Traduzione e sottotitoli a cura di Calusca/COX18
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Il 9 settembre 1971 i detenuti di Attica, a 400km da New York presero il controllo della prigione.
Fu la più grande ribellione nelle carceri della storia degli Stati Uniti.
Giovedi Il primo giorno.
Qualcosa stava per accadere ad Attica.
La popolazione era stanca.
Stanca delle bugie, delle promesse.
Eravamo stanchi.
Qualcuno ha colpito una guardia.
E la cosa poteva finire lì.
Ma poi si è scatenato l’inferno.
Sono all'infermeria,
e cominciano a suonare le sirene.
“Che diavolo sta succedendo?”
Ero sotto la doccia.
Sono uscito, fradicio,
e il posto stava impazzendo.
All’improvviso,
ho visto aprirsi la porta dell'infermeria aprirsi
e ho visto gente correre ovunque
con grossi tubi e coltelli
E di colpo tutti stavano correndo
E poi si cominciarono a vedere
gente che schiacciava la faccia
attraverso le finestre rotte
gridando: "Prendi le guardie! Prendi le chiavi!"
c'erano guardie che venivano picchiate.
Chiunque del personale ti fosse caduto fra le mani l’avresti picchiato.
Ecco la mia occasione per combattere chi mi ha picchiato,
perché ora sto insieme a un sacco di assassini.
Noi contro di loro.
Mi ci son buttato subito senza pianificare niente.
Non ero il tipo da pensare.
Stavo prendendo a calci la polizia. Mi son sentito bene.
Sarebbe finita lì,
perché erano in un’area confinata, i blocchi lucchettati
la piazzetta (Times Square) era chiusa ma i prigionieri sono tornati indietro
e cominciano a strattonare il cancello
I quattro blocchi si incontrano a Times Square
è il punto d'incontro, per come è fatta la prigione, Times Square è il centro, della prigione
La mattina della rivolta,
mio padre era a Times Square.
Aveva le chiavi di tutte le porte
e sfortunatamente,
i detenuti nel tunnel continuavano a spingere
quella porta, e gridavano
a mio padre: Apri la porta!
E Quinn è saltato su tipo: "oh ma questa è.." e ha azionato l'allarme
il corno che fa così: aahhoo
E hanno cominciato a battere e battere sul cancello.
All’insaputa di tutti
uno dei cardini era stato saldato provvisoriamente
durante le ristrutturazioni degli anni '30
e si è rotto.
Il lucchetto è saltato,
e tutti si son precipitati fuori. Boom.
Quando la porta è caduta, hanno attaccato mio padre e gli han preso le chiavi
e hanno avuto così accesso a tutte le porte di Times square
È stato picchiato molto duramente.
Torno indietro e metto due dita sul collo di Quinn.
Sentivo il battito, ma era molto debole.
Tipo una pulsazione,
e dopo un minuto o due, un'altra pulsazione
Alcuni detenuti conoscevano mio padre,
quattro musulmani han portato un materasso dal blocco A
l'hanno messo sul materasso e l’hanno portato via da Times Square
dicendo di avere una guardia
gravemente ferita e bisognosa di soccorso medico.
A un certo punto è arrivata un’ambulanza.
Nel frattempo, mia madre
era stata informata del ferimento di mio padre.
Presero le chiavi a Quinn,
e hanno aperto tutti e quattro i lati e han detto: “Ce l'abbiamo fatta”.
“C’abbiamo il manico!”
Abbiamo preso ogni blocco del complesso.
L’abbiamo preso,
ma non potevamo tenerlo
Quindi ci siamo ritirati nel blocco D.
Il posto sta esplodendo. Fumo da cinque edifici,
La cappella e la lavanderia sono in fiamme.
Avevamo sotto controllo solo il cortile.
Loro controllavano il sistema, e i cancelli.
e le porte, e i passaggi. Erano sui marciapiedi con le pistole.
da dove possono vederti.
Sto facendo una panoramica del blocco B
riprendendo un gruppo sul tetto del blocco C.
ok
Ora si vede il cortile e il blocco D.
Adesso uso il telescopio del fucile .270.
sono brutti e sono neri,
il più brutto gentiluomo negro che abbia visto in vita mia.
Sapevamo che erano là fuori sulle passerelle.
Posizionati in un certo modo..
Anche se sapevi che erano lì, loro si mettevano in modo
da non farsi vedere.
I prigionieri, perlopiù, si sono travisati
con sciarpe, asciugamani, per nascondere la faccia.
Era un modo per celare
la tua identità,
se gli sbirri fossero entrati, sai, tu eri protetto.
O pensavamo di esserlo.
Ad Attica New York, un migliaio di detenuti di lungo corso
oggi si sono rivoltati e hanno preso il controllo della prigione
Hanno preso in ostaggio 33 guardie e ne hanno ferite altre durante gli scontri.
La polizia ha ripreso il controllo della maggior parte del carcere
ma i guai non sono ancora finiti.
Quando siamo arrivati ad avere degli ostaggi
abbiamo urlato: “Abbiamo degli ostaggi!”.
Un migliaio di persone che lo gridavano.
Avere degli ostaggi impedisce alla polizia di attaccare.
Avere ostaggi è l'unico potere che hai.
Finché avevano gli ostaggi.. non avevano pistole
non avevano niente
ma avevano degli ostaggi.
Uomini tuoi e tu ne sei responsabile.
Hai la responsabilità di proteggere i tuoi
e devi fare il tuo lavoro.
Siediti e negozia.
- Entrando nell'area dove sono tenuti i 21 ostaggi.
- Sono nel gruppo principale. Al centro. Non riusciamo a distinguerli
perché i prigionieri gli han preso i vestiti.
Erano in cerchio, bendati in mezzo al cortile.
Avevano anche delle guardie, guardie carcerate intorno a loro, per proteggerli.
Li vedevamo come prigionieri.
Li abbiamo visti come persone sotto la nostra supervisione.
La nostra supervisione.
Quindi non potevamo far loro del male.
Capisci cos'è l’Islam Non devi fare del male a un prigioniero.
Pertanto, si è deciso
di lasciare che i fratelli musulmani
fossero loro a badarci.
Ero molto incazzato perché non mi lasciavano toccarli
Volevo mettergli le mani addosso
prenderne un paio e conciarli per le feste.
Erano le stesse guardie che mi trattavano male
che mi parlavano sporco, che mi davano ordini
Così gli ho detto: “E adesso, cosa ne pensi di me, eh?"
E per fortuna c’erano quei musulmani perché altrimenti le avrebbero prese. Davvero.
È difficile per qualcuno che
che non sia mai stato in galera capire quanto surreale
sia la situazione in quel dato momento.
Nessuno ci minacciava. Avevamo.. suonerà una cosa da matti
ma quando hai finalmente tanto così di controllo sulla tua vita anche solo per un attimo
E lo sai che lo pagherai. Carissimo.
È stato un momento di esuberanza
in cui potevi fare qualcosa e avere il controllo sulla tua vita.
Appena uscito fuori, era il caos totale
La gente arrivava con
cibo, vestiti. Tiravano su le tende.
Atmosfera di festa.
Eravamo liberi!
Ci siamo ritrovati una comunità.
In quel momento non esistevano
neri, bianchi, ispanici o chissacché.
Siamo compagni di cella
e dobbiamo essere capaci di affrontare ogni cosa, per sopravvivere.
I ragazzi che erano stati in Vietnam,
han detto: “Facciamo le cucce”.
prendevi un bastone
e ci mettevi sopra un lenzuolo
e ho dormito come un bambino.
Quando la gente ha cominciato
ad aver bisogno del gabinetto
Non ce n'era uno che funzionasse
Ii gruppo che era stato in Vietnam, disse:
“Dobbiamo costruire una latrina”
Sapevano cosa fosse una latrina.
