SAUGUS : 10 Inmates Hospitalized After Melee at Jail

Another dormitory brawl has been reported at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Saugus, ending with numerous injuries to inmates and the hospitalization of 10 people, sheriff’s deputies reported Friday.

The fight broke out about 11 p.m. Thursday in a maximum security dormitory in the jail’s North Facility, Deputy Gabe Ramirez said.

The fight, like nearly all of the dozens of brawls at the jail in the last year, formed along racial lines after a group of African-American inmates accused Latino inmates of stealing money, Ramirez said.

Nearly all of the 94 inmates in the dorm took part in the melee, Ramirez said. The inmates used broom handles, crude knives called shanks and even telephones as weapons.

Deputies were able to quell the disturbance in seven minutes without entering the melee by using a loudspeaker to order the inmates to their bunks. Ten inmates who were seriously injured were treated in the jail clinic and later taken to County-USC Medical Center.