Lancaster Prison Locked Down After Riot Hurts 10

A maximum-security area that houses 1,000 men at the California State Prison in Lancaster remains locked down as authorities try to learn the cause of a brawl there among more than 120 inmates.

The violence erupted July 29 in an outdoor exercise yard when large groups of Latino and white inmates “rushed toward each other” and began fighting, Lt. Carl Carson, prison spokesman, said Tuesday.

Guards ordered the inmates to the ground and used pepper spray to end the fight within minutes, Carson said.

Ten inmates were injured in the brawl. One of the men, whose jaw was broken, was treated at Antelope Valley Hospital and returned to prison the same day, Carson said.

The others, including two men who were stabbed, were treated at the prison.

Ethnic and racial tensions are common throughout the state prison system. In February, a bloody race riot involving Latino and African American inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison ended with guards shooting prisoners, killing one. Last year, an inmate was shot by guards at the Lancaster facility during a brawl between about 100 white and Latino prisoners.

At the county level, repeated fights involving Latinos and African Americans have roiled the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic throughout the spring.

“It’s a reflection of the frustration in there,” said Anita Hartman, whose husband is an inmate at the Lancaster prison. “You cannot put a bunch of people in prison and give them nothing to do. That’s how violence happens.”

Inmates are not officially segregated by race in the state prison system, but they tend to stick to their own groups, said Bob Martinez, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. “They self-segregate by race. It’s part of survival in the facilities.”

The brawl was not reported to the media because it was viewed as an internal matter and not something that affected the community, such as an escape, Martinez said.