2 Dead in Fla. Detention Center Shooting

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Two federal employees were shot to death Wednesday at a detention center and another was injured after a guard allegedly opened fire on FBI agents serving arrest warrants, the FBI said.

FBI agents and Justice Department investigators had gone to the center to serve warrants for the arrest of six guards when one of them shot a federal correctional institution officer, said FBI spokesman John Girgenti.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - Two people were killed and another was injured during an arrest attempt at a federal detention center in north Florida on Wednesday, television networks reported.

The shooting occurred as FBI agents tried to arrest six prison workers, CNN said. The FBI denied a CNN report that an FBI agent was one of the dead.

MSNBC said two prison workers were dead.

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The detention center is one of two federal prisons located in the Florida state capital and is used for short-term incarcerations. It is located next to the Federal Correctional Institution, a long-term detention facility.

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) — The FBI says a guard at a federal detention center in Tallahassee opened fire as investigators came to arrest him and five other guards earlier today, killing two people and wounding another.

The six guards were indicted yesterday on corruption charges. They allegedly brought alcohol and other contraband into the part of the prison where female inmates were held and sold it or exchanged it for sex with the inmates or the inmates' silence.

The FBI says that when investigators arrived at the center to arrest the six men, one of the indicted guards shot at a federal correctional institution officer. The officer fired back while trying to escape the shooting.

It's not clear who the victims were or whether the shooter was among them. Tallahassee police said earlier that the shooter was in custody.

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The indictment accused five of the guards of having sexual contact with eight inmates from September 2003 through September 2005 in exchange for contraband, which could include alcohol, drugs and money.

Besides using contraband to bribe inmates to keep quiet, the six were accused of threatening to plant contraband in their belongings or have them shipped to another facility farther from their friends and families if they reported the illegal activity.

The guards showed inmates information about themselves and other prisoners on the prison system's computer system to prove the latter threat was real and that they could be tracked anywhere in the system, according to the indictment.

It stated the guards coordinated among themselves to switch duty assignments and take other steps to facilitate their contact with the female inmates.

The detention center houses mostly men and is part of the Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution. A low security prison for female inmates is next to the detention center. Together the men's and women's units total 1,445 inmates.

Tallahassee police sent every available squad car immediately to the scene at about 7:45 a.m. after it received a 911 call from the prison, spokesman John Newland said.

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The indictment also says the guards would make the prisoners, their family members and their associates to mail, wire and deliver money as payment for the contraband -- in installments as high as $500 and $600 at a time -- and then hide the items around the prison for inmates to collect undetected. They are even accused of using cleaning products to destroy evidence of their sexual contact with inmates.

The guards also forced prisoners to cooperate by threatening to plant contraband on them or have them "shipped" to other facilities much further from their families, according to the documents.

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A spokeswoman said the event was unrelated to the probe into the Florida Department of Corrections that FDLE and the FBI are in the midst of.

"We absolutely have no role in this," said Kristen Perezluha, the spokeswoman.

One of those killed was a federal law-enforcement agent, while the other person slain was Ralph Hill, one of the six guards charged in a wide-ranging indictment that had been unsealed Tuesday.

An FBI spokesman would not reveal the identities of any of the three people shot other than to verify that one of the dead was a law-enforcement agent and the other person killed was one of the officers who had been charged.

The six federal corrections officers indicted Tuesday were identified by federal officials as Hill, Alfred Barnes, Gregory Dixon, Vincent Johnson, Alan Moore and E. Lavon Spence. Five of them showed up at a hearing on this afternoon and pleaded not guilty to the charges.