Attica (2021) Movie Script

1
Something always
was ready to happen at Attica.
The population was tired.
Tired of lies, of promises.
We were tired.
Someone hit the guard.
And after you hit a guard,
it's over.
But then all hell broke loose.
I'm in the metal shop.
We start hearing
these sirens going off.
I said,
"Damn, what the hell is this?"
I was in the shower.
I came out, I'm soaking wet,
and the place is going crazy.
And all of a sudden,
I seen the metal shop
door open,
and I seen guys come running
in there
with great big pipes
and knives.
And before you knew it,
everybody was running
all over the place.
Then you started seeing
people sticking their faces
through the broken windows
and saying,
- "- Grab the guards!
- Grab the guards!
- Grab the keys!
- Get the keys!"
There's guards
that are getting beat up.
Anybody that fell
in your hand that was part
of the administration
was gonna get a beatdown.
Here's my opportunity to fight
those who beat me down now,
'cause I'm with
a whole lot of killers now.
It's us versus them.
- I just jumped in there.
- I didn't plan anything.
I wasn't that type of thinker.
- I was kicking the police's ass.
- I felt good about it.
It would have ended
right there,
because they were
in a confined area,
locks on the block, locks here,
Times Square was locked,
but the prisoners went back
towards Times Square
and began to yank on the gates.
All the four blocks
met at Times Square.
In the context of the layout
of the prison,
Times Square is the hub,
the central hub of the prison.
The morning of the riot,
my father was in Times Square.
He had keys
to all of the doorways,
and unfortunately, the inmates
that were in A tunnel
continued to push against, uh,
that cell door,
and they began yelling, um,
for my dad to unlock the gate.
As Quinn jumped back, I said,
"Oh, shit, this is... ".
And he hit that horn,
and the foghorn, like...
And then they started banging
on the gate,
banging on the gate,
banging on the gate.
And unbeknownst to anybody,
one of the hinges
has been welded together,
kind of jury-rigged during
the construction in the 1930s.
That weld broke.
The lock just popped.
And they rushed out. Boom.
When the gate came down,
they attacked my father,
and they took his keys,
which, of course,
gave them access
to all of the doors
within Times Square.
Um, and he was beaten
very severely.
I double back,
and I put two knuckles
on Quinn's neck.
I could feel a pulse,
but it was very faint.
It was like a flutter,
and a minute or two later,
another flutter.
There were some inmates
that knew my dad,
four Muslim inmates who got
a mattress out of A block
and put my dad
on the mattress,
and they brought him
from Times Square
and told them that they have
a correction officer
that has been badly injured,
and he needs
medical attention.
At some point,
an ambulance did arrive.
During that time,
my mother was notified
that my father was injured.
After they got Quinn's keys,
they opened up all four sides
and said, "We got the joint."
- And they hollered it.
- "We got the joint!"
We took every block
in the joint.
We took it.
But we couldn't hold it.
So we all retreated back
to D block.
The place is blowing up.
Smoke pouring
from five buildings,
the prison chapel and laundry
gutted by flames.
We only had control
of that yard.
They had control
of the system.
They had control of the gates
and the doors and the walkways.
They was up on the walkways
with guns,
where they can watch you.
I'm panning now from B block,
taking in the group
on the roof of C block.
Now D yard and D block
is coming into view.
Shooting now
through the .270 rifle scope.
And there is the ugliest,
Blackest Negro gentleman
I've ever seen in my life.
We knew they were
out there on the catwalks.
They would position themselves
in a way...
Although you knew
they were there,
they positioned themselves
out of sight.
Most of the prisoners
have concealed their faces
by wearing scarves, towels,
and what have you
over their faces.
There was a way to guard your
identity from being exposed,
and if they came in,
you know, you had protection.
Or we thought we did.
In Attica, New York,
about 1,000 long-term convicts
today rioted,
and they gained control
of the maximum security prison.
They also seized 33 guards
as hostages
and injured others
in the fighting.
State police have regained
control of most of the prison,
but the trouble
isn't over yet.
When we got
to D yard with the hostages,
we hollered, "We got hostages!"
And you had about
1,000 men shouting that out.
You know, and the hostages
keep the police from coming
and bapping on us.
You gotta have hostages.
That's the only...
That's your only leverage.
As long as they had
the hostages...
They didn't have guns,
and they didn't have this,
and they didn't have that,
but they had hostages,
and they're your people,
and you're responsible
for your people.
You're responsible
to protect your people
and do your job.
"Sit down. Negotiate with us."
You're getting into the area
where the 21 hostages
are being held.
- They're in that main group.
- In the center.
We can't distinguish them
because the prisoners
have taken
their clothing away
and put prison clothes on.
They were blindfolded
in a circle,
in the middle of the yard.
They also had guards,
inmate guards,
that were around them,
protecting them.
And we seen them as captives.
We seen them as people
who were in...
Under our supervision.
So we couldn't do harm to them.
