Prison Brawl Blamed on Arrival of ‘Snitch’

A prison riot that left 17 inmates injured at a private correctional facility in the Mojave Desert may have been triggered by the arrival of a jailhouse “snitch” just hours before, a transfer that countered normal safety protocols, a prison official said Wednesday.

A preliminary investigation suggests the riot, a violent brawl between white inmates and Latino inmates, broke out after the informant -- who is white -- was attacked in the prison yard, said Marvin Wiebe, a senior vice president of Houston-based Cornell Cos. Inc., which operates the prison.

The disturbance escalated into a riot because of a policy that bars guards at privately owned prisons from using force to quell a violent uprising, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. Unlike guards at California’s 33 state-run prisons, officers at the private lockups are not permitted to carry weapons.

Wiebe said that typically an informant would not be sent to a private prison, which lacks protective custody arrangements for such inmates.

“I’m not saying we don’t have some complicity in this, but it seemed like a questionable transfer,” Wiebe said of the placement of an informant at his low-security facility. “Normally, someone like that would go to a special custody yard.”

There was no “heads-up” from the other prison facility about the newly transferred inmate, which often happens with a prisoner who may merit special attention, Wiebe said. The white inmate had been transferred with three Latino inmates from the same facility.

Heimerich said it was “very unlikely” that the department had transferred a known informant to the Baker facility, noting that such inmates are nearly always placed in protective custody.

“I don’t see how they can speculate as to what the cause of the fight was, or the particulars,” Heimerich added. “It concerns me that they are, especially since there’s an investigation underway.”

Wiebe said his company plans to ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to direct the state inspector general’s office to investigate the incident at the Baker Community Correctional Facility.

“We really want to get to the bottom of this issue and we want it to be brightly lit by whoever wants to look at it,” Wiebe said.

The riot broke out about 8 p.m. Tuesday, starting as a fight between a few inmates and escalating into a 20-minute melee involving as many as 50.

Early reports suggest the white inmate was the target from the beginning, and that other white inmates were drawn in to protect him, Wiebe said. Broken broomsticks, mop handles, splintered table legs and other makeshift knives were used as weapons. Some inmates hurled rocks.

After the arrival of California Highway Patrol officers, the fighting stopped, prison officials said. “The prisoners knew what they could get away with -- the private contractors don’t have the experience or training to use force,” Heimerich said.

Two of the 17 inmates who were injured in the riot remained hospitalized in Las Vegas on Wednesday, said San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez. The most serious injuries were cuts, head wounds and internal injuries. Four of the inmates were taken by helicopter to medical facilities, she said.

The warden, Charles Ayres, said seven injured inmates released from a hospital Wednesday were questioned about the riot, then moved to the higher-security men’s prison in Chino.

Those inmates showed obvious signs of involvement in the riot. One man, who appeared to be in his 30s, was wearing blue jeans torn into slits at the legs. His left shin was bandaged and there were bloodstains on the back of his jeans.

Another man, in his 50s, suffered a badly swollen knot above his right eye and a deep gash atop his head.

At sunrise Wednesday, an armed, 16-member team from the state prison in Chino conducted a bunk-by-bunk, inmate-by-inmate search during a daylong lockdown.

State prison officials began escorting dozens of inmates from their cells to the courtyard, where the inmates were searched for weapons while their hands were secured behind them with plastic ties.

Many inmates were stripped to their underwear and forced to stand outside in the 40-degree weather before being allowed back to their cells.

One prison guard was holding a broken broomstick with a sharp end.

Ayres described the conflict as the first significant yard fight since the prison’s opening in 1988.

“We have all the gangs in here, but this was racial. ... It was Mexicans versus whites,” guard Joe Meridith said.

“Another prison got rid of their troublesome inmates. Where’d they send them? Right here. Three bad boys came here [Tuesday].”

Daniel Moore, another correctional officer who witnessed the disturbance, recalled it as “pure chaos ... inmates were running, throwing rocks, yelling.”

A fire began in a trash container inside a guard shack during the riot, but went out before spreading.

The prison is off Interstate 15 in the rural Mojave Desert community known best by Las Vegas-bound motorists for its large thermometer and string of small restaurants, including Bun Boy.

The 288-bed facility is a weathered collection of single-story structures with flat roofs that resembles an old elementary school, surrounded by high fences, rimmed with razor wire. It is where the California Department of Corrections sends it low-risk inmates, such as those convicted of drug possession or burglary.

Several of the inmates work in the California Department of Forestry’s Baker office, helping to fight fires and respond to traffic accidents.

“We’ve always known [the prison] was over there, but this makes you think,” said Adriana Alvarez, 27, a Baker native and waitress at Bun Boy.

“Everyone in [the restaurant] was talking about it this morning. Someone had [erroneously] said there had been a breakout. This does raise our concern.”

The Baker riot follows by about a month a fracas at a private prison in Eagle Mountain that left two inmates dead. Prison operators blamed that riot in part on an abrupt 50% turnover in the inmate population, which they said had contributed to escalating tensions at the facility.

At the time, the Department of Corrections confirmed the population shift but denied it had played a role in the brawl.

Heimerich said a “thorough post-mortem” will be conducted to determine if policies should be altered. Additionally, riot participants are subject to prosecution by the San Bernardino County district attorney.

Corrections officials say that the two riots are rare events and that private prisons have an excellent safety record in California.

Because they house mostly nonviolent offenders nearing the end of their sentences, the private lockups tend to be stable places, officials said.

The two deaths at the Eagle Mountain facility in late October were the first violence-related fatalities at any of the nine California prisons run by corporations.

By contrast, riots are common at the state-run lockups. On Thanksgiving, for example, two prisons -- one in Chino, one in Wasco -- reported brawls involving a total of 120 inmates. No one was seriously injured in those fights.

“These are almost daily occurrences for us,” Heimerich said.

“Because we can use force, we can generally put them down quicker than [guards at private prisons], who are essentially limited to persuasion.”

The Baker facility was on a list of five private prisons slated to be closed by former Gov. Gray Davis last year.

It was spared, along with a private prison for women in Northern California, but three others are scheduled to be closed at the end of the year, including Eagle Mountain, Heimerich said.