Guard battles FBI at federal prison shootout

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A furious gunbattle erupted inside a federal prison Wednesday when a guard opened fire on FBI agents who had come to arrest him and several others on charges of having sex with female inmates in exchange for money and contraband. Two people were killed and another was wounded.

The dead were the guard and a U.S. Justice Department investigator. A prison employee helping with the arrest was hospitalized.

Six guards in all had been indicted Tuesday on charges they had sex with the women by bribing them with money and contraband in a scheme that went on for two years. The contraband was not specified.

When FBI agents and Justice Department investigators arrived at the prison Wednesday to arrest the men, one of the indicted guards shot a federal correctional officer, said FBI spokesman John Girgenti. He said the officers fired back.

The guard fired with a personal weapon, wounding a Bureau of Prisons employee who was assisting with the arrest. Agents from the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office returned fire, killing the guard. A Justice Department agent was killed in the exchange. It was not immediately clear who fired that fatal shot.

“These agents were out just trying to do their job, trying to do an arrest in a very controlled situation, and it just didn’t come down exactly as planned,” FBI agent Michael Folmar said.

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Carla Wilson said the prison had been locked down.

Officials did not release the gunman’s identity, but lawyer Tim Jansen said the gunman was Ralph Hill, the guard who was his client.

Jansen said Hill’s behavior was “totally out of character” for the Air Force veteran. “He had no criminal history or issues of violence in his background,” Jansen said. Hill, 43, had voluntarily supplied a saliva sample after authorities began investigating the sex-for-contraband scandal in November, Jansen said.

The slain Justice Department agent was identified as William “Buddy” Sentner, 44, who formerly worked for the Secret Service before joining the inspector general’s office in 2002.