Io non lo sapevo.
Fratello.
Dico: fratello. Ed era bianco.
Lo chiamavano Il piccoletto.
ed era come un'infermiera, anche da prima
Hanno sistemato una sezione medica in cortile
Chiunque avesse un problema andava lì e il piccoletto lo curava
E le cure mediche in cortile
in cortile erano molto migliori di quelle mai ricevute prima.
Oh, e ci siamo divertiti.
Facevamo il vino, e cucinavamo all'aperto.
Era come un grande picnic, in una baraccopoli.
You know, like that would belong.
When in Buffalo Bill was out there,
have you ever watched Gunsmoke
Well, Matt, Matt Dillon was the show marshal at the Gunsmoke.
He kept order
and we didn't have a map.
Every man was a law unto himself.
He did whatever the hell you want to do.
There was no order.
The assignment
editor says there's this place called Attica and there's
some prison riot up there and we want you to go up and do it.
We're not sure about any of what
the details are specifically.
And off I went.
Up to Buffalo and then on to Attica.
This is John
Johnson, ABC News, Attica, New York.
It was just an extremely
fluid situation, to say the least.
And it was hard to get information.
I mean, we couldn't get inside, and all we heard was
these inmates want to talk
and they have prisoners.
And this was something almost
that had never happened in history.
This huge institution where the inmates have taken over.
Oh my goodness.
Atika, New York had never heard of Atika, New York.
What's an etiquette?
Quite frankly, I did not know what to expect
when I got to Atika.
We parked right in front of the prison,
so consequently we just set up and started
filming as much as we possibly could
of the activities outside of the prison
. We had no idea what was happening inside.
Your instructions are that your weapon is not to be taken by you.
To be taken, you're to meet force with force.
There have been some of the prison personnel severely injured here
this morning, and we certainly don't want to see any right
people hurt.
The state police officers
were being handed out weapons.
They were making sure they had gas masks.
It looked to me like they were ready to go in and retake the prison.
The inmates circumstances, might you go inside?
Pardon me.
Might you go inside under some circumstances?
Well, one doesn't know. I'll have to fill this out.
The inmates made any demands. one me.
I don't know.
They say that they only want to speak with the governor or me.
There seem to be some sense at the time
that we are going to have to negotiate something
to save the lives of the hostages
because of the hostages that they have.
There's the possibility that negotiations
will begin.
And we're looking at a man
using a loudspeaker on a bullhorn.
Well,
there appears to be a large meeting going on in this area,
although we can't hear anything from that section.
That's right.
And inmates
decided that, you know, they're in a situation that,
you know, that required man a little bit more focus,
a little bit more discipline, how to combine the actual population.
Who do you want to represent you? You
mean we had elections, blah blah blah.
That's where we got our leaders from.
Hell.
Now some guys have some juice in.
They already.
The guys that have been there, while
all other inmates respected
what they were saying made sense to most, everybody was in the yard.
And they had a plan
and they had a plan about making things different for the prison system itself.
All we want is the basic necessities of being treated like human beings,
even though we're in prison, we're human beings and stuff like that.
The prisoners
in the yard must have had a radio.
They heard I was outside.
So they ask for me to come in.
I said, sure.
And they then said
we would like Commissioner Oswald to come in, and
some of his assistant
said, Don't go, don't go that you can't trust them.
And Oswald said, Of course, I'm going to go in.
We are glad to have someone from the administration
point blank coming in and view it as fact, now
we're making some kind of headway beginning here.
We got some contact with somebody.
We've got some negotiations for you listening to us.
I've never heard of this before negotiating
with inmates, and I just assume
that this was going to be in a landmark moment in American history.
I thought that this was going to be negotiated
to a decent humanitarian end.
It seems to be a little misunderstanding about why.
This incident developed at Attica
in this declaration here will explain the reasons
the entire incident that has erupted here, Adam, is not a result.
Well, in college towns and their factory towns,
there's all kinds of towns in this country and this is Attica, New York.
It's a prison town.
Most of the people in the village of Attica
make their living, working at the state prison
for 40 years.
Most have lived within sight of the prison wall.
They have never feared.
The village of Attica
was a great place to live was
very typical.
I think small town
where you knew everyone,
you were related to probably half of the town.
We've ride our bikes through town, go to the park,
we go swimming at the public pool, we go hiking up in the woods.
Erica is a company town.
Many of the people who work there and have lived in our town
worked as either civilian employees or corrections officers at Attica.
My grandfather worked there.
My dad worked there.
And between six or
eight of the houses that were on our street had correctional officers
or civilian individuals working in them with their families.
These were the only jobs in the area,
dairy farming and the prisons.
So there was this culture clash that came together to Africa.
You had all white guards.
And a population of prisoners,
there was 70 or more percent black and brown.
What could go wrong?
And the reputation was called the last stop.
This was the most strict prison in the state of New York.
It was known the word was dead
that when you got there, you knew where he was in for a hard place.
Last place, the last place, Attica was the last place
that was that was that that was last.
And you've got to really be there to see why
there was no, no black guards in Attica.
There was no Spanish guards.
They were all white people, man that come from the local neighborhoods
that don't know nothing about people who come from broken
people who come from Manhattan, people who come from the Bronx.
They don't know nothing about this culture.
Most of them don't even want to talk to you.
They're giving you just straight.
Don't talk to me.
And it was like that Don't talk to me.
They were hit the state bar.
And this is a metal.
A metal tips that.
And it rings out, but and you walk
and then when they want you to stop, they said. But
that was their communication.
The only thing was right was being right
and I mean it in all sincerity
where everybody was sort of like not so much mixing with other countries
would stand together for the purpose of the.
Survival,
I was white, so I got the best jobs.
I was always given a little bit
more leeway than the Blacks.
I can get an extra meal if I want to one because I was a white guy.
I'm a I'm a white guy, you know, give me a little extra.
And I got it.
I always was able to manipulate the system
inside the prison because I was a white guy.
I'm almost ashamed to say that I took advantage of that back then,
but it was the only way to survive.
It really, really was.
A roll of toilet
paper would have to last you a month.
You have to be a magician or tear up papers
out of the books and stuff like that to wipe your behind and stuff like that.
Guys were complaining about basically things like toothpaste.
Toilet paper.
A change of sheets.
More than once a month.
Things like digging clothes being cleaned.
Personal hygiene, things being treated like human beings.
No school program, Atika, was.
I can't describe it to me.
It was dead.
It was just dead.
There was no religious freedom, particularly
for the burgeoning Muslim movement.
They were denied the right to worship.
They were fed pork because the prison also had a farm where they raised pigs.
So that's what you god.
If it isn't $0.60 a day,
so that's $0.24 a meal.
If saw money on $0.21.
I swear to God,
one time I got my head opened up by God
and I was put into a segregation cell.
And a doctor came, you know,
just out of I was bleeding all over.
So it's like they cracked my head wide open.
Put it over here, but they had a feeding hole in the cell.
And so I put it that he put a
flashlight like, I swear to God, he hit me with the flashlight.
Right, right where the cut was.
And walked away.
They wait until everybody is locked up at night
and then they come for you, come for you as a goose.
These are the beat up police.
These two guys, they come nine, ten.
Real big guys
with real big sticks when they come in and they beat you up in your show
and then they take, you say, gation and sometimes you don't come back.
Attica was.
It's.
Fear they they ran the prison would fear.
Being scared of them were their means
of running a prison.
You either shut your mouth or you were in big trouble.
Some people died.
Somewhat crippled, somewhat psychologically damaged
for life. And.
It was a bad place to be.
They wanted to to institute
and instill that fear and that they were in control,
even though they knew they were losing control.
My generation
that came into Annika at that time,
we felt that we was in broken Malabar as we wasn't
shuffling our feet, we would walk with our heads up high.
