CORCORAN GUARDS THWARTED PROBE, DA TELLS LAWMAKERS

Special Hearing On `Blood Sport' Fights

A district attorney told legislators yesterday that prison guards used a
code of silence to block his investigation of brutality at California State
Prison at Corcoran.

The prosecutor testified before a special committee looking into operations
at the San Joaquin Valley prison, where eight guards were indicted in
February on federal charges of staging ``blood sport'' fights among inmates
in which one convict was killed.

King County District Attorney Greg Strickland told the committee that
guards refused to speak to his investigators unless they were accompanied
by a representative of their union, the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association.

``In every incident we have been involved in, they have refused to speak
unless they have their union representative present,'' Strickland said. ``I
can't put a gun to their head and tell them to talk to me.

``They (prison guards) are sworn officers, but they refused to cooperate
with the district attorney's office and tell us what has occurred in
prison,'' he said.

The prosecutor's testimony echoed that of James Maddock, special agent in
charge of the FBI's Sacramento office, who openly criticized state
authorities at the time the indictments were announced.

``Despite intentional efforts on the part of correctional and other
officials to stymie, delay and obstruct our inquiry, we will continue until
all culpable parties are brought to justice,'' he said.

Corcoran is California's most violent prison and houses a ``security
housing unit'' for the most violent convicts in the system. The only other
SHU is at Pelican Bay, which is under investigation by the FBI for possible
violations of inmates' rights.

Much of the Corcoran controversy centers on how vigorously the Department
of Corrections and Department of Justice investigated wrongdoing.

Governor Pete Wilson's office insists that the Department of Corrections
withdrew from the investigation after being told by the FBI that it was
handling the case.

A corrections investigation of the 1994 shooting of inmate Preston Tate
found no wrongdoing, and Attorney General Dan Lungren, the Republican
candidate for governor, opened a criminal investigation but did not look
into issues being probed by other agencies.

To back its contention that the FBI urged corrections investigators to stay
away, the Wilson administration released letters from the FBI.

``I would like to take this opportunity to request that your Special
Services Unit personnel refrain from conducting any further investigation
regarding the shooting death of inmate Preston Tate and the ongoing pending
civil rights inquiry,'' the FBI's Richard Ross wrote the department on Oct.
13, 1994.

But Ross' successor, Maddock, wrote last week to Senator Ruben Ayala,
D-Chino, ``The FBI did not seek to limit the scope of the renewed CDC
investigation or the investigation conducted by the attorney general.''

Maddock said the initial letter was partly ``prompted by a confrontation
between FBI agents and SSU personnel in the Fresno area.'' At that time,
state investigators chased FBI agents at speeds of as high as 90 mph for 45
miles. The federal agents had a state witness in their car.

The Department of Corrections has denied that the incident ever occurred.
1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A16