By Gus G. Sentementes , Sun reporter|March 28, 2008
State prison officials said yesterday they have launched a criminal investigation into allegations that eight correctional officers assaulted several inmates at a maximum-security prison - the second case of possible abuse to emerge at a Western Maryland prison this month.
The officers from the North Branch Correctional Institution in Cumberland have been placed on administrative leave and face possible termination, prison officials said yesterday. The Maryland State Police are leading a criminal inquiry into the case, prison authorities said.
Mark Vernarelli, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said he could not disclose how many inmates say they were abused by officers because that information was part of the investigation.
Two weeks ago, eight officers from Roxbury Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison in Hagerstown, were placed on administrative leave amid allegations that they assaulted an inmate, who had to be hospitalized, prison officials said. One officer was suspended without pay, and all face possible termination, prison authorities said.
State police are also investigating that incident for potential criminal charges, according to prison authorities.
"Just as we will not tolerate violence against our staff, we cannot tolerate excessive force perpetrated by our staff," J. Michael Stouffer, commissioner of the state Division of Correction, said in a statement. "Each allegation will be thoroughly and aggressively pursued in partnership with state police and the state's attorney's office."
Michael O. Twigg, the state's attorney for Allegany County, where North Branch is located, said in an e-mail that his office was involved in the investigation. "We are presently reviewing the information that [investigators] have provided to us," Twigg said.
Vernarelli, the prisons spokesman, said the investigation into the allegations at North Branch emerged as prison authorities and the state police were investigating the case at RCI. But he said investigators believed the two incidents are not related, and that the inmate who was allegedly to have been abused at RCI was not connected with the several inmates who complained of being assaulted by officers at North Branch.
Several of those inmates had been transferred from Roxbury after they were involved in a "disturbance" at that institution March 6, according to prison authorities.