We would talk in our own lingo.
Who's your daddy?
That's what we were going to take.
Nothing from nobody.
We want to respect.
You had to give it to us, would you want to do or not?
I'd read Algiers Cleaver Soul on Ice.
Huey Newton and, you know, the path of Piety and George Jackson story.
I read all that stuff.
George Jackson was revolutionary.
He's got to get busted for a ten dollar on gas station robbery and gang life.
He ended up in the system in the soul of the prison.
He showed us. And I mean us.
The younger guys that came into Attica
there was OK to say no.
It was OK to be rebellious.
Understand they may be consequences to saying no.
But it was OK
and it was uplifting, it was uplifting.
I think racism is a controlled of control would
create an atmosphere whereby then
petroleum, of course, here in prison we see the repression
and the exploitation,
the victimization of.
Lower class people's.
A lot of Black Panthers were coming to prison.
I started hanging out with them and they politicized me.
The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense calls upon the American people in general
and the black people in particular to take careful note of the racist.
Police agencies throughout the country are intensifying the terror,
brutality, murder and repression of black people.
Of course, you had black Muslims and his message to a black man really?
Well, a lot of guys that were in jail.
You want one thing?
We declare our right on this word
to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected,
every human being, to be given the rights of a human being
in this society, on this Earth, and this day what we intend
to bring into existence by any means in the city.
Officials at
California's San Quentin Prison still are trying to piece together
exactly what happened and how inmate attempted prison break yesterday,
in which three convicts and three guards died.
one of the dead convicts was George Jackson of the self-styled
Soledad Brothers. Jackson was 29.
Joy Jackson was that final straw?
I don't give a fuck no more.
You're going to kill us anyway.
We can't get out when it's fucking cage.
So where we're going.
So if we're going to die, let's die as men.
And brother just got frustrated.
We'd go into the mess hall
with a black band on Iran.
And just sit there, take a spoon when you come in.
Take no food.
We didn't speak.
During the whole time, we didn't pick up any food.
That I think kind of alerted
the institution that we are in solidarity.
They're probably seen that type
of solidarity before.
There was a lot of talk
discussing the situation
because the inmates were very upset
and things were happening here
and there was great concern.
It was a time bomb ready to blow, and we live with it
every day in my house and every day I say goodbye to my dad.
And I knew it might be the last day I saw him.
It was open conversation.
Things were getting worse,
and so they had a meeting with the administration
in the administration, essentially dismissed their concerns
and said everybody back to work.
However, we think maybe it's a good idea if you left
your personal belongings at home like wedding rings, wallets, et cetera.
So my father absolutely knew that something was going on.
I was having breakfast with him and he was talking to me,
and I knew he was nervous.
When he said something's going to happen, he said, I just don't know what or when,
but I think I'll be OK.
There was a fight
in a yard on September eighth,
and the guards promised nothing would happen as a result of this
because they could feel the tension building up.
Then that night, they broke that promise.
They came and pulled them out of cells and about three or four of them.
And then.
He was thought to embarrass Barroso would have a glass.
May have had or cans or whatever they may had, and it was a disturbance that dear.
So the inmates decided at that moment, Man, this is a man we tied.
I mean, they killed Josh Jackson.
They did this throughout the years.
We tie, you know, and they they went off.
I was in school that day.
And the whistle
from the prison just kept going, and we could hear it.
We got calls from somebody from the prison
saying that your dad, you know, is definitely being held.
You know, I was scared, I was worried for my dad.
I love my dad, but we didn't really know what was going on.
Understanding about what?
This incident developing it added in this declaration here will explain
the reasons for the entire incident that has erupted here at Attica
is not a result of the dastardly bushwhacking of the two prisoners.
September eighth of 1970 11 of the unmitigated oppression wrought
by the racist administrative network of this prison throughout the years.
We want the government to guarantee that there will be no reprisals
and we want all facets of the media to articulate this.
We needed the media in there because we needed
to let the world know what was happening.
We know this is one of the turning points
in the whole thing.
We would like the press to come in,
including the television cameras
that transformed everything.
Because now the prisoners had a worldwide audience.
Whatever happens here at Attica State Prison,
I'm not sure how they heard that there was a black journalist outside
that they wanted me to be
on the group that went in with us.
Suddenly, I'm on in this group
going into the prison with this.
Head of the prison system.
I was surprised that they had asked for me.
But I guess because of the fact that they had watched
the news, my reports were factual
and I was not taking anybody's side
in the whole thing.
We went in
and it was completely surreal,
like, you're walking down a tunnel and suddenly
you walk into this huge yard
where there are men everywhere like thousands of men.
And I remember
some people yelling, Hey, J.J..
I said hello to people
that I knew from Bed-Stuy and Harlem,
and they were in Attica.
Once inside, we were brought along through the yard
with a member of the inmate security force constantly at our side.
We were allowed to go where they told us to go.
We were all allowed to film.
Only one of the prisoners told us we could.
Inmates faces were covered so as to keep their identities secret.
Our first concern on entering was to learn how the hostages
were going to see the hostages, but
I was able to ask.
one question before I was moved
to the negotiation table to read it, all right.
Yes, I have so far, but very no, no complaints, but
no problem solver so far and treat it very good.
Shortly thereafter, one of the inmates,
a young man by the name of l.D.
Barclay, started to read
the demands of the entire prison population.
That means each and every one of us here have set forth to change forever.
The ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives
of the prisoners here and throughout the United States.
He was saying, What we all want you to scream.
But he was explaining it so that everybody could understand
so that when you were sitting in your living room,
you could say, Well, the guy's a criminal.
Yeah, but.
He is saying something that's.
That's
that I understand that.
How could we do that, you know, he was waking up America.
And he was the best one to do it.
We are men.
We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven effort.
Audi is only going to be here for 90 days,
he'll be getting out, but he wanted to the outside world and noted.
The prison is inhumane.
What has happened here is but the sound of
for the fury of those who are oppressed,
we will not compromise on any terms
except those terms that are agreeable to us.
We call.
You felt it.
And at that moment,
I heard it and I seen it.
And that reaffirmed
why we was data, why I was there.
It was a feeling that this was big.
This was huge.
Corrections Commissioner Oswald maintained
that he had done
quite a bit of the things
that the inmates had requested.
I've,
uh, complied
with the several things I said I would do as my part.
I brought the press and other media
in here to listen as we talk.
And now my question is I asked earlier,
when will you release the hostages?
Now the table was turned
and we had the power,
so when we asked him for something,
he had to give it to us because he had no choice.
We wanted some assurance that we weren't
going to be retaliated against.
So we ask Herman Schwartz
to go to District Court in New York.
And I get an injunction
that would assure us that we wouldn't be retaliated against.
I sat down and wrote an injunction.
Which barred any kind of retaliation.
It had been agreed that there would be
another meeting the next morning.
The time is now ten minutes late.
We've been shooting this tape for approximately two hours.
We started about 6:00 p.m..
Light is almost gone now
we can see lights in cell block D.
Oh. The guy next to me
was named Raymond Wei.
You open up in the air.
Gardner still remain way, your way,
your smear
ain't been out at the dog and 22 years.
And we was talking
singing songs, it was it was a festive night.
I loved it. I loved it.
Then I was out in the nighttime looking at the stars.
I was drunk. I was happy. I was. I liked it.
Yeah, I was having a good time and it was good.
I feel free.
You know, I mean, prison was dead, but you know, I felt free.
And you had to hear
the doors not locking.
And if and if it was a good feeling that that first night
when it got dark
and everybody was talking about finding somewhere to sleep with,
you know, don't sleep alone and you know, that type of thing.
There's a lot of psychopaths and sociopaths
in those facilities, so you know you had to protect yourself from
from your peers, even.
