480 inmates brawl at Tehachapi prison; facility stays on lockdown
TEHACHAPI -- The state prison in Tehachapi remained on lockdown Friday after violent race riot broke out among hundreds of inmates, leaving three of them injured.
In all, 480 inmates went after each other in the common yard at 6:10 p.m. Thursday, said Mike Coghlan, a spokesman for the California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi, medium security facility.
The melee between black and Hispanic inmates lasted 40 minutes before guards were able to bring it under control using tear gas, pepper spray and non-lethal baton rounds from firearms, Coghlan said.
"This is a fairly large one," Coghlan said of the size of the brawl.
Three inmates were transported to outside medical facilities for treatment of head and spinal injuries. Three prison staffers also sustained minor injuries, including a staff physician who stuck himself with a needle while treating an injured inmate.
An investigation continued Friday into what circumstances sparked the incident.
The brawl came just a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state prisons cannot segregate inmates by race, even temporarily, except under the most extraordinary circumstances.
A spokesman for the California Department of Corrections saw no parallel between Thursday's disturbance and the issues addressed by the nation's high court.
"The Supreme Court case is centered around the reception center and this happened in the Unit 2 facility in the general population," said Todd Slosek, a CDC spokesman. "It's two different areas within the institution."
Two hundred of the inmates were transferred to other facilities in the state to help quiet things down, prison officials confirmed.
The Tehachapi prison is located about 40 miles east of Bakersfield.