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| Questions raised after prison fight |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/19/2004 |
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A Southern Nevada prison was in lockdown last Thursday, two days after an inmate was fatally injured and 18 others were hurt in a rock-throwing melee in an outdoor recreation yard. High Desert State Prison will remain in lockdown until investigations by the state corrections and public safety departments are completed, said Howard Skolnik, assistant director of the Nevada Department of Corrections. Officers fired shotgun pellets toward the crowd of at least 60 medium-security inmates during last Tuesday's riot, which lasted 20 minutes before order was restored, Skolnik said. Four were taken to hospitals, where 25-year-old Joshua Muniz died of a head injury. Skolnik described the fighting between Hispanic and black inmates as "racial in nature" and denied the incident was a riot. The prison, 45 miles northwest of Las Vegas, holds more than 2,200 medium- and maximum-security inmates. Prisoner advocate Mercedes Maharis blamed administrators for allowing rival inmates in a yard where officials have expressed concern about an abundance of loose rocks. The union representing corrections officers, State of Nevada Employees Association Local 4041, has pushed for rocks to be removed from the yard and had filed a grievance with the state earlier this year over the issue. Warden James Schomig told a grievance committee that inmate work crews were assigned to pick up the rocks, and the panel ruled the problem was being addressed. |
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