Well, I knew this was going to last forever.
I knew they would.
It would be an end this.
But just because he was incarcerated
didn't mean that we were less than human.
Somebody had to take the stand.
At dawn,
a smoke from yesterday's fires lingered over prison walls, a federal injunction
was obtained prohibiting physical reprisal against those involved in the riot.
When I brought in the injunction,
we talked to the prisoners at opposite ends
of a rather long tunnel.
They said where where the administrators.
I don't know.
I'm here about know where they are.
Finally, at 10:00, Oswald
and the others show up.
The prisoners were furious.
They had been, as they would put it, dissed.
They're supposed to meet at seven or 8:00 and.
It was very clear
the air was very tense.
You had the table spread out.
We were on one side.
The inmates were on the other.
And I gave the document
that the judge had signed this.
It's nothing.
I'm sorry, I spent hours of
of and got no sleep and trouble
declaring that a federal judge has signed off on an injunction
saying that there would be no reprisals, anything that can.
Waving that at us
and they're free to do so was the same.
There was no judicial seal on it.
I have received injunctions from the Southern District,
which are judicial fields.
This paper is an empty gesture.
Jerry, did you?
That was his nickname.
Jerry Rosenberg was a hell of a guy and he was well respected.
He had a law degree.
Any new law he would help
all the inmates, she was a jailhouse lawyer.
You can take this piece of paper and throw it away
because this is no protection.
Geoffrey Rosenberg God bless him, sir.
Charging scientists.
There's no there's no lost in district court
stamp on this document saying that, you know what?
Nothing will happen to worse and torn up.
You know, we know you mean well,
but don't come with the bullshit here.
We want a judicial seal and a continuing
restraining order until the litigation is finally ended
without any reprisal or brutality against any inmate
of this institution.
Well, lawyers know
that seals don't mean anything
so long as the signature is there.
I could have kicked Jerry's ass, and I should have
read because
he he just started to grandstand.
You know, he was caught up in the moment.
Good, smart as he is
and a shrewd as he is, he over reacted.
And we lost an opportunity there.
And then somebody said, let's hold them.
Let's add to the hostage Cal.
I speak everybody here,
I want to to you as well.
When you come in here covering the game,
I know you don't give a fuck about no max that they somehow give a fuck about you.
Nothing I know.
Nothing, you know?
And I'm gonna to leave you.
It seems to me that you are
saying to me that you, you are an artist at pretty rare occasion.
I bear witness to your evil deeds, Mr. Art.
Now I repeat,
as I told you yesterday, we are being lenient with you.
We are negotiating.
We are talking. We shouldn't be.
We should be demanding.
So why?
Because we have 35 lives, not hostages.
And I repeat Mr.
Oswald, a moment's hesitation would cause you delay.
The meeting in the yard got very tense
because Oswald would talk to you from one side of the mouth.
And then when he left the yard and go outside,
he talks from the other side of the mouth
of the inmates made any demands that, you know, there are all kinds
of demands, you know, for the change of change in the whole world.
But what he forgot was that he was being seen on TV.
Come on, how could you do that?
We watch you
and you stated it yesterday on the news media, in a huff, in a panic, you said.
Well, I don't know what they want.
They want the world and what you like.
You walk away from reporters.
Would you reply that the sidewalk?
Yes, I did say that.
Let him finish.
I don't say that.
Can't bullshit a bullshitter.
You can't do that.
The first time he came in, I'm going to do
this, a b, c, d e f g
and people said, All right, going back to business, get it done,
came back in and started talking and you know,
it was going around about hearing around about then this scenario.
Not that the hostages go.
But you be hostage,
whatever, you know, power
and water.
We haven't got that.
We're going to get Mr. Harper for himself.
So we got to.
We're not letting him out of here and keeping him in Austin.
We all we shut that down.
We're not going to be like them.
We're not going to break our word.
And it says, well, inmates would be more honorable than them.
Yes, we were because we gave him my word nothing would happen to him.
Everybody starts
screaming at him, go, let him go.
Don't.
He got out of Dodge.
He never came back.
In New York State,
some 500 inmates of the Attica maximum security prison are still in revolt.
Authorities tried unsuccessfully to reach a settlement with the prisoners
over demands for reforms and to obtain release of more than 30 hostages.
We have a report on what's been happening at Attica from ABC's John Johnson.
Fires were still burning at Attica State Prison,
despite a small army of police and state troopers.
The prisoners continue to call the shots at Attica.
Commissioner Oswald announced that
prison officials were attempting to bring to the prison
those people requested by the prisoners in areas under where the group
was basically people
whom they knew people like Tom Wicker,
who had written a column about prisoners.
Senator John Dunn was chairman
of the Prisons Committee and sympathetic.
He was asked to come.
Bill Kunstler, a lawyer for the Chicago
seven, asked him to come in
and Clarence Jones, publisher of the Amsterdam News.
Have a driver was
driving me up, the ampersand is the driver, says Boss,
they're calling your name on the radio, so what you mean?
Called Rockefeller,
and lo and behold, the governor picked up the phone.
He said, thank you so much.
Mr Jones, we have a major situation.
A number of the inmates
have called your name.
We'll have a car and pick you up.
And taking him to a private airport.
We're a state private
plane is waiting for you.
And there are more.
Atika, you be part of the.
Observers committee.
My wife and I were off on vacation at the time
and we got a call
that they had asked me to come there, and I felt that with my prior experience
and my responsibilities as a chairman of the prison committee ought to be there.
I was optimistic.
I thought.
Give it a shot.
For the rebel prisoners of Attica, the encouraging appearance,
the people, they consider friends.
A 30 man mediation committee, including a congressman for newsmen
and most importantly, lawyer William Kunstler.
Have you heard anything from Governor Rockefeller's office?
I mean, has he put any time limit on these negotiations?
No, but I understand that there is no present
plan to use force in this prison, and I hope that continues.
I just hope that they realize that this is a unique situation
and that it may take time and that if everyone has a good faith,
something will work out.
It was scary, the tension was tremendous.
Eager to cut the air with a knife, it was terrifying.
I remember going into the yard and saying to Mel, Where was I?
Do you have a cigaret?
And he said,
You have one on you, one in your hand, one in your mouth and one in your.
I was scared.
When you see a tower with people with rifles,
I kept thinking
we should stay close to Tom Wicker and Herman Badillo
because they would be the least likely to be shot.
Frank Big Black
Smith was the overall security leader.
He took that job on himself already.
He was the guy.
Here's the big man.
I mean, this is big.
That was responsible to make sure
that the observers that came in.
They the same way they can't manage the same way
they did that, you know, no harm come to them.
He said, Well, we've got to have a security force.
So we were looking for volunteers.
You, you.
Along the way for her,
can't be all black as we need black guys, white guys and Puerto Ricans.
We would line up and create a corridor,
and they would walk down the middle of the corridor with us being a barrier
between general population and the negotiators.
So we would just stand shoulder to shoulder and give them
that safe space to walk through.
We begin to talk with them
about what they wanted, and they had their their
their list of things that they wanted already written.
You know, everybody wanted a voice.
Good, bad.
And it worked out, so nothing went easy, but it went.
We got to a point where we had what we thought might be possible.
Their demands were, you know,
reasonable demands about living conditions.
They wanted medical care.
Decent food,
fair disciplinary hearings.
Basically,
they wanted to be treated like human beings,
prisoners late last night met with a civilian committee
in an attempt to clarify demands ranging from better prison
life conditions to more religious and political freedom.
I injected into the two demands
for some people to go to non imperialistic country.
You have to be frightened flight out.
We thought Cuba was going to come and get us.
You ship troops to Vietnam to stop the men.
Go to all these five countries to press the button.
You can bet why these helicopters in air and ship
on this country.
