2 Minority Group Leaders Seek to Ease Inmate Tensions : Violence: They plan to talk to Sheriff’s Department officials about the recent racially motivated clashes between blacks and Latinos at county jails.

Disturbed by a recent series of violent outbursts between black and Latino inmates at Orange County jails, two leaders of the minority communities said Wednesday they plan to try to defuse tensions there.

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Eugene Wheeler, president of 100 Black Men of Orange County, and Amin David, chairman of Los Amigos of Orange County, a Latino civil rights advocacy group, said they conferred Wednesday morning about the racially motivated clashes and will talk to officials of the Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jails.

“We are very alarmed about it. . . . I think all of us feel it is senseless,” Wheeler said of the racial clashes at the jails.

David said he and Wheeler intend “to express our concern and find out what is happening. One of the options we will consider seriously is requesting the grand jury to look into this.”

Wheeler said he believed that the jailhouse strife may relate to a videotape televised Aug. 2 that showed a black Compton police officer beating a Latino youth with a baton after the latter confronted the officer during an investigation. The video stirred allegations of police brutality.

Noting that the outbreak of jail violence occurred soon after, Wheeler said the videotape “seemed to have heightened the antagonism (prisoners in the county jails) have against each other.” The Orange County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday released a summary of 10 racially motivated confrontations between inmates that occurred over two weeks this month at the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana and the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange.

Lt. Dan Martini, who wrote the report, said all the incidents followed a pattern of strife between groups of blacks and Latinos. He credited the fast reaction of the jail staff for preventing major injuries.

Assistant Sheriff John (Rocky) Hewitt said overcrowding at county jails probably has played a role in the fighting, though officials have not found a specific cause for the disturbances.

Hewitt noted that while the Orange County Jail system was built to house 3,203 prisoners, on any given day there are more than 5,000 inmates. Last week, he said, there were 5,300.

“When you have a situation where you have overcrowding, any incident can trigger” fighting, he said.

Activists in the Latino community also blamed overcrowding.

“The failure of the Board of Supervisors to provide adequate jail space in the county is leading to these kinds of racial tensions,” said Art Montez, president of the Santa Ana chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

According to Martini’s report, the first fight broke out the afternoon of Aug. 8 among black and Latino inmates on a Sheriff’s Department bus, followed by a second clash that evening among about 40 black and Latino inmates, in a dormitory at the Central Men’s Jail.

During dinner on Aug. 11, the report said, a black inmate complained about a green tint in his mashed potatoes and burns on his mouth. Jail officials said a Latino inmate may have put a caustic chemical in the food, the report said.

Another disturbance occurred during an evening meal Aug. 13 at the Central Men’s Jail when some Latino inmates shouted racial slurs at blacks.

At breakfast the next day fighting broke out. By the time deputies in riot gear stopped the fighting, 30 inmates had suffered minor injuries. Two staff members suffered minor cuts or scratches when they were struck by food trays.

Two other disturbances occurred in the following days.

The unrest spread to the Theo Lacy jail by Aug. 17, the report said, when deputies there intercepted a note indicating that Latino inmates were planning to attack black inmates in retaliation for the attacks at Central Men’s Jail.

That evening, about 30 Latino inmates attacked about 15 blacks in a day room. Four inmates were treated for minor injuries.

Other disturbances followed in the next few days.

The report concluded that “the jail environment houses criminals with backgrounds of non-social behavior. This behavior does not improve inside the jail system where living conditions are crowded and tempers short.”

Martini said it “would be ludicrous” to try to segregate prisoners by race for their protection. Also, he said he doubted that it would be feasible to change racist attitudes among inmates.

“I don’t think we could negotiate an agreeable and non-combative attitude among the races in these institutions,” he said.