Arizona Prison Racial Conflicts Leave Two Dead

A racial battle broke out Friday in an exercise yard at Arizona State Prison, and one inmate was stabbed to death and two others were critically injured before guards brought the melee under control.

The violence, which was related to the slaying Thursday of a white inmate, broke out in the medium-security South Unit at about 7:45 a.m. and was quelled 30 minutes later, Michael Arra, state Corrections Department spokesman, said.

About 200 of the unit’s 598 inmates reportedly were involved in the disturbance.

A black inmate was killed in Friday’s violence, and at least seven others were injured. Another prisoner was believed to have suffered a heart attack, but he was returned to the prison after being examined at a nearby hospital.

Black Inmate Stabbed

Arra said the melee began after a black inmate was stabbed outside the Ira Hayes Dormitory. The fighting escalated when whites on one side of an exercise yard charged a group of blacks on the other side.

Guards brought the situation under control by firing tear gas into the yard and six shotgun blasts overhead, Arra said. Other guards on horseback kept the inmates from mingling.

The unit’s Latino prisoners later were locked in their cells, while the blacks and whites were broken into two groups at opposite ends of the exercise yard, Arra said.

Corrections Director Sam Lewis arrived at the prison during the morning, Arra said, but Lewis is leaving it up to leaders of race-based prison gangs to stop the bloodshed.

Agreement Reported

“Leaderships of the groups have agreed they will bring this thing to an end,” Arra said.

Officials said the fighting Friday was in retaliation for the death of Paul Engle, 26, of Phoenix, whose throat was slashed Thursday. Engle was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang.

Officials were questioning Mark Osborne, 30, a black prisoner transferred into the Arizona system after being convicted of killing a prison guard in Kansas.

Arra said he was sure Engle’s death resulted from “an isolated, one-on-one incident” that was not gang-related.