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| Calif. Prison Brawl Blamed on Arrival of 'Snitch' |
| By Los Angeles Times |
| Published: 12/05/2003 |
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A prison riot that left 17 inmates injured at a private correctional facility in the Mojave Desert may have been triggered by the arrival of a jailhouse "snitch" just hours before, a transfer that countered normal safety protocols, a prison official said Wednesday. A preliminary investigation suggests the riot, a violent brawl between white inmates and Latino inmates, broke out after the informant - who is white - was attacked in the prison yard, said Marvin Wiebe, a senior vice president of Houston-based Cornell Cos. Inc., which operates the prison. The disturbance escalated into a riot because of a policy that bars officers at privately owned prisons from using force to quell a violent uprising, said Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections. Unlike officers at California's 33 state-run prisons, officers at the private lockups are not permitted to carry weapons. Wiebe said that typically an informant would not be sent to a private prison, which lacks protective custody arrangements for such inmates. |
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