32 Youth Camp Inmates Transferred After Brawl

A dispute over a can of spray-paint may have ignited racial tensions and led to a brawl at the Fenner Canyon Youth Conservation Camp, resulting in 10 inmates being treated for injuries at hospitals in the Antelope Valley, authorities said Friday.

Thirty-two inmates--mostly Latinos and Asians--who were involved in the Thursday night melee at the minimum-security firefighting camp near Palmdale were transferred Friday morning to a maximum-security youth training facility in Chino, said Simon Cabrera, Fenner assistant superintendent.

Cabrera said 26 inmates, ages 18 to 25, fought in the brawl that broke out in the television and recreation room in the camp’s dormitory, where the camp’s 118 inmates live. Six other inmates took part by encouraging the fight, he said. All could face disciplinary action after an investigation of the incident, he said.

Staff Uses Mace

Six of the camp’s seven staff members rushed into the dormitory room and used Mace to break up the fight at 8:30 p.m., Cabrera said. Eight Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies also were called to the camp in Llano, east of Palmdale, to help quell the disturbance. The combatants used mop handles, chairs and wooden clocks, which are made by inmates, as weapons during the 10- to 20-minute fight, officials said.

“We have never had a group disturbance like this before,” Cabrera said.

After the fight, 10 inmates were taken to Palmdale Medical Center and Antelope Valley Hospital in Lancaster. All were released after treatment for bruises and cuts. Their names were not released. No staff members at the camp were hurt.

Cabrera said the brawl was a “racial disturbance” that may have been rooted in an incident earlier this week when staff members searched the dorm for a missing can of spray-paint. Inmates had taken the can so they could spray the paint into rags and sniff it, he said.

Hid Can Under Bunk

Cabrera said that a Latino inmate apparently hid the can under an Asian inmate’s bunk. “The Asians thought they were getting set up,” he said.

After the search, Asians and Latinos argued. On Thursday night, two Asians assaulted a Latino in the recreation room, Cabrera said.

A fight then broke out with nine Asians, 15 Latinos, one white and one black joining in, Cabrera said. He said that as the melee began, staff members rushed into the room and locked the doors from adjoining dormitory wings. But inmates from one of the wings were able to run out an exit, around the building and through another door into the recreation room to join the fracas, he said.

The staff members sprayed Mace on the inmates when they refused commands to stop fighting, Cabrera said.

Firefighting Crews

The 10-year-old camp, operated by the California Youth Authority, provides firefighting crews that aid fire departments battling forest and brush fires throughout the state. Inmates assigned to the camp, including many gang members, were convicted in juvenile courts of mostly nonviolent crimes such as car theft, burglary, drug offenses and weapons charges.

Cabrera said the brawl was particularly disturbing because racial tensions had not previously been exhibited at the camp, where teamwork is stressed as a means of safety while fighting fires. He said many of the same inmates who fought each other Thursday had played on a camp soccer team and had worked as members of the same line crews while fighting forest fires near San Diego and Big Sur this summer.

“They had been working as a team for the longest time before this,” Cabrera said.