Pitchess Jail Fight Involves 600 Inmates : Violence: Guards fire rubber bullets to end brawl using homemade knives and broomsticks. Eighty are injured.

More than 600 Latino and African American inmates battled with homemade knives and broomsticks in maximum-security dormitories at Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho on Sunday before dozens of jail guards firing rubber bullets broke up the melee, authorities said.

Eighty inmates were injured, including 24 who were hospitalized with stab wounds, severe cuts and head injuries. No jail deputies were hurt in the incident, which officials described as one of the biggest brawls in recent years in the county jail system.

Deputies said the fighting broke out simultaneously at 20 separate dormitories at 3:55 p.m. Sunday. Inmates battled for 25 minutes with jail-made knives, broomsticks, “anything they could get their hands on” before deputies could subdue them, said Benita Hinojos, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Hinojos said the cause of the brawl is under investigation but would not speculate on the possibility that the fight was prearranged.

“The investigation into the exact cause is ongoing and possible disciplinary, criminal charges and transfers are pending,” she said.

Sixty to 75 deputies fired rubber bullets and pellets from shotguns and rifles and tossed grenade-like bombs containing rubber pellets to stop the fights, Hinojos said.

Deputies at the nearby Santa Clarita station were placed on standby in the event that the scuffles erupted again.

Four of the most seriously injured inmates were taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita, and about 20 others were taken to the hospital ward at the Men’s Central Jail in Downtown Los Angeles, Hinojos said. Another 50 inmates were treated at a clinic at the Pitchess facility.

“We’ve had problems in areas where inmates congregate, but never one with this many inmates actually fighting,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert Stoneman.

Jail officials said that although they didn’t know if the fight was prearranged, inmates can see inside the five dorms where the brawls erupted, so that inmates in one dorm could join a fight that broke out in another.

“There is visual contact between the dorms and (inmates) hear radio traffic. When deputies respond to a disturbance, they know it,” Hinojos said.

Racial differences were identified as the primary motive in most of the facility’s 53 reported inmate clashes last year, prompting some administrators to consider separating inmates by race.

Racially tinged fighting among inmates also broke out on consecutive days last week in the holding cell Downtown at the Criminal Courts Building.

“We’re doing everything in our power to try to prevent this kind of thing, short of segregating inmates,” Cmdr. Ken Bayless of the sheriff’s jail division told The Times.

“And, frankly, we’ve thought of that.”