My understanding of Islam was
that you don't harm a captive.
Therefore, it was decided
to allow the Muslim brothers
to look out for them.
I was so mad at them for not
letting us get to the police,
because I wanted
to put my hands...
I wanted to get
one or two of them
and really fuck them up.
These are the same police
that was talking down to me,
dirty to me, and telling me,
"Get over here,
do this, do that."
So I said, "Yeah, now,
what do you think about me now?
Yeah, yeah."
And a good thing
that them Muslims was there,
because a lot of them police
would have been hurt.
Really hurt.
It's hard for somebody
that has never been
incarcerated to understand
how surreal everything is
at this point in time.
We had nobody threatening us.
We had... you know,
it sounds crazy,
but it was... when you had
a little bit of...
Even this much control
over your own life,
even for a short period,
and you know it's gonna cost
you, you know, in spades,
you know, it was a moment
of exuberation,
of somehow doing something
to have some control
over your own life.
When you first got out there,
it was total chaos.
Guys are coming out with food,
clothing, setting up tents.
- It was a festive time.
- We were free.
We came together
as a community.
That's when there was not
such thing
as Black, white, Hispanic,
or whatever.
It was about we are inmates,
and we need to be able
to survive whatever's going on.
Power! Unity!
Come on, 38.
- Tell 'em we ain't dead.
- Tell 'em we ain't dead.
Yeah, get all this here.
Tell 'em we ain't dead.
Ain't nothing dead about us.
We ain't gonna die.
- Nothing.
- We will not die in here.
The guys
that had been to Vietnam,
they said,
"Let's make hooches."
Hooch was a tent.
You took a stick,
and you put a sheet over it
and pulled it back,
and that was your
sleeping quarters.
By the time guys started, uh,
having to go to the bathrooms,
it was... none were working.
The guys that had been
to Vietnam
and been in the army,
they said,
"We gotta make a latrine."
They knew what a latrine was.
I didn't know
what a latrine was.
Give him a little lap.
All right, all right.
Okay.
There was this brother...
And I say brother.
He was white.
His... they called him Tiny,
and he was, like, a nurse
before the Attica rebellion
happened.
They set up the medical
section in the yard
for anybody who had
any problems to go,
and Tiny
would take care of them.
And the medical attention
in the yard was much better
than the medical attention
we got throughout the years.
Oh, and we had a good time.
We was making wine
and cooking food outside.
It was like a big picnic,
like a shantytown.
You know, like Deadwood
when, uh,
when, uh, Buffalo Bill was out.
You ever... you ever watch
Gunsmoke?
The Western?
Well, Matt Dillon
was the marshal of Gunsmoke.
He kept order.
In D yard,
we didn't have a Matt Dillon.
Every man was a law
unto himself.
You did whatever the hell
you wanted to do.
And 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 all five went, uh,
up to Buffalo,
and then on to Attica.
This is John Johnson,
ABC News, Attica, New York.
It was just an extremely,
uh, 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
had taken over.
Oh, my goodness.
"Attica, New York?
I never heard of Attica,
New York.
What's in Attica?"
Quite frankly, I did not know
what to expect
when I got to Attica.
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,
nor are 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 of our 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.
Sir, are there
any circumstances
might you go inside?
Pardon me?
Might you go inside
under some circumstances?
- Well, one doesn't know.
- I'll have to feel this out.
Have the inmates
made any demands?
Do the prisoners want to meet
with you, sir?
I don't know, they say that
they only want to speak
with the governor or me.
There seemed to be some sense,
at the time,
that we're going to have
to negotiate something
to save the lives
of the hostages.
Because of the hostages
that they have,
there's a possibility
that negotiations will begin.
We're looking at a man
using a loudspeaker,
a bullhorn.
There appears to be a large
meeting going on in this area,
although
we can't hear anything
from that section.
The inmates decided
that, you know,
they're in a situation
that, you know,
that required
a little bit more focus,
a little bit more discipline.
We asked the population,
"Who do you want
to represent you?"
Legal prosecution of any kind!
We had elections
block by block.
That's where we got
our leaders from.
Now, some guys had some juice
in there already.
The guys that had
been there a while,
who other inmates respected.
What they
were saying made sense
to most everybody
that was in that yard.
They had a plan.
And they had a plan about
making things different
for the prison system itself.
All we wanted
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 asked for me
to come in.
I said, "Sure."
And they then said,
"We would like Commissioner
Oswald to come in."
And some of his assistants
said,
"Don't go. Don't go.
They'll... you can't trust them."
And Oswald said, "Well,
of course I'm gonna go in."
We are glad to have someone
from the administration,
point blank, coming in.
We making some kind
of headway.
We getting here.
We got some contact
with somebody.
- We got some negotiations.
- You're listening to us.
I've never heard
of this before,
negotiating with inmates,
and I just assumed
that this was going to be
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
here at Attica,
and this declaration here
will explain the reasons.
