Yesterday, a federal grand jury charged 13 current or former Graterford guards with criminal civil rights violations in the beating of the inmates and an alleged coverup. In addition, the U.S. attorney charged two other guards with civil rights violations.
The grand jury also alleges that 10 of those guards tried to cover up the assaults. They were charged with perjury or obstruction of justice.
"The inmates were forced to run through a gantlet of these guards, half of whom were dressed in riot gear, even though there was no occasion of a riot," U.S. Attorney Michael M. Baylson said yesterday. "They were then pushed inside the building into the vestibule area . . . and they were attacked, kicked, punched, stomped on the ground."
The criminal charges were announced at FBI headquarters in Center City by Baylson, Pennsylvania State Police Commissioner Glenn A. Walp and Wayne Gilbert, the agent in charge of the local FBI office.
Baylson said the inmates were slammed into concrete walls or steel cell bars on their way to their cells. All were denied treatment, he said.
He described a scene in which about 50 Graterford guards watched or participated in the attacks on the inmates, whom the guards mistakenly believed participated in the Camp Hill riots. They had not - they were moved
from the restricted housing unit at Camp Hill to make room for some of the alleged rioters.
"The victims in this case were not only inmates of Graterford Prison, but the Constitution itself," said Baylson. "These prisoners had lost their freedom but they had not lost the protection of our Constitituon against cruel and unusual punishment."
Among those charged, Baylson said, were about one-third of the 30 members of Graterford's CERT (Correctional Emergency Response Team) unit, a special squad for handling prison disturbances.
