35 Hurt in Race-Related Brawl at Jail : Prisoners: The melee was sparked by an argument over use of a telephone at the Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic. All of the injured were inmates.

By JIM HERRON ZAMORA

Sept. 2, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

An argument over use of a telephone sparked a race-related brawl early Sunday that left 35 inmates injured at a Los Angeles County jail in Castaic, sheriff’s deputies said.

The incident at the maximum-security north wing of Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho is the fourth racial melee at the prison this summer. It began at 12:30 a.m. and was quelled about an hour later by deputies in riot gear, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Rich Erickson.

Deputies downplayed any link among the four fights, saying violent outbreaks are common in prisons. “They’ll fight at the drop of a hat,” Erickson said. “You’re looking at hot-tempered people in a confined situation.”

Because of short staffing during the holiday weekend, he said, he could not obtain comparative statistics for past years.

In Sunday’s incident, no deputies were hurt and all of the the injured inmates were listed in good condition. Thirty-two inmates were treated for stab wounds and cuts at the County-USC Medical Center jail ward and later transferred to the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, Erickson said. Two inmates were taken to San Fernando Community Hospital and one was treated at Henry Mayo Newhall Medical Center in Valencia, all for concussions, he said.

The brawl in a dormitory was sparked by an incident Saturday in which a Latino inmate and black inmate argued over telephone use, Erickson said. The six phones in the dormitory are used by inmates on a first-come, first-served basis.

“They had told the deputy that the dispute was resolved,” Erickson said. “It turns out that after a new shift of deputies came on duty they got into a fight, which quickly escalated into a brawl.”

All 92 prisoners in the dorm--some wielding crude knives, called shanks, fashioned from toothbrushes, sharpened metal scraps or shards of shattered fluorescent light bulbs--joined in the conflict, he said.