Arrest Turns Into Gunfight That Kills 2 at Fla. Prison

A guard opened fire at a federal prison Wednesday as agents tried to arrest him and five others in a sex-with-inmates scandal, sparking a gun battle that left him and a Justice Department agent dead.

Federal agents shot and killed Ralph Hill, 43, a guard for about 12 years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee. William “Buddy” Sentner, 44, a special agent with the Justice Department’s inspector general office, died in the exchange of bullets.

Sentner, a former member of the Secret Service, was part of the team that had traveled to Tallahassee to serve arrest warrants on the guards, who were indicted late Tuesday.

A corrections officer helping the agents was also injured.

The shootout began at 7:42 a.m., authorities said, as the federal agents arrived to arrest Hill and five other guards as they ended their overnight shifts.

The indictment charges that since 2002, the guards conspired to smuggle contraband into the prison’s female wing and exchange it for sex with inmates.

Michael Folmar, the FBI’s special agent in charge, defended the decision to arrest the guards as they left work, saying it was intended to reduce the risk of violence by surprising them.

“These guards were unaware of these indictments today,” Folmar said. “This arrest situation was done in a manner to be very controlled in a situation where nobody would have any weapons and we could take this down so there wouldn’t be any violence.”

According to the Bureau of Prisons, guards are prohibited from bringing personal firearms onto prison grounds.

The other guards were taken into custody without incident.