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Twenty people have been charged in connection with the deaths of three inmates who were killed in a maximum-security prison brawl in eastern Nevada last year, prosecutors said.
The final arrest in the investigation was made on March 5, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office announced on Tuesday. Prosecutors have filed multiple charges against 20 defendants over the incident, including first-degree murder and attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon with intent to promote or assist a criminal gang.
“The pursuit of justice does not stop at the prison gates, and those responsible for the deaths of the three inmates at Ely State Prison will be held accountable,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford said in a statement. “We remain committed to ensuring that violence and misconduct within our state correctional system are met with the full force of the law.”
The arrests and charges come after three inmates were killed and five others were injured during a brawl at Ely State Prison in July 2024, according to the Nevada Attorney General’s Office. The prison went into lockdown for at least two days after the incident, the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) reported.
The investigation is currently being led by the White Pine County Sheriff’s Office, prosecutors confirmed. Other state and local agencies, such as the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the Sparks Police Department, the Reno Police Department, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office, and the Nevada Office of Inspector General have also assisted in the case.
What happened in the Ely State Prison fight?
The incident started as an altercation that turned deadly, according to the NDOC. The White Pine County Sheriff’s Office said it received a report about a large fight between inmates and responded to the detention center around 9:40 a.m. local time on July 30, 2024.
Prior to deputies responding, the sheriff’s office was notified that multiple inmates had died in the fight and several others needed medical attention. Detectives and the local coroner responded and discovered three inmates dead, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities initially reported that nine other inmates were injured in the fight. Those injured were transported to a local medical facility for treatment of unspecified wounds suffered in the fight.
Some of those injured were also taken by medical helicopter to hospitals, authorities said. No officers were injured in the incident.
The Nevada Governor’s Office confirmed that the fight had been “gang-related,” KVVU-TV reported at the time. While officials did not reveal what type of weapons were used in the attack, the sheriff’s office said the three inmates died from “multiple sharp force injuries,” according to KRNV-DT.
The prison is located just north of the city of Ely, which is about 60 miles west of the Nevada and Utah state line. According to the NDOC’s website, Ely State Prison is one of six Nevada prisons and holds a maximum capacity of 1,183 inmates.
Less than two months after the incident, the NDOC designated a new maximum-security prison. In September, the department said High Desert State Prison in southern Nevada will replace Ely State Prison as the state’s maximum-security facility.
Ely State Prison was transitioned to medium security and nearly 2,000 inmates were moved between the two facilities in September, according to the NDOC.
“The change will ensure the highest-risk offenders be housed where staffing levels are greater, and the institution is closer to outside law-enforcement and medical services, if necessary,” the NDOC said in a statement. “High Desert State Prison is also a newer facility with higher perimeter security standards.”
White supremacist gang members among those killed in prison fight
The three inmates killed were later identified as Connor Brown, 22; Anthony Williams, 41; and Zackaria Luz, 43. All three were pronounced dead at Ely State Prison, the NDOC said.
Brown came to the NDOC in May 2021 from Washoe County in northwest Nevada, according to the department. He had been serving a sentence of seven to 20 years for robbery with the use of a deadly weapon. Brown pleaded guilty to the felony charge after stabbing a gas station clerk and a casino patron during a 2020 robbery in downtown Reno, Nevada, KOTO-TV reported.
Williams was serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for open murder and being a habitual criminal, according to the NDOC. The department said he came to the NDOC in April 2019 from Clark County in southern Nevada.
Luz was serving a sentence of seven to 18 years for racketeering, the NDOC said. He came to the NDOC in October 2023 after being sentenced out of Clark County.
Both Luz and Williams were members of the Aryan Warriors, a white supremacist prison gang, the Reno Gazette-Journal, part of the USA TODAY Network, previously reported. The two were among 23 members who were indicted in 2019 on more than 150 charges, including drug trafficking, racketeering, and murder.
The indictment tied Williams and another man to the 2016 murder of Andrew Ryan Thurgood at High Desert State Prison. Meanwhile, Luz was named as the leader of the Aryan Warriors in the indictment.
At the time of the indictment, the Aryan Warriors were described as an organized para-military group with operatives in both the prison system and the Las Vegas community. Imprisoned leaders would give orders to street-based members to commit crimes.
Charges come amid criticism against U.S. prisons
Tuesday’s announcement comes amid ongoing criticism from criminal justice reform advocates over dangerous conditions in prisons across the country. Federal and state investigations have also uncovered pervasive problems at these facilities, including official misconduct and corruption, and physical and sexual abuse by staff.
In December 2022, the NDOC said 39 incarcerated people at Ely State Prison held a hunger strike in protest of inadequate food portions and poor conditions. Similar conditions have been reported at numerous facilities in the U.S., according to the Vera Institute of Justice, a non-profit think tank focused on criminal justice reform.
The Vera Institute of Justice said in 2023 that prisons are often overcrowded and understaffed, leading to unsafe conditions. The organization cited several incidents at facilities in Illinois, California, and New York that included allegations of violence, abuse, and an increase in inmate deaths.
Another high-profile case involved the Georgia Department of Corrections. An October 2024 report from the U.S. Department of Justice found that inmates housed in Georgia facilities were kept in “horrific” conditions that violated the Constitution’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment, USA TODAY reported.
The sexual abuse of adult inmates is also an ongoing issue in U.S. jails and prisons. Thousands of inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate incidents were reported from 2016 through 2018, according to a special report by the Justice Department released in 2023.
A federal prison for female inmates in Dublin, California, was closed last year following a series of criminal indictments of prison employees who were accused of exploiting their authority and sexually abusing inmates in their custody.
Contributing: Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY; Jason Hidalgo and Ed Komenda, Reno Gazette-Journal
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