Calif. prison on lockdown after multiple fights

The Associated Press
Posted: 09/22/2009 01:41:15 PM PDT

AVENAL, Calif. (AP) - Authorities say inmates at a California prison used canes, walkers and wheelchair parts as weapons in fights that sent 24 prisoners to hospitals and forced the facility to be put on lockdown.

Administrators are investigating the violence Monday between rival Latino gangs at Avenal State Prison.

Spokeswoman Terry Thornton of the California Department of Corrections says the fights began around 8:30 p.m. in the yard of one of six dormitory complexes on the prison grounds. Fights later erupted in other dormitories.

Prison officials confiscated 30 makeshift weapons - most of them canes, walkers and foot rests from wheelchairs used by inmates in the low-to-medium-security prison in the southern Central Valley.

Eleven of the injured inmates are still hospitalized, one in serious condition.

http://www.sbsun.com/ci_13393901?source=most_viewed