CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 16, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
After weeks of being kept apart in segregated buildings, black and Latino inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center are again sharing dormitory space--and again brawling. More than 20 men were hurt, two seriously, in a surge of well-coordinated attacks July 8 and 9 at the Castaic facility. The first set of fights was incited by African American inmates who previously had been unable to avenge the beatings they took as a group in April, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Cmdr. Steve Day.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 23, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Increased supervision. More Mexican food. Better vocational training. A sweat lodge for inmates to purify themselves. These were some of the ideas proposed Monday at a community meeting held to address the racial tensions and ongoing violence at the sprawling Pitchess Detention Center near Castaic. It was the first event of its kind, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, and it represented a new approach to solving problems behind bars.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 23, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
More Mexican food, a sweat lodge and better vocational training were among the ideas proposed Monday at a community meeting to address racial tension and violence at the Pitchess Detention Center near Castaic. It was the first event of its kind, said Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, and it represented a new approach to solving problems behind bars.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 11, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Black inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center are suing the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, claiming jail officials violated their civil rights by allowing race riots to continue year after year. According to the class-action suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court, sheriff's deputies subjected black inmates to life-threatening situations by not ensuring the dorms at Pitchess were racially balanced and failing to search for weapons.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 10, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
More than 100 Latino inmates at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic raised havoc again when authorities tried to re-integrate them with black inmates after two weeks of living in racially segregated dorms. Inmates on Monday night rammed steel bunk beds into walls, hurled milk cartons and rotten fruit at jail guards and barricaded themselves behind overturned beds when guards came to take them to an integrated dorm, said Los Angeles County Sheriff's Lt. Gary Sinclair.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 4, 2000 | JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Six men have been charged in the severe beating of an inmate during last week's racially charged riots at the Pitchess Detention Center near Castaic, the district attorney's office announced Wednesday. In the first criminal charges to arise from three days of chaos that left more than 80 inmates injured, authorities said the six Latino inmates attacked a 21-year-old black prisoner April 26, slamming his head into a concrete floor and cracking his skull.