Salinas Valley Riot occuring today

A riot involving more than 150 inmates at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad left at least 18 men seriously injured Tuesday, corrections officials said.  Eleven inmates suffering injuries ranging from stab and slash wounds to head trauma were taken to outside hospitals by late afternoon, said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

One man was airlifted to a trauma center, while the other 10 were taken away in ground ambulances.
Seven more were treated in the prison's medical facility.  "There were a lot of injuries," Thornton said.
The violence erupted shortly after 11 a.m. while the inmates were out on their facility's yard.

As of 5 p.m., the prison staff was still tallying the list of injured prisoners.
"They're still working on the medical responses," Thornton said. "It's possible they may find a few more inmates with minor injuries. They're going through and checking every single inmate."
She said she could not comment on the extent of the injuries or on the condition of the evacuated inmates.

Thornton said one staff member suffered a back injury when he responded to the scene, but none of the staff was hurt by an inmate.

Lt. Michael Nilsson said in a statement late Tuesday that 159 prisoners took part in the riot, and that officers from the prison's Investigative Services Unit were investigating.

The riot, which took place in a general population maximum-security yard, was quickly quelled with pepper spray and "less-than-lethal force," Nilsson said, but dealing with the ensuing medical emergency took most of the day. An American Medical Response supervisor was still at the prison late in the day to help the staff decide where to place injured inmates.

He said the prison remains on lockdown while the cause of the riot is investigated.

Nilsson and Thornton declined to say how the fighting began or if any specific gang or group of inmates was involved, saying officials did not want to jeopardize their investigation.

Monterey County emergency dispatchers spent much of the morning putting out calls for ambulance assistance after the riot was declared a level 2 multiple casualty incident.

So-called MCIs are graded by severity, with level 2 indicating between 11 and 20 victims.

"Ambulances came from all over the county," said Sherrie Collins, manager of the county's Office of Emergency Services. Although the prison has its own medical staff and fire department, she said, "their biggest need is probably transport out of the prison."

Soledad Police Chief Eric Sills said his officers were not asked to assist after the riot, but he said the fire department's paramedic crews had gone to help.

In the year she has worked at the county's emergency office, Collins said she could recall two or three multiple casualty incidents, including February's evacuation of the Portola Plaza Hotel and Spa in Monterey after an accidental mix of cleaning chemicals released toxic chlorine gas and sent 30 employees to area hospitals.

Before the riot, residents of a number of the prison's buildings as well as certain inmate groups were allowed visits only behind glass, said the prison's visiting hotline, presumably because of security concerns.



An update from a Rider checking in at SVSP says that the word is that it was Northern Mexicans and Black inmates.