18 Inmates Are Injured in Prison Riot

At least 18 inmates were injured and a building set on fire Tuesday night as about 100 prisoners rioted at a privately run state prison in the Mojave Desert on the outskirts of Baker, officials said.

It was the second riot in six weeks at a privately run prison in the Mojave Desert. The first, on Oct. 25 at a lockup in Eagle Mountain in eastern Riverside County, left two convicts dead and several with minor injuries.

In response to the violence that erupted about 8 p.m. Tuesday, officers from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Barstow Police Department, Mojave National Park and California Highway Patrol converged on the Cornell Correctional Facility.

A Fire Department spokesman said most of the injuries were stab wounds. Five prisoners were airlifted to hospitals for treatment, and 13 others were transported by ambulance. No police or correctional officers were said to have been harmed, and no prisoners escaped.

The riot started after two inmates started arguing in a yard where games are played, said Carolyn Jacobsen, a Baker businesswoman who said she talked by telephone with the wife of Charles Ayers, the Cornell prison warden.

“She told me one prisoner stabbed another,” and the widespread violence erupted, Jacobsen said.

Officials said order was restored within two hours and the fire was put out.

Jacobsen said the sounds of sirens echoed across the small town on Interstate 15, about 175 miles northeast of Los Angeles, as authorities rushed in to surround the facility on the eastern edge of Baker. The town is best known for a towering thermometer, visible for several miles, that often records midsummer temperatures near 120 degrees.

The 262-bed, medium security prison, which opened in 1988, handles prisoners under contract with the California Department of Corrections. There have been no previous reports of major prisoner disturbances.

Associated Press contributed to this story.