28 Inmates Hurt in Brawls at Pitchess Jail
A total of 28 inmates were injured in two separate incidents at the Pitchess jail in Castaic this week in what Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials are calling two “major disturbances.”
Custody Division Chief Barry S. King characterized both disturbances--one Tuesday afternoon and the other Sunday night--as brawls between African American and Latino inmates.
The institution has been plagued by hundreds of black-Latino fights for several years.
The larger of the two fights occurred at 2:45 p.m. Tuesday in a dormitory in the maximum-security East Facility, and involved all 129 of the dorm occupants.
Three inmates were taken to County-USC Medical Center for stitches. King said the fight, apparently over an item of personal property, was halted after three minutes by sheriff’s deputies using stingball grenades.
At 8 p.m. Sunday, a fight erupted in a dormitory in the maximum-security North County Correctional Facility involving 71 inmates. Deputies halted it by ordering the inmates to stop.
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