20 County Jail Prisoners Injured During Third Racial Brawl This Year

Twenty inmates were hurt in a racially motivated brawl among black and Latino inmates that broke out Wednesday in a holding tank at the downtown County Jail, sheriff’s deputies said.

The fight, which lasted about a half-hour, left eight of the 20 needing stitches and all inmates at the downtown jail confined to their cells, deputies said. It also resulted in some delay in proceedings at the County Courthouse.

Some inmates fought with makeshift knives, authorities said, but no law enforcement officers were hurt in quelling the fight.

“It’s not as big a deal as it’s been made to sound like, really,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Knox, a department spokesman.

The brawl was the third major fight to erupt this year along racial lines at the county’s crowded jails, but the first at the downtown jail. All three disturbances have been between black and Latino inmates.

A Jan. 8 riot at the Chula Vista jail left 27 inmates hurt and extensively damaged a cellblock. When it began, 113 inmates were being housed in a cellblock designed to accommodate 24 people, according to sheriff’s deputies.

A Jan. 25 melee at the El Cajon jail resulted in 12 injured inmates, three of whom suffered serious stab wounds. It broke out in an area that was designed with 24 individual cells but housed 100 inmates, according to deputies.

A national survey released last year reported that San Diego County jails are the nation’s most crowded, operating at 212% of capacity during 1988. An average daily prisoner population of 3,702 was squeezed into jails with an official capacity of 1,743, the survey reported.

The fight at the downtown jail erupted about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in a tank on the first floor of the jail, an area used to to hold inmates awaiting a transfer to other floors or an appearance at the courthouse across the street, Sheriff’s Sgt. Glenn Revell said.

The tank, designed for 120 inmates, held 168, Revell said. The crowding played a part in escalating what began as an argument between two inmates, one black and one Latino, he said.

“I’m not saying that started the fight or had anything to do with the initial cause of the fight, but, obviously, any time you put more people in an area than it is expected to hold, you’re going to have some tension, additional tension over and above that expected in a detention facility,” Revell said.

As the initial argument grew heated, other inmates joined in and “allied themselves along racial lines,” according to a statement issued by the Sheriff’s Department.

Some of the inmates were armed with makeshift knives, commonly formed from bunk beds and from bars used to fasten bunks to walls, Revell said.

After about 30 minutes, 15 sheriff’s deputies and six county marshal’s deputies, training water hoses on the about 40 inmates involved, broke up the fight, Revell said.

None of the eight inmates who received stitches needed hospitalization, Revell said.

Most of the inmates who had court dates already were out of the tank when the fight began, according to court staffers. But a handful of arraignments were delayed about 90 minutes, staffers said.