Unusual mass attack injures 8 California guards, 7 inmates

Officials say a fight that forced correctional officers to open fire with real bullets to stop a melee was unusual even by the violent standard of California prisons.

Pelican Bay State Prison guards fired 19 rifle bullets to stop large groups of prisoners from attacking other correctional officers yesterday.

Eight guards and seven inmates had to be hospitalized.

The guards had been had been breaking up a fistfight between two inmates when they were overwhelmed in an exercise yard teeming with several hundred high-security inmates.

Premeditated or not, the mass attack was unusual.

Ninety-seven inmates were initially believed to have participated.

The eight guards were treated and released.

Five of the seven injured inmates were treated for gunshot wounds at the prison, which houses about 2,000 inmates near the Oregon border.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)