San Quentin on Lock Down for 6th Day

Hundreds of inmates at San Quentin State Prison remains on lockdown while corrections officers continued to investigate a Thursday  riot that appears to have stemmed from a fight between the two racial groups,  a correctional lieutenant said.

Lt. Sam Robinson said all black and Hispanic inmates are being  confined to their cells and are not partaking in schooling, job assignments  or visits. Additionally, the inmates are not being allowed in the dining  hall, where the fight broke out, and are instead eating in their cells.

Robinson said officers last week had identified about 40 of the 80  to 100 people they believe were involved in the fight that broke out at  around 10 a.m. Thursday in two separate dining halls, Robinson said.

It took pepper spray, rubber bullets and more than 100 officers to  tame the crowd.

Robinson said a sergeant somehow cut his hand and was treated at  the hospital, but no one else was severely injured.

The involved parties who have been identified are on  administrative segregation, or in separate holding cells away from the main  facility, he said.

Robinson said the riot appears to have stemmed from a fight  between black and Hispanic inmates.

The racial rivalry is not a common divide at the prison, he said,  but "when one group begins attacking another group in large numbers the group  that's getting attacked tries to defend themselves."

He said the segregation would remain in place until "we get a firm  foundation on what actually transpired and get an idea about whether it's  resolved."