Videotaped Prison Beating in Texas Spurs FBI Probe

HOUSTON —  A videotape showing prison guards kicking inmates in the groin, siccing dogs on them and shocking them with stun guns has sparked an FBI investigation into possible civil rights violations and led two states to recall prisoners who had been sent to Texas facilities to relieve overcrowding.

The videotape, shot by a Brazoria County sheriff’s deputy for training purposes, emerged from a lawsuit filed by one of the inmates and was broadcast Tuesday.

“The conditions in Brazoria County, from what I hear, were appalling,” Gov. George W. Bush said. “The law will rule. Let’s get the facts on the table.”

The videotape has led Missouri to terminate its $6-million contract to house 415 inmates in the Brazoria County Detention Center in Angleton, about 40 miles south of Houston.

A spokesman for Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan said the state was reviewing all its contracts with Texas prisons, where hundreds of prisoners have been housed under rent-a-cell arrangements.

The Missouri Department of Corrections said temporary quarters were being created in prison gymnasiums and elsewhere for the prisoners being brought back.

Oklahoma began transferring more than 250 of its inmates from a different Texas facility operated by Capital Correctional Resources Inc., the company that runs the portion of the prison where the tape was made.

The tape showed a dog attacking at least two inmates, one of whom screamed in pain as he was bitten on the leg. It also showed a stun gun being used on at least one inmate, deputies in riot gear dragging an inmate with a broken ankle by his arm, and at least one prisoner kicked in the crotch while crawling.

The prison officials--deputies and at least one private guard--shouted and cursed at the inmates.

FBI spokesman Rolando Moss acknowledged Tuesday that the agency is investigating the Sept. 18, 1996, incident but refused to elaborate.

The 32-minute videotape was reportedly made by a sheriff’s deputy for training purposes after a jailer said he smelled marijuana in a prisoner housing area.

Charles Wagner, chief deputy at the jail, said he told the guards: “Well, you have a training film that shows what not to do.”

“I grant you, that film depicts a lot of unprofessional actions,” Wagner told the Brazosport Facts newspaper, which obtained a copy of the videotape. “There’s not any real brutality.”

At least one of the men seen in the videotape was wearing a CCRI uniform, and a company employee was suspended indefinitely, said Dennis Walker, a CCRI security supervisor.