12 Injured as 300 Inmates Brawl

About 300 inmates participated in a racially divided fight Monday morning at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, injuring 12 inmates and a sheriff’s deputy, authorities said.

Racial disturbances are common at the five-jail Pitchess facility, although most involve fewer inmates than Monday’s incident. There have been a number of large-scale fights this year, however, including an 800-inmate disturbance in mid-June and a 600-inmate brawl in early January.

Monday’s fight broke out at about 8:20 a.m. at the maximum-security North County Correctional Facility, said Deputy Brian Jones of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The cause of the disturbance is still under investigation.

Black and Latino inmates in seven of the facility’s 32 dorms fought with broken phones, shank knives, fruit and other items, Jones said. Two teams of emergency response deputies stopped the disturbance with pepper spray, two stingball grenades and two rounds from .37-millimeter guns that shoot plastic projectiles.

“One sergeant sustained a minor injury during the response when he was struck in the back by the fragments from a stingball grenade,” he said.

Two inmates sustained stab wounds and 10 others received minor injuries, Jones said. All were treated at the jail’s clinic.