We didn't seeing people snatch airplanes
and all like dead and go to Cuba and Algiers and all other places.
Why not get out of jail?
An Air France jet was hijacked by Palestinian girls.
17 year old girl hijacked a twb jetliner
I have for years and on a 25 to life sentence.
Why not get out of jail?
Why not?
We all do that.
I wasn't going to happen.
We weren't going to go to
Algeria on the plane.
I knew that everybody in the back of their mind knew that.
But we need it, obviously.
We want the federal
judiciary to guarantee complete amnesty to each and every one of us
has taken part in the struggle here at Attica to ensure that this amnesty
will not be just a groping in the win, but a reality for each and every one of us.
They were not looking to be relieved of the prison sentences
to which they have been sent by the courts after being convicted.
They were looking to be freed from any
prosecution or any penalties
for their engaging in the riot.
Besides the normal beatings and everything else
they're going to do to us, which is, you know, automatic.
We knew that they could also take us and bring us to court and,
you know, and turn us into the monster inmates who took over the prison.
We are not advocating violence.
We all want to live.
All right.
If you get one on dog.
You're treating them better than we have been treated
the last.
They were fiercely
trying to convince prison authorities that they didn't cease
being a human being merely by the fact that they were
incarcerated because they had broken.
A law society, and that's a profound thing.
I am somebody.
I'm not a thing.
You can't treat me like a dog.
I may be a prisoner, but I have dignity.
And that's what they insisted.
I'm getting the.
Power structure of Africa to recognize.
That they continue to be.
Somebody.
All of you have seen
the observers, they all were listening to us.
I feel that they were supporting us.
We see.
And that meant a lot to us.
This is our situation.
Please listen to us. And that's what they were doing.
They were listening.
It felt like they were somebody that believed in us.
It felt that way.
If somebody believe that you know, you did have some rights,
even though you were a convicted felon or whatever.
Would we able to get
a better mailing privileges, better medical privileges?
We tried to nail it down to that, which was realistic and possible over
distinguished from a plane waiting for us
outside the cellblock, flying us to Cuba.
That's what it was like it was it was realism
from fantasy.
We want to be treated as human beings,
we will be treated as human beings.
Yeah, we have come to the conclusion.
That's the study.
After much suffering.
After much consideration.
But if we cannot move
people.
We will at least try.
Today, let me.
That statement was sounded
everywhere.
In that yard,
when he said that a roar went up like no other.
This was this day, and I saw that
I really none of us were going to be observers,
we were going to be mediators , whether we wanted to be mediators or not,
whether we were called up to be mediators.
This prison uprising had to be mediated.
Otherwise it was going to end in disaster.
If you people do not understand.
If you people do not pick what?
If you people can not make the commitment
that we have made here.
We all did.
All right.
We'll take you all
to stand with us.
Not necessarily.
I know you want to
hey, hey, before.
Things were growing on the outside,
don't take.
There were more journalists.
There were more police.
And it was just getting bigger
and bigger and bigger.
People are coming night and day
vans with reporters and police
and things are building up.
Among those keeping a vigil outside
the prison walls, the families of some of the 38 men held hostage.
I was just home watching the TV.
I just kept looking for my husband.
Maybe he'd be killed or brutalized in some way
because the inmates at that time had the power there, you know,
and if they didn't like somebody who who knew
what you were scared to death that, you know,
they'd just kill him or something and they didn't get their way.
Families of the 31 hostages wait for word
as part of the prison remains in control of the inmate.
They were upset.
They were angry and they were scared
standing out there while their loved ones are being held hostage
and they are waiting for any scrap of information
to hear something.
And many of those families
stood vigil day and night out there.
A bunch of people crying,
the wives and brothers and fathers
freaking out to his panic.
People are afraid to talk in the parking lot because they thought
that any reporters or anybody, even they did it on the privacy
because they didn't want the relatives targeted, singled out
by the inmates.
I had sympathy for them.
They were elsewhere, you're going to get a job if you lived in that
area and you had no
training and no understanding
of what it was like to grow up in
a poor black urban area.
You used these were aliens.
These were people from a different world
and your family members.
Maybe you're going to get killed
because of them.
Sure, you were.
Infuriated.
All these dogs up there with
all those rifles are trying to kill us.
Well, we ain't gonna quit the inmates that we're giving microphones.
I'm on TV.
I mean, the very upsetting.
They should have resolved it right away.
It just went on too far.
We all just wanted it to end.
What I what you hear over the radio
and the TV was and it's inspiring to me
because it seemed to me that what I was hearing.
I didn't think
they were doing the right thing.
It just seemed sort of limp to me
and it was frustrating.
You'd hear stuff from people.
That's where it got a little scary too, because you could see how the inmates
were considered like less than human kind of like animals.
There was people saying, You know, don't worry about your dad,
you know, they'll get theirs type thing.
And so that kind of made it even more scary.
You realize how emotionally charged the community is getting.
The tensions got worse and worse. Worse.
Emotions got worse and worse and worse.
Sadly,
I think that the hope was stronger than any doubt because after three days
Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
They had came in
we had like 30 demands and most of them what
possible,
and we will still be doing about it.
I've never seen anything like this.
The people in here are treated like dogs.
Not only the Black Lives Matter, white.
And we're going to get what we planned.
Are we going to die? Try.
But we thought that whatever happened,
we may maybe really walk away with some improvement
in our lives.
Point was, is that whatever happened,
it just had to make a difference.
Change had to happen.
You had to embrace who.
There's a report
that prison officials have yielded to most of the demands
by the rebelling inmates of the Attica state prison in New York,
where more than 30 persons have been held hostage for three days.
As you know, during this ordeal.
I have personally met with inmates
on several occasions in areas under their control,
and they have demonstrated my commitment
to deal with the issues they have raised
by accepting 28
of the three major inmate proposals.
The second is like any time of what's going to happen now.
Well, we hope negotiations will
start this afternoon and continue until they reach a solution.
Huey Newton or Bobby Seale, are they coming?
They were asked.
Or we hope we understood that they were en route.
We had.
Kind of settled in on the demands
we had negotiated with Oswald
for his commitment to 28 of them.
The commissioner and the whole point of Bobby SEALs coming there would be for him
to bless and support and urge the inmates
to accept them.
Bobby
Seale was our hero because he was speaking out
about the brutality that was happening in the prison system.
He was doing what we were trying to leave.
He was a panther.
The second in command.
I really thought it would help us out of everything
we ever demand.
Bobby didn't stay long.
Bobby to stay long, came up to it and go shake table was made a little speech.
You walk around your.
Well, we won't read about the jail.
A lot of times we're going back in time.
It was quite a letdown.
There is no remember me at all, about three minutes.
At that point,
everybody's just sitting around waiting for something to happen.
But then Billy Quinn died.
And that transformed everything
the state prison in Attica, New York, is at the crisis point.
The death of one of the guards as harden the position of prison officials
and there are you don't get amnesty for a murder.
I immediately knew.
That the
process of negotiations
just became far more difficult.
I knew that was.
I was the worst possible thing that could happen.
How could they peacefully negotiate?
With inmates who they held responsible for the death
of a guard.
Prior to his passing on.
There was a hope and even an expectation
because people were listening.
People were coming to understand what we had been living through
and suffering as prisoners there.
We know that it was a new ball
game was depression.
And fear.
And, you know, anxiety and yeah,
everything you can imagine.
We had to drop a lot of issues
and focus on amnesty
as one as the main issue
because we want to be charged
with murder.
We said.
As a group.
That we was going
to stay in solidarity with anyone.
They could not give amnesty to everybody.
Then was not going to leave anyone in the clutch in
to take a towing back on the bus or speak to take this.
We acted together that we understood that this was us,
that if we didn't stand together now, we never would.
And it would.
