Blacks, Latinos Brawl Again in Court Cell

A second brawl in two days between black and Latino inmates in the lockup of the Criminal Courts Building Downtown resulted in injuries to 11 inmates, including three black prisoners stabbed in the neck with a six-inch homemade knife, authorities said Tuesday.

Sixty inmates were involved in the five-minute melee that erupted at 7:45 a.m. in a holding cell on the 14th floor of the building at 210 Temple St., said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Irma Becerra. Deputies were able to break up the brawl without using force, she said.

“The inmates responded to verbal commands” from deputies, Becerra said, adding that a “six-inch shank” was found at the scene.

Four inmates were transferred to the jail ward at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, including the three black prisoners who were stabbed and one Latino prisoner who suffered a head injury. All were listed in satisfactory condition.

Seven others involved in Tuesday’s fight were treated for minor injuries by paramedics at the scene.

Although authorities did not disclose the exact cause of the fight, they said it was prompted by racial tension between black and Latino inmates. Sheriff’s Deputy Rich Erikson said the inmates involved were not gang members.

A fight between black and Latino inmates occurred at the courts building early Monday and resulted in minor injuries to three inmates. That incident lasted about four minutes and involved 20 of 47 inmates held in a 10th floor cell, deputies said.

The injured inmates suffered minor cuts and scrapes and were also taken to the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center. Two of the inmates were released Tuesday and the third remained in the hospital in satisfactory condition.

Despite the back-to-back fights, Erikson said that no additional security measures are planned at the courts building, where hundreds of inmates awaiting trial are held each day. He also said there are no plans to separate black and Latino inmates. Only inmates with a history of fighting will be held in separate cells in the courts building, he said.

Still, fights between black and Latino prisoners have escalated in the increasingly crowded Los Angeles County jail system, said Cmdr. Ken Bayless of the sheriff’s custody division.

The County Jail system includes nine facilities that handle about 20,000 inmates a day. Latinos make up about 47% of the jail population and blacks about 33%.

The Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic has been the site of numerous fights between black and Latino inmates. In 1993, there were 53 brawls, some of which involved as many as 800 inmates, at the facility.

“We’re doing everything in our power to try to prevent this kind of thing, short of segregating inmates,” Bayless said. “And, frankly, we’ve thought of that. But we don’t know if we’re ready to take that step at this time.”

Bayless said that some jail fights carry over from friction between black and Latino gang members on Los Angeles’ streets. He said deputies from the sheriff’s gang unit work closely with the county’s court services personnel to try to prevent potential fights.

“What happens on the street and what happens in jail are certainly related,” Bayless said. “Tensions are so high along black and brown lines that the slightest incident between two inmates often escalates into something more and both sides feel obligated to jump into the fray.”