Inmate killed in California prison riot

Hugo Pinell’s attorney Keith Wattley says the 71-year-old inmate was killed Wednesday just days after being placed in the general prison population at California State Prison, Sacramento. She said seven prisoners were injured in the short-lived incident, and that prison officials believe it was not related to the riot in which Pinell was killed. “This was foreseeable, which is what makes it so much worse and why the family is looking for answers as to why prison officials let this happen”.

Corrections officials say Pinell was one of almost 1,000 inmates moved from isolation units in recent months as the state responded to criticism about the number of inmates there.

The corrections department said inmate-made weapons were used in the stabbing melee. She would not give more information about the alleged attacker for his own protection. “That’s what we hope to learn from the investigation”.

Correctional peace officers used significant amounts of pepper spray, approximately 160 rounds from less-lethal munitions and three warning shots fired from the Mini-14 rifle to stop the disturbance that lasted for about 20 minutes.

He wrote long letters posted to a website by supporters, addressing the civil rights movement and the decades of solitary confinement that he likened to being “buried alive”, with no contact visits with relatives or friends since December 1970.

“They were never anything but a gang involved in violence both in and outside the correctional system”, said Jim Vuchsas, a retired Los Angeles Police Department gang unit chief and member of the statewide prison gang task force.

The prison commonly called New Folsom houses more than 2,300 maximum-security inmates in Folsom, about 25 miles east of the state capital.

He was part of the “San Quentin Six” behind a prison break attempt in which four inmates and two guards died.

Pinell was amongst over half a dozen people who were injured when 70 or more inmates started to fight in one of the prison yards just after noon.

His supporters describe him as a political prisoner and “a revolutionary hero”. “At this point it’s hard to discern what is fact and how much is fiction”.

At the time of his death, Pinell, 71, was serving six life sentences for murder, rape, battery, aggravated assault and voluntary manslaughter, and several of the crimes occurred while he was behind bars, the department said in a news release.

Pinell’s daughter, Allegra Taylor of Sacramento, would not comment when reached by telephone Thursday.