We would live like dogs for the rest of our lives.
We understood that.
Did I wish that we could somehow back away, but not without amnesty?
How do the inmates feel about the current situation?
I will.
A group of us were in with the inmates.
We met with them.
We had two and a half hours.
Some of the people are here,
but we really have nothing to say about it, except they are firm in their demands.
And that's it.
In other words,
they're not going to let the hostages go until they're granted total amnesty.
That was their last position.
The flag at half staff for the injured guard who had died
the night before set the mood this morning,
it was clear that the troubles of this troubled prison had grown worse.
That Sunday, you had that fall that came over
and it was a certain chill in the air.
Something didn't feel right.
It didn't feel right.
There are strong indications tonight that police will be sent
into the cellblock in an attempt to rescue the rest of the hostages
by force.
Water was cut off.
Food was getting scarce.
Patients were getting shot and people were totally
wondering what is going to be the outcome
of the situation.
There was enormous pressure, and I witnessed
that as I took a breather and went out to the public space
just outside the prison, where a lot of correction
officers, their families, troopers and other officials
were gathered together.
I mean, the news was completely about that.
You know that the state troopers and everybody were poised
on the top looking and
it was all about these rumors
that the prisoners were castrating
the hostages, that they were torturing them.
And it's going to end in bloodshed.
And that was the storyline that was terrifying, people.
Could you turn around this way to the camera?
I think I did a few interviews
and the people were
made it very clear that these are bad people in there and
they shouldn't be doing this.
You know, they should be taken care of.
You know what I mean?
And hang them and
crazy stuff.
I mean, they're just really crazy.
It was a very hostile environment.
And I just
don't I
don't think that Jaime, I'll stick up your hand.
I'm a father of eight children and my boy is the oldest,
and I wouldn't want to see any one of them die.
Whatever he is going to die,
I want that whole damn thing bound right to hell. OK.
And while we're talking went on, the state police
kept reinforcing at least 500 men in and out of the wall.
No indication that any of this force will be used at the police already.
Well, any
time you went in and out of the prison, there was an army
and they were armed with every conceivable type of weapon .
And it really looked like
they wanted to use those weapons.
You had the sense of their anger
and they've been held back and
they wanted to move.
They wanted to to to attack.
Yeah, they were very impatient,
very unhappy.
They were all thrown into a situation in which they are not prepared for
and about which they had basically an animosity.
And I wish to
would any of the men that a lot us off the roof?
Adobe that group is out of here because if you get these shaky guy shooting off
or getting up, and all of a sudden somebody is going to get excited
and then we're all going to say now, this is not a joke.
This is not
some kind of a little tea party we've got here.
And I just hope that the commissioner
and the other people in the committee that they've gathered together
can come up with a solution
to solve these people's problems
and ours.
Thank you very much.
Late Sunday afternoon,
Commissioner Oswald and the officials were prepared
and intended to retaking.
But I pressed Israel to agree
to give them until 7:00 on Monday
morning, by Sunday morning, everything else had failed.
And so the the the final shot
was going to be to try to get the Roc-A-Fella.
And there was there was a committee of people put together to do that.
Good morning.
We wanted four friends of the governor
to call him and please as your friend.
Let me ask you to come to Attica, not to meet with the prisoners,
but to come and lay your hand on approving these measures,
Sergeant Cunningham.
Now, would you give us a message
for Governor Nelson Rockefeller?
I certainly would.
one of the recommendations is and he said, No, I'm dead.
I and some of my fellow members of the Service Committee felt
very strongly that if Governor Rockefeller were to come to and identify
with finding a solution, it might have broken the logjam.
So I placed the call, the governor Rockefeller, somewhere around 3:00.
Governor, what about your personal feelings right now?
On one level, it was a Hail Mary.
On the other level it was more than a Hail Mary.
These were prominent people.
People that you would think Rockefeller respected
making a sincere pitch come up here, you don't have to go in.
You don't have to agree to anything your presence will have mean.
Maybe if he came, that would be an opening
that would have allowed us to negotiate.
Maybe.
Some other
negotiators could be brought in who would help the negotiation,
maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.
But no known donor or man.
Death, death, death, death.
Prisoners had been demanding from the very beginning that I come into the yard,
and I frankly felt that the idea of governors
any time there was an uprising or any time there was a prisoner
taken on a prisoner, but a hostage taking being involved in the negotiation,
the next thing would be, we don't want the governor, we want the president,
and we get to a situation with an impossible one for this country.
By the time they spoke to him, he had made up his mind.
He listened carefully, he listened politely.
But by then, he had made up his mind.
We didn't understand the background of us
having consulted on an ongoing basis during those days with the White House,
the administration in Washington encouraged Rockey
to take a strong hard line position,
which was unfortunate.
It was all a part of President Nixon's law and order agenda.
They were putting the pressure yesterday on me all day
to go up there and it up because everything else had failed.
And did you go?
Of course not. Of course not.
But I had the time.
Rockefeller wasn't calling the shots.
Because he was on the phone.
With Richard Nixon.
Rockefeller wanted to be president.
But the word on him was that
he was too soft on crime.
Where was he recommending amnesty?
Oh, yes.
Oh God, I tell you, is
this was the great this is separated the sheep from the goats.
And if he wanted the support of Nixon and the Republican Party, then
he needs to go along.
And so he wouldn't come.
You know, not that Rockefeller
wasn't coming in.
It's like slamming the door on you.
You know, I slammed the door and we were locked in this room
and we didn't know what to do.
You were to a great degree,
despondent that we had no solution to this.
We didn't know what to do.
Made one last chance to convince the inmates
to surrender.
That last night, Cell Block D.
As we were trying to negotiate.
Demands that we thought.
But realistic.
Was. A come to Jesus moment.
This is what you wanted the demands.
This is what we were able to achieve.
This is where we stand now.
I'm not going to mislead you.
And believe that you can get anything better.
I do not believe you can get
anything better.
I think we have to make
a peaceful accommodation.
Ready to be shot down like dogs.
I said this is what we achieved. OK.
And turn around, look,
cellblock, then you see all those guns there, just waiting to kill us.
They want to kill us.
Do you understand that they want to show
that they have the power from the barrel of a gun?
That's what they want to do.
Oh God, I don't know what's happening to me.
We were warned by the observers
that if we didn't settle, even without the amnesty,
they were going to come in and it could get very bad.
And of course, we talked among ourselves, and we just couldn't
go without the amnesty because it would have been literally
sending all our leaders.
To the dogs to be
tortured, murdered.
Convicted of crimes and
who knows what else, we had observed
the organization and preparation of the troopers to enter.
Hundreds of them with their shotguns
just outside the immediate area of the yard.
We witness the stationing of sharpshooters on one of the ledges
looking down into DAAD.
Fear overtook the observers committee.
It seemed like they felt something was going to happen.
They were more.
Hesitant to leave, they left with a solemn mood.
He left us with a solemn like.
But is this better, just take care.
I remember seeing them leave, and,
you know, it was a scary moment to see them leaving,
you know, knowing that there wasn't coming back.
I remember
Big Black saying, I want to thank you for what you guys tried to do.
We really appreciate it. So there was a lot of that.
When we went out of
that yard that night.
There were tears.
Tears.
And I think all of us were hoping
that something happened at the last minute.
Stop it.
I felt complete failure,
a failure that I had let them down.
one of the most painful things.
As inmates begin to.
Hand me written notes, the telephone number.
Of their of their
next of kin.
In case they didn't make it OK.
They wanted me.
They they I mean, a couple of them looked me in the eye with tears
for the Jones, but I don't make it.
You're going to call right.
I said, You have my word.
I will call you
any way optimistic that this thing could be settled by tomorrow.
I think I'm much too tired to be either optimistic or pessimistic at this moment.
I'm kind of just freaked out.
