Inmate Sues Sheriff’s Dept. for Injury in Racial Brawl

A prisoner is suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging his civil rights were violated when he was injured in a racially based brawl at the Pitchess jail in Castaic.

Bryce Kelly contends in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court that sheriff’s deputies failed to adequately supervise a “racially charged” atmosphere at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho on the afternoon of Sept. 21, 1993. As a result, a riot erupted during which Kelly suffered a cut to his left hand that nearly severed four fingers, he said.

A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said he had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

The jail has been the site of numerous racially based fights, commonly between Latinos and African Americans. As of May 9, sheriff’s deputies had reported at least 52 fights at the jail this year, some involving as few as two prisoners and some as many as 1,000.

It was during a melee between African American and Latino inmates that Kelly, who described himself as belonging to both groups, was injured, said George T. Kelly, an attorney who represents Bryce Kelly, but is not related to him.

The lawsuit, which also alleges medical negligence and names County-USC Medical Center as a co-defendant, further contends that despite recommendations by medical personnel at the hospital that surgery be performed immediately on Kelly’s hand, six days passed before he was treated.

As a result, Kelly’s fingers suffered permanent damage and now curl into his hand, the suit said. He has lost about half the movement in the fingers, his attorney said. A decision by the Sheriff’s Department to send Kelly to County-USC for medical treatment, as opposed to a nearby hospital in Newhall, was also based on race, the lawsuit alleges.

Kelly, who is serving the remainder of his sentence at a different jail, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages and attorney’s fees.

Authorities have sought unsuccessfully for a way to prevent racially based melees at Pitchess such as the one Kelly says he was injured in.

So explosive were tensions at the jail earlier this year, that the American Civil Liberties Union, historically a staunch opponent of racial segregation, said in January that separating prisoners by race may be the only way to defuse tensions.