Pitchess on Front Line of Jail Race War

The word passed quietly through the jailhouse, from visitors to inmates, then on to other inmates: The Mexican Mafia wanted its minions to “get the blacks” at exactly 3:55 p.m. as they watched the Raiders playoff game.

And when the time came, Allen (Chivo) Gonzalez and his homeboys went to work.

Far outnumbering the black inmates in their maximum-security dormitory at the Peter J. Pitchess jail, the Latinos swarmed toward them with homemade “shank” knives and broom handles, beating the blacks into a corner, where they fought for their lives.

The attack eight days ago was unlike the hundreds of smaller, apparently spontaneous jail riots in the past, sparked by fights over cigarettes, pay phones and the like. This one was planned, authorities have confirmed, and the aggressors were organized.

“We heard the word that we were supposed to jump them, so we let them have it,” said Gonzalez, who at 18 is already headed to state prison for attempted murder and armed robbery.

There is a race war going down in the Los Angeles County Jail system, and the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, as it is officially named, is the front line. It is a war that inmates, authorities and sociologists say is but one symptom of a black-vs.-brown gang power struggle over drugs and turf that has reverberated through state prisons, the streets of Venice and other parts of the county.

And, inmates, deputies and sociologists say, it is a war that may be unstoppable.

It has erupted in jail dormitories and court lockups, on buses and in jail workout rooms and cafeterias from Santa Monica to Pomona. But the largest conflict to date--the largest in County Jail history--was the Jan. 9 melee at the Castaic jail’s maximum-security North County Correctional Facility, where Gonzalez was among as many as 1,000 inmates who began to battle as the Raiders coasted to victory over the Denver Broncos.

“It’s gonna happen again and again and again,” Gonzalez said last week, turning to grin at his Latino cellmates as they flipped gang signs in Dormitory 611. “That’s just how it is.”

“Now,” he said, “it’s either them, or you.”

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Once inclined to fight gangsters of their own race, blacks and Latinos are now squaring off in the cramped confines of incarceration and lashing out at each other with unprecedented ferocity. Authorities are at their wit’s end, trying to buy time with racial segregation, shows of force, discipline and lock-downs.

“We have a tremendous problem here,” acknowledged Pitchess Cmdr. Robert J. Spierer last week.

Paul Myron, chief of the Sheriff’s Department’s Custody Division, which oversees all jails, confirmed Friday that the agency is actively investigating tips and intelligence information that the riot was sparked by visitors affiliated with the Mexican Mafia, who passed on the directive to Latino inmates.

The attack went off in two buildings at once--instantly spreading from one 50-man dorm to another. Overwhelmed deputies in riot gear tossed in “stingball” grenades, trying to regain order from their safe haven outside the bars.

It wasn’t until eight hours later that the fighting at the mammoth facility 39 miles north of Los Angeles finally ended. Eighty inmates were injured, 24 of them requiring hospital treatment.

Since then, fights have been a daily occurrence at North County and the use of pay phones and other privileges have been halted “until they start acting like human beings again,” Myron said. Visiting hours were canceled over the weekend.

A chilling foreshadowing of last week’s violence came before Christmas, Myron said, when a member of the fearsome Black Guerrilla Family prison gang was viciously attacked by Mexican Mafia cohorts in the maximum-security Pelican Bay prison near the Oregon border.

“That, possibly, was the first signal that the attacks on blacks was beginning,” Myron said. “They want to show that they can do what they want to do, and that one group is superior to another.”

Fearful of another assault, deputies in riot gear prowled the sprawling Pitchess facility all last week, randomly searching inmates, their bunk beds and common areas for homemade weapons.

“They’re quite ingenious,” said Deputy Robert Harms, holding up deadly looking knives fashioned from plastic toothbrushes and metal shoe supports. “They find things we overlook.”

Troublesome inmates are being sent elsewhere, mostly within the County Jail system. And, slowly, deputies are trying to re-integrate inmates.

But re-integration is exactly what many inmates don’t want--especially the African Americans, who are outnumbered nearly 2 to 1.

Alonzo Hicks, 42, was one of many black inmates who told Spierer that Latinos would cause more bloodshed if the races aren’t kept separate.

“They are arming themselves, and there is animosity,” Hills said in an interview. “I’m concerned about making it out of here alive.”

Gonzalez and other Latinos said they would prefer remaining separated too, that they dislike blacks and are just following orders to fight. They believe orders come from veterano gangsters, including the Mexican Mafia, to settle the latest killing or affront.

“That’s just what I heard,” Gonzalez said. “We bomb on them, or we get bombed--by our own, if we don’t take care of business. . . . You have to do it. You just do.”

In an open letter to prison authorities last week, more than 50 black inmates said sheriff’s deputies who patrol the jail are exacerbating the situation by forcing them to re-integrate and baiting them with racial slurs. Written by inmate Clyde Hayes, the letter said: “ . . . organized confusion, which is being fueled by the sheriffs . . . jeopardizes the lives of blacks.”

Hayes, like other inmates, said in an interview that the situation is superheated now because sheriff’s officials have long ignored the root causes of the racial tension, including overcrowding and dwindling programs to keep inmates busy.

“They should be trying to establish lines of communication between the blacks, Latinos and sheriff about why this is happening,” said Hayes, 27. “But nobody is doing it.

