CASTAIC : 21 Injured in 3 Brawls at Pitchess Jail Facility

Three racial brawls among inmates at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic led to 21 injuries this week as prisoners fought with telephone receivers and broken broomsticks, authorities said.

The fights, which broke out in three dormitories at the facility’s maximum-security East Facility, were quelled within minutes by sheriff’s deputies, a spokesman said. In each case they pitted black and Latino inmates against each other, he said.

Three inmates were treated for hand, shoulder and back injuries, and taken to hospitals. The others were treated for minor cuts and lacerations at the jail’s medical clinic.

Forty deputies from the Sheriff’s Department’s Emergency Response Team used pepper spray and two “stingball” grenades to break up one melee after about 10 minutes, sheriff’s spokesman Rich Erickson said.

“These kinds of things are almost always set off by little things, and even though they involve large numbers of people, the inmates usually stop as soon as deputies arrive,” Erickson noted.