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Black-Brown Inmate Fighting Spills Into the Streets: Officials Los Angeles Sentinel; 4/28/1994; James Anderson Los Angeles Sentinel 04-28-1994 Black-Brown Inmate Fighting Spills Into the Streets: Officials Discussing. Segregation of Prisoners by Race to Halt Confrontations A feud pitting blacks against Hispanics at Los Angeles County's largest prison has spilled into courthouse holding tanks and onto the streets. Segregating prisoners may be the only way to stop it, officials say. With broomsticks, homemade knives and anything else at hand, black and Hispanic inmates thrash it out with numbing regularity at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Ranch here -- home to 10,000 prisoners. Since January 1993, more than 300 inmates and a dozen guards have been injured. A melee in 20 prison dormitories in January forced guards to segregate several hundred prisoners for several days. With no end to the fighting in sight, authorities are considering permanent segregation as a last resort. "If there's no way to protect inmates then we'll have to segregate," said sheriff's Cmdr. Robert J. Spierer, head of the jail 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles. "It becomes a practical problem as well as a deeply disturbing philosophical problem." Reluctantly, the American Civil Liberties Union agrees -- as long as segregation is used only to protect prisoners, said ACLU staff attorney Sylvia Argueta. Explanations for the fighting are as numerous as the brawls themselves. Most often mentioned is a reputed move by the Mexican Mafia, the powerful California prison gang, to wrest control of the Southern California drug trade from black gangs inside and outside the prisons. The Eme (eh'-meh), as the mafia is known, has ordered Hispanic inmates to intimidate black prisoners -- particularly members of Crips gangs -- according to prison gang experts who spoke on condition of anonymity. On the streets, Eme told Hispanic gangs last year to stop drive-by shootings, ostensibly to end slayings of innocent bystanders. Violators would face reprisals, including death, the gangs were told. The order helped reduce gang slayings in Los Angeles County from 803 in 1982 to just over 700 in 1993, according to sheriff's Sgt. Wes McBride, a gang expert. But sheriff's officials say the Eme also was uniting Hispanic gangs to serve as its street drug sellers in neighborhoods formerly considered black gang turf. Gang experts believe the prison-based organizing drive contributed to a black-Hispanic gang war in Venice that claimed 11 lives and to fighting early this year at Compton high schools. The Pitchess fighting, said Michael Nunez, chief of police for the 29,000-student Compton Unified School District, is "kind of a barometer for what's happening in the community." One of Pitchess' biggest brawls erupted Jan. 9 in 600 Building at its maximum security North County Correctional Facility, one of five jail complexes at the 2,800-acre prison. As unsuspecting black inmates watched a Los Angeles Raiders football playoff game, Hispanic prisoners attacked without warning at exactly 3:55 p.m. in 20 dormitories. About 1,000 inmates brawled, and 80 were hurt. "It was supposed to be a green light put out on our race," said Ray Dailey, 24, a black inmate who faces a life sentence for murder. "It just exploded and everything went haywire." Joe, 31, a robbery convict who is Hispanic, also said there was a "green light" to hit black prisoners but didn't know where it came from. "Sometimes you can't offer a black guy a cup of coffee because our people will say, `What the hell is going on?" Joe said. "You always are going to have those problems in here." Fighting has erupted on buses shuttling prisoners to and from court and in courthouse holding tanks in Santa Monica, Pomona, Van Nuys and downtown Los Angeles. On Feb. 8, black inmate Etienne Moore was put in a Van Nuys courthouse cell with Hispanic inmate James Anthony Prado. They were there for separate cases and didn't know each other. But as soon as a deputy shut the door, Prado pulled a makeshift knife and jumped Moore, stabbing him 30 times, said Moore's attorney, Curtis Shaw. Moore, who survived, had been warned he could be attacked at the courthouse. "And it's for no other reason than skin color," Shaw said. Not all the fighting can be laid to a drug war. Black-Hispanic prison tensions have been simmering for years and partly reflect a changing population. Half the inmates at Pitches now are Hispanic and a third are black, and Hispanics are asserting their numbers, Spierer said. Rows break out over telephone privileges or perceived slights. And Hispanic gang leaders were angry that blacks attacked Hispanic motorists during the 1992 riots. Part of the problem, too, is prison design. Black and Hispanic inmates share 52-bed dormitories instead of cells at the North County jail, making lockdowns less effective. Temporary segregation cooled tempers somewhat, but permanently segregating Los Angeles County's 21,000 prisoners would be a logistical nightmare and possibly unconstitutional, Spierer said. Church services, jail buses, cafeterias and courthouse holding cells would have to be segregated and policed, and the sheriff's department doesn't have the manpower, he said. Joe, the robbery convict, said he thinks segregation is a good idea. "For one, you stop the racial thing," he said. Other approaches are being tried. Sheriff's officials want former football player Jim Brown to bring a youth accountability program to Pitchess. The ACLU wants to bring in mediators to resolve disputes. But Argueta, the ACLU attorney, conceded that "we have no control if inmates perceive there is an order from the outside." Shaw said he fears segregation is the only solution. "I never thought I would believe that it would be necessary. But I think for the safety of all parties, it's become the necessary evil," he said. News Topics | Home | Research | History | Blood Gangs | Crip Gangs | People| Life in a Gang | Gallery | Iraqi Cards | Memorial | Migration | Graffiti | Resume| Injunctions Homicides | Maps | California Prisons | Contact

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