CASTAIC : 23 Inmates Hurt in Latest Brawl at Jail

In the third such incident in two days, a racial brawl ripped through part of a Castaic jail Monday, leaving 23 inmates injured, authorities said.

Fighting erupted about 2:15 a.m. in a medium- to maximum-security dormitory in the north facility of the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Ron Weber said. The cause of the melee, which involved nearly 100 black and Latino inmates, has not been determined.

The 25-minute brawl was quelled by deputies who lobbed five “sting balls,” which make loud noises and spray rubber pellets on impact but do not injure prisoners, Weber said. Deputies recovered 20 makeshift knives.

One injured inmate experienced breathing problems and was taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, Weber said. The others suffered bruises, cuts and puncture wounds and were treated at the facility clinic. The north facility was the scene of a similar disturbance eight hours earlier on Sunday evening, but Weber said Monday’s melee was an apparently unrelated incident that broke out in a different dormitory.