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| Inmates are moved after riot kills 2 |
| By Los Angeles Times |
| Published: 10/29/2003 |
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More than 130 inmates have been transferred out of a privately run state prison in eastern Riverside County after a weekend riot there left two convicts dead and tensions at the low-security lockup unusually high. State corrections officials said a melee Saturday night at the prison in Eagle Mountain involved about 150 inmates and raged for 90 minutes before a warning shot fired into the ground by an off-duty correctional officer quelled the fighting. The deaths were the first violence-related fatalities at any of the nine California prisons run by private corporations under contract with the state, a corrections official said. The victims, both from Los Angeles County, died after being stabbed and bludgeoned by other inmates, according to early reports. Four other inmates wounded in the riot were taken by helicopter to hospitals for treatment, and 50 prisoners had less serious injuries and were cared for on site. No staff members were hurt. Dozens of Riverside County sheriff's deputies and officers from the two state prisons in Blythe were called in to help end the melee, which broke out in a recreation room while inmates were watching the World Series. Because officers at private prisons do not carry any weapons, they were forced, according to protocol, to retreat from the fighting until additional officers arrived. Warren Montgomery, who was called in to assist, said the fight was predominantly between African American and Latino inmates, and that prisoners of both ethnic groups, as well as some Asian and white inmates involved in the fighting, were moved to other prisons to prevent a recurrence. The riot is likely to rekindle debate over the use of private institutions to incarcerate some of the state's low-risk prisoners. Eagle Mountain and the eight other privately run community correctional facilities house about 3,600 inmates in all, mostly drug offenders, burglars, parole violators and other nonviolent criminals. The powerful state prison officers union has long opposed private lockups, over which it has no jurisdiction. Union leaders have argued that "prisons for profit" are less secure and that their staffs are not adequately trained. In a move described as a money-saving step, the state plans to close three of the private prisons in the coming year. Eagle Mountain is one of them, scheduled for closure Dec. 31. Because it involved homicides, the incident at Eagle Mountain is under investigation by the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. No one had been arrested in connection with the deaths by late Tuesday. |
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