A leader of a white supremacist prison gang was one of three prisoners killed when a fight broke out Tuesday morning at a Nevada prison, the state’s Department of Corrections said.
Nine other inmates were also treated for injuries, and no corrections officers were hurt at Ely State Prison, a maximum-security prison nine miles north of the city of Ely in White Pine County.
On Wednesday, the Nevada Department of Corrections identified Zackaria Luz and Connor Brown as being two of the inmates killed in the fight but withheld the third prisoner’s identity until a “next-of-kin” was notified, a statement said.
Mr. Luz, 43, was serving seven to 18 years for racketeering, the Department of Corrections said.
In a 2019 indictment that also charged 22 other people, Mr. Luz was previously indicted as a leader of a white-supremacist gang called the Aryan Warriors, The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
“The Aryan Warriors are a longstanding racist prison gang based in the Nevada prison system,” the Anti-Defamation League said on its website. Many members have tattoos with the gang’s initials or Viking symbols, it said.
Mr. Brown, 22, was serving seven to 20 years for robbery with the use of a deadly weapon, the statement said.
Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office told KVVU that the fight was “gang related,” but the state has not released details.
Lawyers who represented Mr. Luz and Mr. Brown in previous cases did not immediately respond to phone calls requesting comment. The Nevada Department of Corrections, White Pine County Sheriff’s Office and Mr. Lombardo’s office also did not respond to requests for comment.
Ely State Prison went on lockdown after the fight and canceled visitations, KVVU reported.
In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report that found a pattern of “gross medical abuse” at Ely State Prison; in 2010, the A.C.L.U. agreed to settle a lawsuit that accused the prison of providing inadequate medical care.
Before the fight on Tuesday, the Nevada Department of Corrections announced that 22 other inmates had died at the prison of various causes this year.
Prison fights that leave multiple inmates dead are not common in the United States. In July, an inmate was killed in a prison fight at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. And in 2022, a gang fight at a high-security penitentiary in Texas left two inmates dead.
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