Randall, I know
it didn't stop ran until about
six in the morning.
Cold Mountain, right?
And we were not prepared for those little hunches that we had the
that people had built a yard up
in every day, all alone started collapsing.
And you had to get on
solid ground concrete and huddled together
because everybody was shivering and everything else.
It was a miserable night, one of the miserable nights
I ever spent in my life.
I could feel the tension in the air, the tension was so strong
that I could just basically grab it and hold on to it
. Am I going to make it?
Am I going to to this?
And that tension was so strong I could touch it, I could cut improperly in my hand.
There was an air.
We've been out there for about four days.
Wake up that morning and it's
wet and dreary out there,
and you could always smell the fumes
of Guy's body in that trench that we dug in the yard.
You use the bathroom.
Right there in front of You Breathe initiative nowadays,
so you want out.
What was really bad?
People's moods was that way, and
it was crowded.
It started to rain a little bit.
You know, it was dog.
The sky was dark gray.
We heard that
we would be part of a medical evacuation.
And early on Monday morning,
we loaded into trucks and headed for Attica prison.
In the three years that I was in the National Guard,
I had not seen any kind of action in which violence was involved.
But we had a sense of dread,
and we had a wish that we could kind of not go.
And there was the hope, even at the last minute, that
by some miracle, maybe
Rockefeller would intervene.
His refusal to come
here is a monstrosity, because what he is saying is kill these men.
I have no concern.
All I want to do is assault, law and order,
and I think that's a rotten in exchange for life.
And we got to the prison
and saw the lines of state troopers and deputies
with their raincoats on and their weapons in hand.
They looked exhausted.
They had been there, many of them for a couple of days at least,
and they really didn't look up to the task that was given to them.
He was coming in, you could tell.
You can see them starting to get more people I wasn't able to count on.
What I saw was.
We got another matches to put up on that table committee, there's
going to be rubber bullets and I say that's what that's
what the word was.
I thought they were going to be a real old fashioned game for you.
David, you want to call it, you know them versus us.
They've got the crowd.
We've got a few bats and stuff in here, so we're going to
best guy win.
We started making preparations
and putting Vaseline on every part of our body
that could be exposed to gas and get burnt and stuff like that
padding ourselves with clothes.
Somebody saying
if they come in here, then that's good because I know my sheik.
It became apparent to me
that the situation was seriously deteriorating
and that the inmates, many of whom are confined to this maximum
security facility under light and long sentences.
We're not going to participate in a reasonable negotiation.
Tensions within the walls
have steadily increased.
The action now underway
was initiated with extreme reluctance
only after all, attempts to achieve
a peaceful solution failed.
We were told that our mission was protection
for the medical battalion during the commander's briefing.
We were told that to our knowledge,
the inmates had no guns.
They had Spears.
They had some knives.
They had pipes that they were using as clubs.
But that was the extent of the threat.
So we knew that going in for,
you know, 5:00 a.m.
September 13, we're on the roof of a block
waiting for the assault to begin.
This is a team of 270 rifle shooters.
The center of our pictures, men distributing
baseball bats to the other prisoners.
We had no guns. We had no real weapons.
We had bullshit pieces of stick or a piece of iron
or shank that somebody made up on the sidewalk.
It was. It was pathetic.
Just four days, almost to the minute after the convict insurrection started,
state police reinforced by sheriff's deputies, National Guardsmen
and correctional officers moving in on the prison time is 150 5:00 p.m.
We're on the roof of C Block looking at a detail of 270 marksmen
with instructions to clear the catwalks upon command.
They took some of the
hostages on top of the catwalks, which is on top of the hallways,
and some of the inmates held knives to the to their neck as a result.
In an effort to try to stop the assault,
the hostages are armed with knives with their throats.
It was all just to show.
The try to get them to say, Oh, wait a minute, it's my cousin, my brother.
All he's got.
We were hopeful that if they saw this, they would back off
and try to renegotiate so they could protect their own people.
The notion of sending
in correctional officers
who didn't love the prisoners to begin with
and state police who were stressed out was a serious miscalculation,
somebody should have said, wait a second, wait a second, these people are on edge.
There is hostility
and it's going to get out of control.
We know that now, did we know that
in real time?
I guess not.
I seen this as a glorious fight.
They would come in with batons
and stuff like that, and we would be fighting the brave battle
with baseball bats and stuff like that, I.
I did.
I just never expected.
The the coverage through what actually happened,
I'm sorry.
Helicopter, two helicopters and a.
We're talking now going overhead
and over the wall into the prison.
It just disquieted, and Sky was getting dark,
and then we heard the helicopters does a dance.
This is fucking strange.
The helicopter comes up over the wall
and it's hovering over the yard.
I seen this.
I thought it was a monster.
It was a helicopter, a green helicopter.
It was flying low.
You see this.
It's like a sickly green gas with.
Sparkly stuff, minute coming down.
It tightens your chest.
Where you can hardly breathe.
That gas knocked me down.
Oh, what that was.
And they had me so weak I could not.
Your eyes are just all burning,
your nose is burning, your mouth is burning.
I mean,
we are.
And you got on the microphone, everybody in D-Block, yeah.
Put your hands in the air.
And you are not behind.
Go to the nearest police officer and you will not be home.
You would not be home. We will not be.
You would not be here for that was.
Do just ended up
doing this to get blown away.
They blew his head off and then.
Has all of a sudden there was all this popping all around us
and all these little pops
all around us were actually bullets.
Oh, and you could really see because the CO2 public first heard
you blah, that you can hear the boom going by your ear.
The hostages can't be seen in any.
I'm trying to stay on the ground as long as possible,
just like they were shooting down the barrel
and they started shooting point blank range, blowing guys away .
I got shot in the arm up there right through the back macroeconomist on.
I I felt something.
Go to my head, it must go, and it was burning,
no was shot.
I felt something hit my arm
and we're all numb and realized needed.
I got shot in the arm about two inches from my heart
and also a one to a football helmet on Spanish food.
Now the guard is up on the catwalk.
He jumps out with a hammer and throws it up and it hits the catwalk.
And you can hear the sound clip and all of them turn looked at him,
and all of them turn their guns on a brutal dashboard body.
I'm assuming that you guys got anywhere
from 20 to 50 shots because his body was doing like that.
I'd never seen no shit like that.
Not as a nasty shoot in the street.
I'd never seen them. I did.
I mean.
This was a holiday for the.
We got no guns to shoot back.
You know what?
It is a shoe store man and it's a shoe, but that's just a holiday
slow motion and all it was
that was save money.
That's what they will follow to each other.
I was scared.
I've done bad things, but I never did this bad.
As no.
These guys are real fucking cold blooded
killers and shit.
Until that moment came,
what is killing really started, and I realize that
you're not that fucking bad guy, no more, man, there's more power with his words
new, every bullet that missed by me,
if he could move.
Close to me, I winced,
then all of a sudden, it just stopped.
There are
people throwing off their smoke gear.
They ran out screaming niggers, niggers, niggers
and two of them pointed their guns at me.
Negative niggers.
And I said, Don't shoot, don't shoot.
Don't shoot.
Well, I'm coughing with all the gas.
I've been gassed.
It's an awful thing.
William Kunstler
has said that people are dying in there.
And I agree with that.
But that people are dying and then a shooting went on forever
and then it was like the shooting subsided
and then I heard some.
After the shooting subsided, I heard some single shot
bang and bang.
After they took over the prison,
all those books that had been speaking to the cameras
were all targeted and tortured.
So yes, yes, yes, yes, they were targeted.
Andy Barclay.
They were calling his name.
Going to that, Bob, looking for him
and threatening him with what they were going to do to him.
When they when they found him and they found him,
he was yelling.
No, no, but it's too fucking late.
They had him do acting, actually dragging him towards a
block far yard over there.
