Prison Assaults

Authorities used pepper spray to help end a racially charged fight among two dozen juvenile prisoners at Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu over the weekend, authorities said. The brawl began with name-calling between an African American and a Latino in the camp's dormitory about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, said L.A. County Chief Probation Officer Robert Taylor. The brawl lasted about an hour, and two staff members and several inmates suffered minor injuries. Twenty-three inmates were removed from the camp and housed at two other facilities, and one of the housing units sustained minor damage, Taylor said.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department has suspended three deputies and opened a criminal investigation into allegations that they assaulted a jail inmate and pepper-sprayed his genital area. The investigation started after Alejandro Franco, 23, alleged that jailers, upset because he swore at one of them, took him to an isolated place and assaulted him in November.

Thadd McNamara was at the helm of his motor home on a cross-country trip in 2005 when his cellphone rang and a neighbor gave him the news: His grown son, Sean, was in trouble with law -- again. McNamara and his wife turned around in Corpus Christi, Texas, and headed back home to Rolling Hills Estates. On the way, McNamara made several calls in an effort to piece together why his 41-year-old son had been arrested.

An 18-year-old incarcerated at a Los Angeles County juvenile probation camp suffered a serious neck injury earlier this month in a racially motivated attack that took place the day after a scathing federal report criticized unsafe conditions in the facilities, probation officials said Friday. Details of the Nov. 1 attack at Camp Fred C.

A federal jury Thursday awarded $210,000 in punitive damages to a former Los Angeles County Jail inmate who said sheriff's deputies repeatedly assaulted him in 1998. The verdict, returned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick J. Walsh in Los Angeles, came two days after jurors awarded inmate Anthony Albert Jimenez $155,000 as compensation for his injuries. Jimenez contended that deputies assaulted him on three dates at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility near downtown Los Angeles.

An inmate serving a life sentence for the stalking murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989 was stabbed repeatedly by another inmate Friday, state prison officials said. The slaying of Schaeffer, who was stalked for years before being shot at her Fairfax district apartment in Los Angeles, helped prompt anti-stalking laws. Her convicted killer, Robert John Bardo, 37, suffered 11 stab and puncture wounds Friday at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County.

After nearly a week of lockdowns stemming from gang violence, Orange County jails are expected to return to normal today, with inmates resuming their regular privileges, said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Damon Micalizzi. Last Friday night, guards broke up an altercation between rival gang members at the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange, the county's most populous jail with 2,770 inmates, Micalizzi said. There are 6,600 inmates in county jails.

Three former correctional officers at the state prison in Chino were convicted Monday of federal civil rights and conspiracy charges growing from an incident in which shackled inmates were thrown to the ground. Robert McGowan, 38, of Apple Valley was convicted of assaulting two inmates. He and two of his former colleagues, Thomas Ramos, 51, and Hector Flores, 39, were convicted of conspiring to cover up the incident.

A Los Angeles County probation officer who was fired for opening minors' cells and allowing them to fight with one another was indicted this week on felony child abuse charges, according to the district attorney's office. Diane Buchanan, 37, who had worked at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar, was arraigned Tuesday.

A death row inmate slashed a correctional officer at San Quentin State Prison on Wednesday, prompting a lockdown of the entire prison, authorities said. Inmate Richard Penunuri, 27, slashed the officer in the lower-left arm with a homemade razor-like weapon when the guard was removing Penunuri's handcuffs in his cell about 10:45 a.m., said Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.