By Evan Sernoffsky
San Francisco Chronicle
MILPITAS, Calif. — A boozed-up Santa Clara County Jail inmate attacked two deputies who had uncovered his stash of homemade wine in his cell, officials said Tuesday.
Around 4 p.m. Monday, a deputy at the county’s Elmwood Correctional Facility in Milpitas smelled pruno — do-it-yourself alcohol made from fermented fruit — wafting from a cell, said Sgt. James Jensen, a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.
The deputy noticed the men in the cell were intoxicated and called a sergeant and two other deputies to help deal with the situation, Jensen said.
But when the deputies went to remove the inmates, one of the men, who was not named, attacked two of them.
The deputies, who were not identified, were taken in an ambulance to a hospital where they were treated for unspecified injuries and released.
“Inmates assaulting our correctional deputies will not be tolerated,” Jensen said. “The results of the investigation will be forwarded to the district attorney’s office and the sheriff will push for prosecution of the inmate in the assault.”
Pruno is well known in jails and prisons. Inmates concoct the booze by hoarding fruit from meals, which is then fermented in a plastic bag with water and crumbled bread. The yeast from the bread and sugar in the fruit combine to make the foul, but often powerful, drink.
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