FBI TO PROBE ROLE OF PRISON GUARDS IN BEATINGS AND KILLINGS OF INMATES

FRESNO -- As part of the federal government's growing scrutiny of
California prisons, the FBI is launching civil rights investigations at the
Pelican Bay and Susanville penitentiaries to probe the role of prison
guards in the beatings and killings of inmates.

FBI officials said the decision to investigate follows a number of recent
assaults and deaths of inmates at the two maximum-security prisons in
Northern California.

Until now, most of the federal government's attention has been focused on
the troubled lockup at Corcoran in the San Joaquin Valley. On Wednesday,
eight prison officers and supervisors pleaded not guilty to charges of
setting up fights between rival inmates at Corcoran and then covering up
the violence by falsifying incident reports.

In one 1994 fight, prosecutors allege, some of the officers gathered in a
control booth to watch for fun as one officer quipped, ``It's going to be
duck hunting season.'' The fight ended when an officer fired a carbine
rifle at one of the aggressors and killed 25-year-old inmate Preston Tate
by mistake. The new probe at Pelican Bay will try to determine if rival
inmates attacked each other at the behest of prison staffers, including at
least one assault this month that resulted in the stabbing death of an
inmate, according to FBI officials. At the High Desert prison in
Susanville, FBI agents have begun looking into the Feb. 4 death of inmate
David Torres, who was gunned down by an officer during a prison yard fight.

``We have opened a preliminary civil rights investigation into the shooting
death of inmate Torres,'' said Jim Maddock, head of the FBI office in
Sacramento. ``As far as Pelican Bay is concerned, that is being handled by
the FBI in San Francisco.''

An FBI spokesman in San Francisco declined to comment on the probe, but a
U.S. Justice Department official in Washington said it would center on
whether prisoners' civil rights were violated.

The state Department of Corrections characterized the FBI probes as routine
investigations prompted by complaints from family members of the deceased
inmates.