He's Holland new agreement and the acuity.
You can see because the gas is so thick,
but all of a sudden a puff of wind comes
and disperses the gas.
And then I could see.
And what I saw was fright.
Hundreds of bodies just laying there.
Some were moaning, some wasn't moving.
Blood was everywhere.
We were given stretchers and told to go into the prison.
It was really an unthinkable scene.
It was dead and wounded and simply
starting to carry them out.
It was far beyond anything
I had imagined when they said we would be doing medical evacuation.
We were basically civilians
put into a situation where state troopers
and correctional officers had created a war zone.
There was a pile of bodies, maybe eight or ten people,
and the man on top, it had his eyes shot out.
Right below us,
there was a huge pool of rainwater
and it was blood red.
And I looked down on down at it
and they said, Those are false teeth down there, aren't they?
And somebody said, Yeah.
The attitude of the people
who should have been concerned
about what had happened was simply that they were
pleased with what had happened
and had no qualms or second thoughts
or anything but satisfaction
with Walker wants to go back to.
Why white power weight,
right, right?
They had control.
And once they had control, you would think
that things would have stopped.
They didn't.
It was clear that at that point it was all about revenge.
It was all about reestablishing who was in charge.
And the most violent ways possible.
Everybody had to crawl through shit,
human waste.
But what do you do?
Do you live to tell your story
like I'm doing today or do you fucking die?
I made a choice.
I want to live.
Chrome nickel chrome
for like a dog.
If you look up, nigga, I'll blow your motherfucking brains out.
What the fuck they care about calling you a nigger?
That was your name.
They had us marching
around the yard with our with our hands
interlocked like this on top of our heads,
abject surrender.
When I saw these naked bodies
lined up, snaked around the area, it reminded me
of portrayals of of African-Americans being heard it on the slave ships.
That was just horrendous, just horrible,
horrible.
We're next in the middle of fucking yard.
God's going around with like baby bats.
It was seven remote guys as I'm laying here and I'm hoping
they don't come my way.
Frank Schmidt, Big Black, was put on a table
with the football under his throat.
People stood up above him on the catwalk,
aiming their guns down at him, throwing cigars and cigaret butts on him
. And
it said, Do said football falls, nigger, we're going to shoot you.
He was told to get to his feet.
He tried, he stumbled, he fell.
He was hit with clubs
on his back between his legs.
And he was crying out.
You know, don't do this. Don't do this.
And then you could hear him screaming as
he went up to the prison.
It felt good that I had survived this shit.
And now I got a look out
because some motion is coming.
The inmates were entering
these corridors off of the yard
and the guards were like
five or six feet apart with their clubs
and they would hit them against the wall and there was just this
dull drum like sound.
And then they were hitting the inmates as they ran a gantlet.
We could hear the screams coming out
so that we knew they were being tortured
and that we were somehow part of this unthinkable scene
that there was no escaping from but was completely wrong.
They had guards on both sides, and they would be hitting you
as you were running through beating you
with hoses and batons and whatever they had in their hands.
I'm ducking, trying to get through,
protecting my head, so I hit all of my all the elbows.
My knees still hurt, beating you and they're making you run
through the gantlet with it,
took all the glass out the fucking windows and put it in the middle of the floor.
So you had to run through grass with bare feet.
Nobody came out of that yard.
What with picking without having to pick a shot of your feet for four weeks?
Couldn't walk, nobody could walk anymore.
But we had to run because if you didn't run,
they just kept beating you with these clubs.
The families of the hostages, a lot of them waited
just outside the prison wall.
Then news began to filter out of Attica.
Names of freed hostages were called out to the loved one
by Curtis Lieutenant Colonel
Robert
Elder.
Some didn't see their men come out.
All they learned was the name of the hospital
where the survivors were being treated.
There were no time to wait.
They ran off to see their man.
People couldn't seem to run fast enough.
My mom came home and she was with her sister,
and my mom was crying, obviously upset.
I was outside sitting on the front porch,
you know, praying and worrying, and where's dad?
I respect him to show up, you know, and.
I again, my mom was dead.
What's what's why are you crying, what's going on?
Well, my mother came back in the house and, you know, he
she said, nobody to play with me now, are you?
I mean, you know, because I didn't want to believe it.
And she finally said, I saw him.
I saw him.
Finally,
she blurted out, Your father's dead.
So it ran.
We're in for a while, and I came back
and I was sitting on the front porch trying to be strong and not cry.
And I could hear everybody in the house crying
and I was trying to be so tough and.
All right.
Yeah, right.
The National Guardsmen were told to get back in their trucks,
and we did that and were taken out to the parking area.
And the colonel then addressed the battalion, maybe several hundred men,
and he said, essentially you saw things
that were excessive and wrong today.
And I have to ask you not to speak of this to anyone
because the world will not understand what happened here today.
The most violent rebellion in modern American penal history
came to an end today at the maximum security prison in New York.
In the final hours of the revolt, led primarily by blacks,
the inmates murdered nine of their white hostages.
28 convicts were killed
by state troopers, and sheriff's deputies will regain control of the prison.
The storming of the prison had the full approval of New York's governor,
Rockefeller, who earlier had rejected a prisoner demand for complete clemency.
The White House said that after the prison was retaken, President Nixon telephoned
the governor to express his approval of Rockefeller's action.
We went in we couldn't tell whether all 39
hostages would be killed and maybe two or 300 prisoners.
So we were able to pick off
either from the wall or as our men went in.
The man who had the
knives at the throat of the hostages
and they did a fabulous job.
I mean, this is this
are these primarily blacks?
Know, and the whole thing was led by the black cabinet,
are all the All Blacks?
I haven't got that report, but I have to admit I just out.
Yeah, yeah, we've got to have any.
We just not tolerate this kind of
anarchy.
Yesterday, officials at the prison said
eight of the hostages had had their throats cut.
But today, the Monroe County medical examiner,
having looked at the bodies, said no throats were cut at all.
The medical examiner says the hostages were apparently killed by a large caliber
ammunition and shotgun blasts from a distance,
which immediately raised the possibility that some of the hostages may
in fact have been shot down by the lawmen who broke in to rescue them.
Some of the hostages were actually shot
running towards the state troopers thinking,
I'm saved, I'm saved.
And the hostages were dressed
the same way the inmates were.
Anything that inmate garb on it.
They just started shooting at.
What Rockefeller had done was treat.
The hostages
as no more real live
human beings who deserve to be respected than the prisoners.
And so you kill them all and you restore order
and you make me into a major
figure who believes in law and order
at a time when that concept is beginning
to really take hold.
We should have entered
in a negotiated settlement.
No, they were they were interested in that, they were interested in showing.
The naked fist of power law and order.
The national mindset of the nation was law and order.
And law and order does not permit.
Any challenge?
To his authority whatsoever.
God willing, a few more months in January will be 90 years old.
I will never, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever.
We get Atika.
Ever.
It didn't have to be that way.
All eight cases.
Died of gunshot wounds.
There was no evidence of slash throats.
We're sure
your. The.
I have never received an apology.
I've never received an apology, and for me,
that's a pretty big deal.
What is money
do when you don't have your dad
or your brother or your uncle who?
How does that replace anything?
And I think it was the state's way of saying,
we're going to give you this money and we want you to go away and.
This is my.
True.
Well, she.
He threw
for nearly 30 years, former Attica inmates have waited for justice.
Today, it finally came in the form of a 12
million dollar settlement.
Be. There's no justice.
All we got was money
and money wasn't enough.
Then you can't justify all the killings that happened in Attica.
You can't justify that.
So there's no justice.
There is no justice.
We shall.
Be. And.
They might.
True.
Well, I'm sure.
Me, too,
do so.
And. Be.
You. Some
foolish. Oh.