Fight at Idaho maximum security prison involves more than 30 inmates
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Kevin Fixler and Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman
BOISE (Idaho Statesman) – A fight involving 31 prisoners broke out Saturday afternoon at Idaho’s maximum-security prison south of Boise and sent one prisoner to a local hospital with injuries that were deemed not life threatening.
The brawl, which started just before 2 p.m., was brought under control when corrections officials used pepper spray to subdue prisoners in a day room, while others in the outdoor recreation yard complied when they were ordered to lie on the ground, Idaho Department of Correction spokesperson Jeff Ray told the Idaho Statesman by email. The internal report did not say how long the incident took to resolve, but it was not considered to be a “significant event,” he said.
No corrections officials were injured in the incident, and the injured prisoner returned to the prison several hours after being hospitalized, Ray said.
The maximum-security prison was placed on “secure status” afterward and the A block housing unit remained at that heightened level into Tuesday afternoon, Ray said. The prison houses up to 535 prisoners “to confine Idaho’s most disruptive male residents,” according to the agency’s website.
The other prison facilities that make up the South Boise Correctional Complex in Kuna also were immediately placed on alert “to prevent the spread of violence,” Ray said, but no other fights broke out.
The source of the fight is under investigation. “The residents who were involved will be held accountable per IDOC’s disciplinary process,” Ray said.
The fight Saturday took place less than two weeks after a 45-year-old prisoner was beaten to death by another prisoner at the Idaho State Correctional Center, also located at the prison campus in Kuna, the Statesman previously reported. The victim, Milo Warnock, died from multiple blunt-force trauma injuries about an hour after he was attacked, according to the Ada County Coroner’s Office.
Idaho State Police is investigating Warnock’s death. The prisoner suspected of the attack, whose name has yet to be released, was moved to maximum-security prison, where he remains today, Ray said.
That fatal incident was at least the second in Idaho this year where an incarcerated person was killed during a physical assault by another prisoner. In June, Junior Garcia, 26, of Idaho Falls, died at a local hospital four days after he was attacked by two men at the same maximum-security prison south of Boise.
One prisoner, Juan Santos-Quintero, 28, was indicted by a grand jury on one count of felony first-degree murder. His trial is scheduled for April. If convicted, Santos-Quintero could have faced the death penalty, but the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office chose last week not to seek it, according to spokesperson Emily Lowe. Instead, Santos-Quintero faces a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.
The other prisoner accused of being involved in Garcia’s beating death, Joshua R. Pedroza, 31, also was indicted by a grand jury on one count of felony aggravated battery. He pleaded guilty to the charge last week as part of a plea deal with the prosecutor’s office, according to court records. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
Pedroza is scheduled for sentencing in February at the Ada County Courthouse.