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Aryan Warriors Leader Among Three Killed in Nevada Prison Riot

Loaded on Sept. 15, 2024 published in Prison Legal News September, 2024, page 58
Filed under: Prison Rebellion, Prison Gangs. Location: Nevada.

A fight at Nevada’s Ely State Prison on July 31, 2024, left nine prisoners injured and three others dead—including Aryan Warriors (AW) gang leader Zackaria Luz, 43. No staffers were reported injured by the state Department of Corrections (DOC), which identified the other two killed as Connor Brown, 22, and Anthony Williams, 41.
Brown was serving a sentence up to 20 years handed down in 2021 for robbery. Williams, who was serving a 2019 life-­without-­parole sentence for murder with an “habitual criminal” enhancement, was an AW member, too, one of 22 sentenced in a massive racketeering case that also earned Luz up to 18 years in 2023.
At that time, Luz was already incarcerated on a drug-­related conviction. Before that, he had earlier pleaded no contest to charges of participating in a December 2021 riot at Southern Desert Correctional Center. As PLN reported, that disturbance led to the resignations of Warden William Hutchings and former DOC Director Charles Daniels, plus charges against guard Quentin Murphy, 41, for allegedly knocking Luz into a wall; fellow guards Paul Bowerman, Timothy Smith and Brayan Lopez were also charged with using excessive force. [See: PLN, March 2023, p.12.]   

Sources: KLAS, Reno Gazette Journal

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