This story is taken from News at sacbee.com.
6 inmates hurt in melee at Folsom prison
By Andy Furillo -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published June 22, 2004)
Four inmates were seriously injured and two were hospitalized over the weekend after "Southern Hispanic" and white convicts clashed in Folsom State Prison's most violent outbreak in more than two years.
Saturday's 6 p.m. riot took place in Folsom's dining hall when a Southern Hispanic inmate who was being led to the prison's administration segregation unit - after taking part in an earlier fight - shouted out an instruction that set off the meal-time melee.
"He yelled something out in Spanish," prison spokesman Lt. Bob Trujillo said Monday. "I don't know who he was yelling to, specifically, but he just yelled out and it immediately erupted into a giant fight."
Trujillo said 40 inmates between the two factions traded punches and kicks - no weapons were involved - before prison officers quelled the violence with their batons, pepper spray and rubber block pellets.
The six inmates were treated for head injuries and all were returned to their cells, including the two who were taken to hospitals outside the prison for observation, Trujillo said.
The fight represented the single-worst episode of violence at Folsom since an April 2002 riot in which Southern Hispanic inmates launched an assault on the Northern Hispanic faction.
About 100 prisoners took part in that attack, which resulted in an Office of Inspector General investigation. The inspector general's report harshly criticized prison managers for allowing the violence to erupt and for their handling of its aftermath. Folsom's warden at the time, Diana K. Butler, resigned her position as a result of the report.
After the 2002 incident, Folsom officials kept the Northern Hispanics locked in their cells for nearly two years, before they began transferring them to other prisons throughout the state.
Only six Northern Hispanic inmates remain housed at Folsom, Trujillo said; all are in the administrative segregation unit. They are scheduled to be transferred out of Folsom. Their removal would represent a departure from a Department of Corrections' policy that for 20 years has tried to balance ethnic and geographically based inmate factions from prison to prison.
Prison experts, Department of Corrections sources, line officers and even some prisoners have predicted that the Southern Hispanic inmates would try to consolidate their power once their main rivals were removed from Folsom's general population.
"Moving out the northerners who were the victims in the (April 2002) riot and leaving the southerners, who were the assailants, at the prison clearly sends a message to the southerners that they are in control," said David Tristan, a former chief deputy director of the Department of Corrections who now works as a consultant on inmate management to prison agencies across the country.
"Now they are going to try and intimidate other groups into paying 'rent,' and to provide their own members with candy, cigarettes and money while they are there. Pretty soon they're going to go after (additional) ethnic groups, and eventually they will go after staff if the staff begins to get in the way."
Department of Corrections officials said removing the Northern Hispanic population at Folsom is temporary, but no return date has been set.
This weekend's violence occurred as Department of Corrections officials are moving a tougher brand of inmate into the prison.
Folsom for more than a decade had housed minimum and lower-medium security inmates. But the state is reshuffling the system's overall 163,000 inmate population, with Folsom getting higher-medium security inmates.
Trujillo said Saturday's dining hall fight followed a melee minutes earlier among about 20 inmates as they were being released from their cells to go to dinner. It was one of those inmates, being walked to the administrative segregation unit, who shouted the Spanish remark, Trujillo said.
Officials have placed all 4,000 Folsom inmates from all ethnic and geographic groups on an indefinite lockdown while the riot is investigated.
"The direction from the warden (Mike Knowles) is to interview everybody, whether they were involved or not, and find out why this happened," Trujillo said.
6 inmates hurt in melee at Folsom prison
By Andy Furillo -- Bee Staff Writer - (Published June 22, 2004)
Four inmates were seriously injured and two were hospitalized over the weekend after "Southern Hispanic" and white convicts clashed in Folsom State Prison's most violent outbreak in more than two years.
Saturday's 6 p.m. riot took place in Folsom's dining hall when a Southern Hispanic inmate who was being led to the prison's administration segregation unit - after taking part in an earlier fight - shouted out an instruction that set off the meal-time melee.
"He yelled something out in Spanish," prison spokesman Lt. Bob Trujillo said Monday. "I don't know who he was yelling to, specifically, but he just yelled out and it immediately erupted into a giant fight."
Trujillo said 40 inmates between the two factions traded punches and kicks - no weapons were involved - before prison officers quelled the violence with their batons, pepper spray and rubber block pellets.
The six inmates were treated for head injuries and all were returned to their cells, including the two who were taken to hospitals outside the prison for observation, Trujillo said.
The fight represented the single-worst episode of violence at Folsom since an April 2002 riot in which Southern Hispanic inmates launched an assault on the Northern Hispanic faction.
About 100 prisoners took part in that attack, which resulted in an Office of Inspector General investigation. The inspector general's report harshly criticized prison managers for allowing the violence to erupt and for their handling of its aftermath. Folsom's warden at the time, Diana K. Butler, resigned her position as a result of the report.
After the 2002 incident, Folsom officials kept the Northern Hispanics locked in their cells for nearly two years, before they began transferring them to other prisons throughout the state.
Only six Northern Hispanic inmates remain housed at Folsom, Trujillo said; all are in the administrative segregation unit. They are scheduled to be transferred out of Folsom. Their removal would represent a departure from a Department of Corrections' policy that for 20 years has tried to balance ethnic and geographically based inmate factions from prison to prison.
Prison experts, Department of Corrections sources, line officers and even some prisoners have predicted that the Southern Hispanic inmates would try to consolidate their power once their main rivals were removed from Folsom's general population.
"Moving out the northerners who were the victims in the (April 2002) riot and leaving the southerners, who were the assailants, at the prison clearly sends a message to the southerners that they are in control," said David Tristan, a former chief deputy director of the Department of Corrections who now works as a consultant on inmate management to prison agencies across the country.
"Now they are going to try and intimidate other groups into paying 'rent,' and to provide their own members with candy, cigarettes and money while they are there. Pretty soon they're going to go after (additional) ethnic groups, and eventually they will go after staff if the staff begins to get in the way."
Department of Corrections officials said removing the Northern Hispanic population at Folsom is temporary, but no return date has been set.
This weekend's violence occurred as Department of Corrections officials are moving a tougher brand of inmate into the prison.
Folsom for more than a decade had housed minimum and lower-medium security inmates. But the state is reshuffling the system's overall 163,000 inmate population, with Folsom getting higher-medium security inmates.
Trujillo said Saturday's dining hall fight followed a melee minutes earlier among about 20 inmates as they were being released from their cells to go to dinner. It was one of those inmates, being walked to the administrative segregation unit, who shouted the Spanish remark, Trujillo said.
Officials have placed all 4,000 Folsom inmates from all ethnic and geographic groups on an indefinite lockdown while the riot is investigated.
"The direction from the warden (Mike Knowles) is to interview everybody, whether they were involved or not, and find out why this happened," Trujillo said.
