Block Downplays Brawl at Lancaster Jail

Calling Thursday night’s jail disturbance “more like a rampage of malicious mischief than a riot,” Sheriff Sherman Block predicted that conditions at the Mira Loma facility in Lancaster would be back to normal by Sunday.

The disturbance began about 9:15 p.m. triggered by fighting between black and Latino prisoners, and escalated into rock throwing, breaking of windows and minor arson. It was quelled about three hours later by nearly 200 sheriff’s deputies, said Deputy Carl Deeley.

Block said Friday that neither inmates nor county officers were injured during the brawl, and no escapes were reported. In the early morning hours Friday, 15 prisoners were missing, but they were found later in the morning, he said.

The incident at the compound 75 miles north of Los Angeles involved a core group of about 200 inmates who hurled rocks at deputies, tore down an inner security gate and broke into the commissary, scattering cigarettes and candy, Deeley said.

“When it started, it involved a few inmates and expanded until it appeared that the entire inmate population was involved,” Block said in a press conference Friday.

About 650 of the jail’s 883 inmates initially refused to return to the barracks but later moved to a holding area awaiting the surrender of the rioters, he said.

At 3 a.m. about 700 prisoners were taken on county buses to the Los Angeles County Jail, a maximum-security facility in downtown Los Angeles, where they will be questioned over the weekend about their part in the disturbance, he said.

About 150 men were kept behind at the 25-acre Lancaster facility to clean up, Block said, and another 100 will be returned in the next few days.

The minimum- and medium-security jail houses mostly those convicted of misdemeanor offenses.

All but the “major troublemakers” will be back at Mira Loma by Sunday, Block said. Those determined to be instrumental in causing the riot will be “reclassified” and housed in a facility with tighter security, he said.

The Lancaster facility was built to hold 550 prisoners, but it is unclear whether overcrowding was a factor in the violence, deputies said.

Block downplayed the atmosphere of racial tension at the facility, saying that it is common during prison brawls for inmates to side with their own ethnic groups. He denied that racial disharmony was the sole cause of the disturbance.

Deeley said that disciplinary action taken earlier in the week by a sheriff’s deputy also fueled the tension at the 50-year-old facility at the edge of the Mojave Desert.

Deputies said that property damage was minimal. They said the women’s and juvenile compounds on the grounds were not involved in the disturbance.

Fires set in trash cans and mattresses burned themselves out and did not require the services of county firefighters, who were standing by during the confrontation, deputies said.

Despite the incident, Block said he did not see the need for operational changes at the jail, adding that this was the first disturbance of this kind at the facility.

“The operation there was worthy of the highest commendation,” Block said. “If you can conceive of 850 inmates in a situation like that and it is brought under control that quickly, without any injuries and a minimum of damage, I think there’s little that could be done to enhance the operation.”

Times staff writer Steve Braun contributed to this story.