“Now,” he said, “somebody is gonna die. We’re tired of playing these silly-ass games.”

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Whites, greatly outnumbered, try to stay on the sidelines. “I’m terribly worried,” said Igor Russo, 33, who is in jail for failing to complete community service work. “I’m scared for my life.”

Racially motivated fights and riots have been commonplace in the nation’s largest county jail system for years. More than 400 inmates were injured in 57 racially motivated riots last year alone, Spierer said.

In the past, sheriff’s officials attributed the violence to the power struggle that evolved as jail demographics changed. Blacks used to control the jails, but by 1991 found themselves outnumbered by Latinos 40% to 37%. The disparity has continued to grow ever since.

Now, with the fighting escalating from sporadic scuffles to organized violence, the Sheriff’s Department has quietly enlisted the help of outsiders--top black and Latino church leaders and, last week, the American Civil Liberties Union.

It even asked the ACLU, which monitors jail conditions, to help examine whether inmates could be segregated by race. ACLU leaders say they are seriously considering supporting the idea, even though it would represent a major policy shift.

“We sat around . . . and nobody had an answer,” said Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU’s Southern California office, of last Tuesday’s meeting with sheriff’s officials. “Even if we were to agree that segregation was acceptable under these circumstances . . . what do they do when these inmates go on buses to court? What happens in the lockups in the courts and the holding cells? It is a terrible, terrible situation.”

Like ACLU leaders, Father Gregory Boyle--whose East Los Angeles gang ministry has won the trust of Latino gang members--said he thinks segregation may be necessary, at least temporarily. The Sheriff’s Department has sought his counsel as well.

“Boy, I think it’s gotten bad,” he said, after talking by phone with one of the dozen or so inmates he keeps in touch with each day. “Any way we can get this at the roots and resolve it inside (jail) so it doesn’t bleed out onto the streets is what we need to do.”

Sheriff’s officials in the past have opposed jail segregation, which is not prohibited by a specific law but could be challenged under other integration statutes, they believe. They also say it would be impossible to enforce.

“We live in an integrated society, and I think it sends the wrong message and says too much about our failure if we can’t deal with this in an integrated setting,” Spierer said. “We need to find a way to deal with it rather than throw our hands in the air and say we are giving up.”

Sheriff’s officials are considering reconvening a 1991 task force that recommended fundamental changes in the way the Pitchess jail is organized and administered, Myron said.

But, as in the past, few department officials hold out hope for an imminent solution. “As earnest as they were in their suggestions,” Myron said of the panel, “nothing we tried worked.”

Inmates and other critics counter that the Sheriff’s Department hasn’t tried hard enough, that it has long ignored festering problems that created a tense atmosphere in which inmates are quick to rumble.

In 1991, the Sheriff’s Inmate Disturbance Task Force recommended a system of “progressive housing” that would reward inmates for good behavior with better living conditions. But two years later, that system is just beginning to take shape, mainly due to tight budgets, officials say.

Some outside experts called for inmate councils that can bring problems to jail officials. Myron says that idea was tried and discarded as ineffective.

And such experts as Ed Koren of the National Prison Project in Washington, D. C., say dorms like those at Pitchess, which each house as many as 130 inmates, are fertile ground for racial tensions and rioting.

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In the dorms, blacks and Latinos kill time side by side, and the most minor slight is visible to everyone. Locking down dorms only means cooping the combatants all up together. That was clear on Jan. 9.

“It was not a pleasant sight, when you think you’re running a jail, and three hours after the incident started you realize you don’t have control,” Myron said.

He said most of the dorms at Pitchess were built before overcrowding kicked loose all but the most violent criminals, who land at Pitchess to serve County Jail sentences or await trial or sentencing before heading off to state prison. Built to house 6,000 inmates, Pitchess now holds 10,000.

And although the dorms and group barracks were not meant to house the accused murderers and other intractable offenders who now reside there, Myron said, scrapping them for more manageable cells would be astronomically expensive.

Many other improvements have been slowed or dropped by the lack of money. “We’ll just have to struggle through with what we’ve got and do the best we can,” Myron said.

Inmates have laughed at the mere suggestion of some other programs, including racial sensitivity classes. Nevertheless, 1,700 more inmate beds are set to come on line in Lynwood this spring. Sheriff’s officials say they are planning another safety measure: a money-less credit system so inmates can buy food and supplies without the fear of extortion from other inmates.

Deputies randomly interview inmates each week trying to uncover conflicts before they explode and have posted anonymous complaint boxes throughout the jails.

The county’s jail inspection commission, which advises the Board of Supervisors, plans to meet Wednesday to discuss the recent riots at Pitchess. It has asked Sheriff Sherman Block to report on the situation, and members want to tour the facility “when it’s safe,” said Commissioner Jim Cragin.

Myron also confirmed that an internal investigation is under way into allegations that at least three deputies engaged in misconduct toward inmates during or after the Jan. 9 riot that could have exacerbated the situation.

But some say all the money in the world wouldn’t solve problems that sheriff’s officials say come from the street and society.

“The Latinos want the power” in the jails, said the ACLU’S Ripston. “And they are going to take it.”

But blacks say they will relinquish nothing without a fight. “This ain’t about gangs. It’s about blacks versus Mexicans,” said Clyde Hayes, the author of the letter from black inmates. “There’s gonna be another riot. There’s gonna be a riot from now on.”