Women Seek Segregation of Blacks in Castaic Jails

Janice Cooper’s son got slashed in the face so deep he could see bone. Evelyn Womack’s son was stabbed in the back with a homemade blade. Jennifer Usher’s son was jumped by 15 men and beaten with lunch trays.

On Tuesday, half a dozen mothers of inmates housed in Los Angeles County’s Castaic jails spoke out against what they say are dangerous conditions that leave African American inmates vulnerable to attack.

The women talked of their sons as though they were still boys and detailed their suffering in emotion-choked voices. With the support of community activists, they urged authorities to keep inmates segregated, saying that was the only way to keep their sons safe in a racially polarized environment in which African Americans are outnumbered.

“I know that people say segregation is not fair, whatever, whatever, but segregation is safer for our boys,” said Ethel Fuqua, the mother of an inmate.

Authorities concede that racial imbalances, with Latino inmates outnumbering African Americans 2 to 1, helped fuel last week’s riots at the Pitchess Detention Center in which more than 80 men, most of them black, were injured, some seriously. It was the worst fighting in years, authorities said.

In one dorm where blacks were outnumbered 60 to 5, a group of Latinos jumped Janice Cooper’s 19-year-old son and slashed him from lip to ear, she said. “Can you imagine how it feels to go and visit your son and see 43 stitches ‘cross his face?” Cooper asked. “Yes, he may deserve to be in jail, but my boy doesn’t deserve to be maimed.”

On Tuesday, more violence broke out, this time in the recreation yard at the Men’s Central Jail. Fifteen blacks and Latinos fought with each other, leaving three injured.

Joining the mothers at a news conference outside the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, former O.J. Simpson prosecutor Christoper Darden said he is considering legal action against the county.

“So many members of the black community are in the system and the county has the duty to protect them,” said Darden, who is now a private defense attorney. “If it takes segregation, then that’s exactly what the sheriff should do.”

Authorities say with such high turnover in the jails--the average stay is 41 days--it is impractical to designate dorm space by race.

“We don’t have the resources to run two separate systems based on race,” said Los Angeles County Assistant Sheriff Dennis Dahlman, who oversees custody issues.

Dahlman agreed to meet today with parents, their lawyers and activists. He said the plan is to re-integrate the inmates within a week but not to maroon small groups of blacks in dorms overwhelmingly dominated by Latinos. The inmates were separated by race last week after three days of brawling.

“The racial balance is something we constantly have to watch, but it’s difficult,” Dahlman said. “We don’t have enough blacks in the system to keep it 50-50. But when there’s too big a gap in the numbers, we get problems.”

Tension between black and Latino inmates is nothing new. Dahlman said he blamed the violence on the Mexican Mafia prison gang, saying it sent out an order of sorts for Latinos to attack African American inmates.

Pitchess is a sprawling compound of four jails, with most of the 10,000 inmates housed in dorms. In an apparently well-coordinated plan, Dahlman said, Latinos spread the word, on the exercise yard, via telephone and through notes, that if the ratio of blacks dropped below 40% in a dorm, Latinos should attack.

Sheriff’s deputies learned of the plans midday April 24. One telling sign was many Latino inmates were gobbling candy and other snacks, Dahlman said, something that happens before a big fight because candy is often smashed or stolen during brawls.

As deputies were entering one of the dorms to search for weapons, the Latinos “jumped off,” said Cmdr. Steve Day, who oversees the Pitchess facilities. That fighting ignited other dorms and soon involved 600 to 700 brawling inmates. It took dozens of deputies, armed with rubber bullets, tear gas and plastic “stingball” grenades to quell the violence.

Similar disturbances erupted the next two days, and sheriff’s officials said a 21-year-old black inmate remains in critical condition on life support after his skull was cracked.

Darden said it’s important to remember that many of the inmates have not been convicted of a crime.

“Many of these young men haven’t even been tried,” Darden said. “We can’t forget that they are sons and brothers and fathers to people who really care.”

Evelyn Womack cares so much, she said, she can’t sleep. Her 22-year-old son is in Pitchess on charges of possessing stolen goods. He was stuck in the back with a shank last week. Now Womack worries he may get killed by a Latino gang if the dorms are re-integrated.

“My boy was so scared he didn’t even know he was bleeding,” Womack said. “Won’t anybody do something to stop our sons from getting killed in there?”