Sheriff Seeks Charges for 21 Inmates

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department will seek charges against at least 21 inmates involved in racially motivated rioting that has left two prisoners dead and more than 100 injured, officials said Thursday.

Seven are suspects in the death of Wayne Tiznor, 45, a black inmate who was killed during the first wave of violence, Sheriff Lee Baca said.

The others include 10 inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, and four at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles.

Those numbers are expected to grow as sheriff’s detectives put together cases and search for ringleaders, Sheriff’s Cmdr. Dennis Burns said.

Meanwhile, jail administrators tried to hold down racial tensions in the lockups by offering prisoners privileges in exchange for good behavior, and by encouraging them not to respond to exhortations from gang leaders to fight.

Prisoners have been on lockdown -- with few privileges other than standard medical care -- on and off since the melees began Feb. 4.

But Baca said that starting Thursday, inmates began receiving mail, and dorms where inmate life remained peaceful would soon have most if not all perks restored, including visits and phone calls.

Before restoring privileges, Baca said, the chief of the Custody Division, Sammy L. Jones, went to the dorms and barracks where inmates are housed at Pitchess and promised fair treatment for those who resisted violence.

“The chief was able to make a pact with them in each of the dorms,” Baca said, promising “if you do this, then we’ll restore privileges and we’ll allow for things to get back to normal.”

In a separate attempt to quiet things down, the department has moved most of Pitchess’ highest-risk offenders out of the large dorms where they lived, to single and double cells at the Men’s Central Jail and other places, the sheriff said.

Because the violence was racially based, the department also had separated inmates in some facilities by race. But by Thursday, most were again living in mixed dorms, Baca said.

Before charges against the inmates can be filed, Burns said, Los Angeles County district attorney’s office investigators must review prison videotapes of the disturbances and sift through other evidence, Burns said.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said no cases had been referred to the office yet.

“Nobody has been charged yet,” Gibbons said. “My understanding is cases will be presented on Tuesday.”

Baca this week described the killing of Tiznor, a convicted rapist in county jail on a parole violation, as a “hate crime.” Tiznor was attacked during a riot of 2,000 inmates at Pitchess’ North County Correctional Facility on Feb. 4.

Sheriff’s officials said the riot that day, which took deputies four hours to quell, began when Mexican Mafia prison gang leaders greenlighted Latinos to attack black inmates.

Baca, however, said investigators believe that at least three or four of the seven men who allegedly beat Tiznor were white and screamed “racial epithets” as they attacked him.

Homicide detectives said Thursday that they are still investigating the circumstances of the death of Sean Anthony Thompson, 38, a black inmate at Men’s Central Jail who died Sunday after a fight with three younger Latino cellmates.

Thompson complained of chest pains and shortness of breath after deputies broke up the fight. He died a short time later. His family said Thompson was a large man who had chronic asthma and high blood pressure. They said he had no history of violence. He was arrested last week after running a stop sign in Long Beach when police found what they believed was rock cocaine in his pocket.

Authorities said this week that Thompson was ranked as a moderate security risk. He apparently came to the aid of a 63-year-old black cellmate who was attacked by the Latinos, all of whom were ranked as high risks for violence when they were booked on charges such as robbery, committing a felony with a weapon and violating parole on an attempted murder conviction.