When four white men stabbed a black man to death in the Gunnison Prison earlier this month, first reports indicated the attack was racially motivated.
Officials are now saying that race wasn't the motive, but some inmates still fear it was at least a factor in the slaying.Lonnie Blackmon was stabbed numerous times by another inmate as three others held him. Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said Blackmon and one of four inmates charged in the death, Troy Michael Kell, had fought several days earlier during a recreational activity.
In the wake of the slaying and rumors of racism, the Deseret News talked to several inmates about racism and gangs in prison and how they affect life behind bars. All have been involved in gangs - two say they have successfully gotten out of their gangs, and the other two say they're trying to get out.
All of the inmates interviewed said race is rarely the sole motive of a fight. Instead, they say, most fights are over unpaid debts, cigarettes or stealing.
When inmates talk about racism, one thing is clear - it's as confusing an issue inside prison fences as it is in the outside world.
Leon Hendricks was a member of an Ogden gang when he came to prison at age 18. Now at 25 and an inmate most of his adult life, Hendricks says fights between rival gang members are generally on hold in prison.
"We got all these races in here and we got to live together," Hendricks said.
Gangs in prison divide on racial lines, he said, unlike outside where they divide more on territorial lines. And even those who aren't in gangs tend to befriend those of the same race, he said.
"Only the white people try to be friends with everybody," said Hendricks, a Hispanic. "I just stay with my own people."
He says the most disturbing element of the stabbing to him was that four men ganged up on another man.
"The dude didn't have a chance," said Hendricks, adding that he's asked some inmates who he knows are members of the Aryan Nation if the stabbing was racially motivated. They said it wasn't.
Corrections officials have a list of everyone who claims to be in a group or a gang. Out of the more than 3,000 people housed in Utah Correction facilities, about 120 inmates belong to gangs or groups when they come into prison.
Officials say white supremacist groups account for the largest percentage of inmates with gang affiliations.
Other inmates interviewed said the stabbing in Gunnison was unusual, and they suspect at least part of the reason Blackmon was so brutally killed was because he was black.
Anthony Harris, a 22-year-old black, says the racism in prison comes mostly from the institution, not other inmates.
"They are more precise about taking action against us than white folks," Harris said. Like on the outside, he says, racism is something you can feel but it's hard to put your finger on.
"If anything harsh goes down within the institution, they'll take blacks and Mexicans a lot more serious," he said. "Maybe they're more intimidated by us, I don't know."
Harris agreed that for the most part inmates "hang out" within their ethnic groups. But he says that's also the way it is on the streets.
"In here, you just hang with whoever you were hanging with on the street. It just so happens that a lot of blacks hang with blacks on the street."
He says he knows of inmates who claim to be members of the prison's Aryan Nation gang, but they've never bothered him. He adds that the black inmates aren't planning to retaliate against any white - even those who claim to be white supremacists - because "they didn't do nothing."
Harris admits that sometimes a fight over volleyball or the telephone can be fueled by racial hatred.
"But for the most part, it's not that big of an issue," he said.
Rudy Gonzales knows one of the men involved in the attack on Blackmon, and he says the man doesn't seem racist. Instead, he believes his former acquaintance just got into the wrong crowd and into a situation that could cost him his life.
Both Gonzales, 28, and his brother, 23-year-old inmate Joey Lopez, are baffled at the Gunnison stabbing.
"That's so wild . . . I don't understand it," Lopez said. "I think that was a racial thing."
Lopez says gangs are entrenched in prison life. He agrees with Hendricks that all outside fights are put on hold in prison as the goal is simply to survive.
"Everybody just tries to get along," Lopez said. "Everybody wants to go home."
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Additional Information
Racial breakdown
Racial breakdown of Utah prison population:
White 68.5 percent
Hispanic 15.8
Black 8.7
Native American 3.9
Asian 1.5
Unknown 1.6