with murder in connection with the death of Cynthia Palomata, 55, of El Sobrante, who he allegedly attacked with a lamp on Oct. 25, 2010.

Nygaard had been arrested that morning after an El Cerrito resident caught him burglarizing his home, police said.

He was taken to county jail in Martinez and was in the jail's intake area when, at about 4 p.m., he allegedly faked a seizure.

Contra Costa County Sheriff's Deputy Dana Sanchou said she interviewed another nurse who was working with Palomata the day of the attack.          

The nurse told her that Nygaard was thrashing around on the floor in front of a holding cell, but that he was clearly not having a seizure, Sanchou said.

He was sent to the nurse's station, where he admitted to a deputy that he had faked the seizure because he wanted to get out of the holding
cell he had been placed in, Sanchou said.

Palomata and the other nurse checked Nygaard's vital signs and began treating him for what appeared to be alcohol withdrawal.

When the second nurse went to tell a sergeant that Nygaard had not had a seizure and could be booked into jail, Nygaard allegedly grabbed a lamp off the desk, stood up and struck Palomata on the head with it, Sanchou said.
         
According to Sanchou, one witness, an immigration agent who was
booking other inmates into the jail, said he saw Nygaard swing the lamp at Palomata's head with both hands. The lamp shattered when it hit her and "she fell back like a statue and hit the ground," Sanchou said.

Contra Costa County sheriff's Deputy Jill Schwinn testified that she was searching a female inmate near the nurse's station when she saw
Nygaard strike Palomata with the lamp and then step over her body and start running.

She said she and other deputies chased Nygaard and ordered him to the ground, but he continued to be combative so they shot him with a Taser.

Palomata, who had worked as a nurse in Bay Area hospitals for 20 years and had worked at the Martinez Detention Facility for five years, was taken to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek, where she died three days later.

Prosecutor Barry Grove said outside the courtroom that Nygaard was originally from the Midwest, where he had a short criminal history, which included mostly alcohol-related convictions.

"He's a cold blooded murderer," Palomata's sister Cecille Schutzmann-Barraca said of Nygaard. "And my sister didn't deserve it."

She said she hoped that officials would work to make jails safer for the nurses and other employees working in them.

Schutzmann-Barraca, along with more than half a dozen of Palomata's family members, attended the hearing today.

Shortly after Palomata was killed, the California Nurses Association began working with Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley,
to introduce new legislation that would mandate better protections for nurses working in correctional facilities and other places where medical care is provided.
         
Liz Jacobs, a spokeswoman for the union, said today that the proposed bill failed in the state Assembly because of costs.

Union members are planning to discuss new strategies for the bill once the current legislative session is over, Jacobs said.

Nygaard, who is being held in Alameda County Jail, is scheduled to return to court Aug. 29 for an arraignment on the holding order.