Violence Shifts From Street to Jails

As law enforcement officials investigate the outbreak of violence in Los Angeles County jails, clues might be found on the streets of some of the county’s toughest neighborhoods.

Communities in South Los Angeles hard hit by gang violence and racial conflicts have stayed relatively quiet -- even as the jails have been the scene of repeated clashes between black and Latino gangs, including new violence at the Men’s Central Jail late Tuesday.

The contrast between the rolling jail clashes and tranquillity on the streets has bolstered the belief of some local law enforcement officials that large-scale riots and fights in the jails might have been fueled by several recent crackdowns on warring Latino and black gangs.

It also belies the concerns of some elected officials that the violence in the jails might spill into the streets.

“The problem in the jails may be partly due to knuckleheads who usually strike out on the streets and are now mostly in the jails,” said Deputy Chief Earl Paysinger, who heads the Los Angeles Police Department’s South Bureau.

Paysinger pointed to an area of Baldwin Village that was the target of a joint LAPD-federal operation last year that sent many clashing Latino and black gang members to jail. The neighborhood, he said, has seen a significant downturn in crime and has not had flare-ups in recent days despite numerous reports of fights in the jails.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials last year also targeted a war between Latino and black gang members living in neighborhoods between Florence Avenue and Firestone Boulevard, just north of Watts. That operation sent 230 people to jail -- with 50 targeted gang members charged with murder, attempted murder or assault with a deadly weapon.

Sheriff’s officials said they are still trying to determine whether the riots are specifically tied to the recent spate of gang arrests. But Michael Gennaco, head of the Sheriff’s Department office of independent review, said it should be no surprise that the jails are getting more dangerous at a time when violent crime in the city of Los Angeles is rapidly declining.

“It is clear that the worst of the worst are in custody. The streets are safer than ever. Crime is generally down,” he said. “But the jails, thanks to that influx of arrests, are as tough as they’ve ever been.”

On the streets on South Los Angeles, residents have watched the jail violence with anxiety -- given that at least some of those involved are gang members from their neighborhoods. Still, there is much debate over whether there will be any spillover of the jail violence.

At La Brea Avenue and Rodeo Road in Baldwin Village, where the crackdown on gang activity occurred last year, Leonard Greer, 50, and his son Ian, 15, said they thought the racial problems in the jails did not translate into a proportional amount of racial strife outside.

“Most of us get along,” said the elder Greer, who is black. “We’re in the same club. We’re struggling, and when you struggle, sometimes there’s animosity and a tendency to take things out on each other.”

He said that because inmates end up incarcerated as “a result of breaking the law,” it was unreasonable to expect them to act like most law-abiding people.

“It goes beyond black versus Latino,” Greer said. “It’s spiritual. Man has been fighting with each other since the beginning of existence.”

But he said he took a different approach to living alongside people of other races. “We’re brothers,” he said.

At a nearby strip mall, friends Julian Huitz, 55, and Gilberto Salazar, 53, both Guatemalan immigrants, shared different perspectives of black-Latino racial tensions.

Huitz said that it was very probable that the fighting inside the jails would spill into neighborhoods.

Most of the violence in the jails has involved large groups of Latino inmates ganging up on black inmates, who are outnumbered in the jail system. Huitz said he fears black gang members might retaliate against Latinos on the streets.

“Latinos are becoming the biggest group, and I think many blacks resent that,” he said.

Huitz, who manages a laundromat in the neighborhood, said that as a rule he keeps his distance from black patrons.

“I don’t mess with them, and they don’t mess with me,” he said in Spanish.

Salazar shook his head and disagreed with his friend.

“Most people get along,” he said as a black security guard walked by and gave him a familiar pat on the back. “I don’t have a problem with them. The ones I know, I get along with and we talk.”

Salazar is skeptical that jail violence will touch his neighborhood.

“They’re jails. What do you expect?” he said. “Jails are filled with troublemakers and criminals.... I don’t think out here it’s as tense as in the” jails.

The jail violence has left two inmates dead and more than 100 injured. Authorities have said the clashes have their roots in gang feuds that developed on the streets of Los Angeles between Latino and black gangs. Investigators believe the largest of the riots, which occurred Feb. 4, was linked to Mexican Mafia prison gang leaders, who they said greenlighted Latino jail inmates to attack blacks.

Sheriff’s officials reported no new fighting as of late Wednesday afternoon. But Tuesday night, 100 Latino and black inmates at Men’s Central Jail fought. An emergency response team used pepper balls, tear gas, sting ball grenades, and a rubber bullet round to quell the fight, according to a Sheriff’s Department document. The fight left five inmates injured slightly and sent a fifth to the hospital for a pre-existing rib injury, sheriff’s officials said. Gennaco of the Sheriff’s Department said the department is struggling to keep up with the influx of violent offenders.

The morning briefings at the Sheriff’s Department illustrate the point, he said. The sheriff’s commander in charge of courts warned that about 20 homicide cases are slated for the Compton courthouse alone in the next few weeks.

Capt. Mike Ford, who runs the sheriff’s Operation Safe Streets anti-gang unit, said he had not heard of any direct ties between recent racial street gang battles and the jail riots. He said that though race was clearly a key factor in the jail riots, most conflicts between black and Latino gangs are usually over drug turf, not simply racial hatred.

“We’ve been arresting gang members for 30 years, and they make up a substantial portion of people in custody,” Ford said. “That’s been true for a long time.”

*

Times staff writers Stephen Clark, Megan Garvey and Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this report.