Race
Riot
The
Mexican from Tijuana acted normal in his greeting as he led the way
and gave the Mexican
from
LA a shadow to hide in. The Mexican from Tijuana clapped hands in a
handshake with Danger,
who
had his arm sticking out the steel bars enclosing the showers.
His
black arm got slammed at an angle against the steel bar at his elbow
and the Mexican kept
pushing
it that way. I heard the bone fracture and Danger screaming in pain.
He tried to resist by arm
wrestling
his arm back into the safety of the shower but it was useless. His
fractured arm wouldn’t
respond
it was uselessly folded at the elbow.
The
other Mexican came out from behind and thrust a thin steel ice pick
at an angle through the
shower
bars into Danger’s face as he leaned away to use the steel bars for
protection, while at the same
time
still trying to get his fractured arm back through the bars. After
getting hit in the cheek just below
his
eye he backed hard enough to free himself.
The
other Black Crip, T-Rock fired punches at the second Mexican
attacker. The steel bars
enclosing
the shower were blocking any further action and the outraged T-Rock
yanked the door open,
yelled,
and slipped in shower shoes. The second Mexican took advantage of his
slip and used his left
arm
to hold the shower door open and with his right hand jabbed the steel
into T-Rocks shoulder. TRock
gathered
himself with even more rage. The warrior took the ice pick poking as
if it were only bee
stings
and fired so many punches that the Mexican backed out of the shower,
but closed the door on the
forward
charging T-Rock. He made it through the narrow closing door but took
the impact on his
shoulder
and head and was made even more furious. His anger alone separated
him from the two
attacking
Mexicans. Incited by his partners rage, Danger came running out of
the shower with his
fractured
arm hanging at an unnatural angle.
The
sound of the block gun was next, “Boom!”
I
slid down Popeye’s cell with my back against it to sit on my
haunches and realized inmates in
cells
were yelling and kicking their cell doors. I looked at the tower and
saw the smoke from the tip of
the
rifle and at the same time heard the alarm send a siren of decibels
in screeches that rose and fell.
Another
tower guard at the control booth yelled into the microphone, “Get
down! Get down!”, then
ran
to the opening in the tower window with another rifle.
The
two Black Crips were engaging the Mexicans with punches, kicks and
grapple throws with
arms
going everywhere. All four inmates were bouncing off cell doors with
the fight going further
away
from the tower, down the tier. Prison guards poured through the
vestibule and got as close as they
could
and fired block guns, then pointed canisters of pepper spray at them
from four feet away, a
stream
of painted orange followed the combatants still fighting and bouncing
off cell doors.
The
gun tower yelled into the microphone, “Get
the fuck down! Live rounds coming!” I
saw the
four
inmates fighting hesitate for a millisecond, like they knew what
they’d heard from the tower
changed
this melee into deadly consequences or life sentences but they kept
fighting for honor waiting
for
the other side to back down first.
“Boom!”
The block gun spoke, then “Ping”,
a live round ricocheted, and it was enough. All four
inmates
sprawled out on the floor just as another army of prison deputies
with gas masks came pouring
through
the vestibule with plastic shields thrust in front of them.
Popeye
said, “That was weak.”
Twenty
minutes later the four inmates were led out of the building in
handcuffs. The building’s
occupants
inside cells emanated energy that blew rage, frustration and
confusion through the air like
wind.
I walked up the stairs wondering if any Mexicans or Blacks heard
Popeye say in disgust, “That
was
weak.” I agreed with him, it was weak.
Not
the battle, the reason for it and the position it would put every
single one of the inmates in,
along
with the deputies, along with the families of both, along with the
communities outside the prison
walls.
My
cell door popped open and I took a last look with my shirt over my
mouth. The tear gas fog
floated
slowly in a cloud and I could see the canisters it came out of under
the tower still whispering
gas.
Almost every inmate and guard coughed and felt the sting burning
their eyes.
Down
the tier from the canisters, the floor was painted orange in a path
the pepper spray
extinguishers’
sent, followed by a line that went up and on a few of the cell doors
the combatants had
bounced
off. Blood stains soaked some of the floor and stained a few of the
cells. Almost every cell
still
had a bald head with a pair of eyes at their cell doors, studying the
building the way I was, with
shirts
bunched up covering their mouths.
"Those without sin cast
the first stone" A district attorney receives video evidence of his son dealing
drugs from a released Pelican Bay inmate.
