A group of Massachusetts state legislators recently called on Governor Paul Cellucci to open an independent investigation into allegations that inmates at the state prison in Shirley were burned and bruised, and bitten by dogs, during a security lockdown in October.
The complaints reached legislators after Paul Poyser, a prison chaplain and former prison superintendent, raised the issue with top prison officials, identifying the inmates and detailing their complaints.
The legislators' demands followed their surprise visit recently to MCI-Shirley, where they interviewed inmates and prison staff about the events of Oct. 17, when officers began a three-day lockdown to conduct a routine search for contraband.
The Department of Correction told the Associated Press recently that it has started its own inquiry into the allegations. But after interviewing inmates, corrections officials said they found ''many of the inmates' allegations lack truthfulness and accuracy,'' the AP reported.
But legislators did not find credibility problems with the accounts they heard yesterday from 20 inmates.
Further the legislators are concerned that state officials did not act after Poyser reported the inmates' complaints and that further delays will allow wounds to heal - and possible evidence of wrongdoing to disappear.
Inmates recalled buzzers sounding in their cells to announce a routine search for weapons and drugs. But instead of the daily search they were accustomed to, a team of several officers dressed in riot gear approached their cells, asked them to strip, handcuffed them, and walked them through a metal detector, lawmakers were told.
Three of the four inmates she interviewed ''bore visible scars'' they said were incurred during subsequent beatings. One inmate said he was bitten by a prison dog and another said he was handcuffed despite a medical order that prohibited his being manacled because he is blind and has a disabled arm.
Prison officials told legislators that they were ''a little concerned that the search team used rough language, obscenities, and racial epithets,'' but were otherwise not concerned about the officers' conduct, according to one legislator.
Prison officials said that the searches were routine, but that the special team had not been used to conduct them in that facility ''in years,'' she said.
Officials at the Middlesex district attorney's office said they were expecting a report from corrections officials about the allegations, but said they did not expect it would be made public.