Blacks and Latinos Brawl at Jail Camp; 10 Injured

For the eighth time in six months, black and Latino inmates at the county’s Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Saugus turned violent, slashing 10 prisoners with shards of glass in a fight over the use of pay phones.

Saturday night’s brief but bloody brawl, quelled by a special team of guards, was similar to the earlier fights, which authorities blame on an ethnic turf war.

At least 102 inmates have been injured, some critically, in nine racially motivated brawls at the facility this year.

Inmates have battled with such makeshift weapons as broomsticks and plumbing fixtures, ostensibly over such things as a card game or work assignment.

Phone use has sparked three of the dust-ups. Prison officials have said Latinos try to exclude blacks from using the bank of six pay phones.

Deputy Rafael Estrada said two men, a Latino and a black, touched off the most recent incident shortly after 11 p.m. by arguing over whether the black man could use the phone in the maximum-security dormitory.

The incident escalated as inmates gathered in a bathroom, using broken toilet fixtures to smash wire-reinforced windows. Razor-sharp glass shards were then used as weapons. At one point, all 129 inmates in the dormitory were fighting, Estrada said.

Before order was restored, 10 inmates had been slashed; one was also kicked in the head. The injured were treated at a hospital, then released.