8 Inmates Hurt in Castaic Jail Brawl

A huge racial brawl involving 400 Latino and black inmates surged through Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic on Sunday, leaving eight inmates wounded, three of them seriously, authorities said.

The fracas began about 6:20 p.m. after a Latino inmate assembled some friends to find a black inmate with whom he had scuffled earlier in the day, reportedly over a gambling incident, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Robert Stoneman said. About 400 of the 1,750 inmates in the jail’s medium-security south facility then divided and fought along racial lines, spilling into the dormitories and the yard areas.

Fifty-five deputies from throughout the jail were dispatched to the south facility to contain the melee, one of the larger such incidents in several months. Deputies outfitted in riot gear were able to halt the fighting through verbal commands, without resorting to physical force, in about 15 to 20 minutes, Stoneman said.

They were assisted by 10 deputies dispatched from the Santa Clarita sheriff’s substation to patrol the south facility’s perimeter.

Three inmates received serious injuries, including head wounds, deep cuts and a possible broken jaw. They were taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, Stoneman said, adding that five other inmates with minor cuts and abrasions were taken to a hospital in San Fernando.

About 200 inmates were reassigned to other facilities after the violence. It was not immediately clear if they remained within the Pitchess jail.

The brawl occurred during a time when inmates are allowed out of their cells to use telephones or to exercise, Stoneman said. It was not clear whether the Latino inmate who assembled his cronies ever found the black inmate with whom he had quarreled.