10 Inmates Injured in Racial Brawl Over Size of Breakfast

Ten inmates at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic received minor injuries Sunday in a racial brawl that erupted when one inmate objected to another receiving a second helping at breakfast, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said.

The inmates were treated for cuts at San Fernando Community Hospital and County-USC Medical Center in Los Angeles and later returned to the county-run jail north of Santa Clarita.

The melee, in the jail’s north facility, broke out in a dormitory shortly before 7:30 a.m. after a white inmate complained about a black inmate getting extra food, sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Robert Stoneman said.

The argument escalated into a brawl, pitting about 50 black inmates against 27 whites, before a dozen deputies arrived minutes later to quell the violence, he said.

The fracas had halted by the time that deputies reached the dormitory, Lt. William Dunn said.

Deputies recovered several plastic spoons that had been sharpened to serve as weapons.

Most of the two dozen race-related brawls at the jail since June have pitted black inmates against Latinos, but the dormitory’s 19 Latinos abstained from the fighting Sunday, Dunn said.

“In this case, we happened to have a lot of white folks in the dormitory, and they became a faction,” Dunn said.

Several of the inmates were put singly in “disciplinary cells,” Dunn said, but there will be no transfers to other parts of the sprawling jail complex, as occurred after a series of brawls late last month.

In the past, violence has erupted after quarrels over card games, the use of telephones and even the sale of potato chips.