The entire incident
that has erupted here
at Attica is not a result...
There are college towns,
and there's 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 walls.
They have never feared it.
The village of Attica
was a great place to live.
It was very typical,
I think, small town,
where you knew everyone.
You were related to probably
half of the town.
We'd ride our bikes
through town,
we'd go to the park,
we'd go swimming
at the public pool,
we'd go hiking
up in the woods.
Attica is a company town.
Many of the people
who work there
and had 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 correction officers
or civilian individuals
working in them
with their families.
These were
the only jobs in the area.
Dairy farming and the prison.
So there was this culture clash
that came together at Attica.
You had all white guards
and a population of prisoners
that was 70 or more percent.
Black and brown.
What could go wrong?
Attica's reputation
was called "the last stop."
This was the most strict prison
in the state of New York.
It was known.
The word was there
that when you got there,
you know what you was in for.
A hard place. The last place.
- The last place.
- Attica was the last place.
That was... that was the last...
And you had to really be there
to see why.
There was 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 Brooklyn,
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 you giving you
the straight...
"Don't talk to me."
- And it was like that.
- "Don't talk to me."
They would hit that stick... bop.
And this is a metal...
A metal-tipped stick,
and it rings out, and it... bop.
And you walk.
And then when they want you
to stop, they say bop-bop.
That was their communication.
The only thing was right
was being white.
And I mean that
in all sincerity.
Everybody was sort of, like,
not so much mixing
with other cultures,
but staying together
for the purpose of...
survival.
I was white,
so I got the best jobs.
I was always given
a little bit more leeway
than the Blacks.
I could get an extra meal
if I wanted one,
because I was a white guy.
"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,
you know,
the books and stuff like that
to wipe your behind
and stuff like that.
Guys were complaining
about basic things,
like toothpaste, toilet paper,
a change of sheets
more than once a month,
things like that...
Clothes being cleaned,
personal hygiene things,
being treated
like human beings.
- No school program.
- Attica was...
- I can't describe it.
- I mean...
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 got.
They fed us on 63 a day,
so that's 21 a meal.
How can you feed somebody
on 21?
I swear to God, one time I got
my head opened up by a guard,
and I was put
into a segregation cell.
And the doctor came,
you know, just out of...
I was bleeding all over.
So I said, "I got a...
They cracked my head.
It's wide open."
He says, "Put it over here."
They had a feeding hole
in the cell.
So I put it there,
and he put a flashlight like...
I swear to God, he hit me
with the fucking flashlight,
right where the cut was...
...and walked away.
They wait until everybody's
locked up at night,
and then they come for you.
Come for you as a goon squad.
These are the beat-up police.
These the guys,
they come nine, ten deep.
Real big guys
with real big sticks.
Then they come in, and they
beat you up in your cell,
and then they take you
to segregation,
and sometimes,
you don't come back.
Attica was...
Fear.
They ran the prison with fear.
Being scared of them
was their means
of running the prison.
You either shut your mouth,
or you were in big trouble.
Some people died.
Some were crippled.
Some were psychologically
damaged for life.
And, uh,
it was a bad place to be.
They wanted 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 Attica,
at that time,
we felt that we wasn't broken.
In other words,
we wasn't shuffling our feet.
We would walk
with our heads up high.
We would talk in our own lingo.
- We was rebellious.
- That's all.
We wasn't gonna take nothing
from nobody.
We wanted respect.
You had to give it to us,
whether you wanted to or not.
I'd read Eldridge Cleaver's.
Soul on Ice, Huey Newton,
and, you know,
the Panther Party,
and the George Jackson story.
I read all that stuff.
George Jackson
was a revolutionary.
He's the guy that got busted
for a ten dollar, uh,
gas station robbery
and got life.
He ended up in the system,
in the Soledad prison.
He showed us... and I mean "us,"
the younger guys
that came into Attica...
That it was okay to say no.
It was okay to be rebellious.
Understand,
there may be consequences
to saying no,
but it was okay.
And it was uplifting.
It was uplifting.
I think racism
is a control device,
control mechanism.
Create an atmosphere
whereby they can control you.
Of course, here in prison,
we see the repression,
the exploitation,
the victimization of, uh,
lower-class peoples.
A lot of Black Panthers
were coming into the 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 the Black Muslims,
and his message to a Black man
really awoke a lot of guys
that were in jail.
We want one thing!
We declare our right
on this Earth to be a man,
to be a human being,
to be respected
as a human being,
to be given the rights
of a human being
in this society,
on this Earth, in this day,
which we intend
to bring into existence
by any means necessary!
Officials at California's.
San Quentin Prison
still are trying
to piece together
exactly what happened and how
in that 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.
George Jackson
was that final straw to say,
"I don't give a fuck no more.
- They're gonna kill us anyway.
- We can't get out.
We're in this fucking cage,
so where we going at?
So if we gonna die,
let's die as men."
And brothers
just got frustrated.
We'd go into the mess hall
with a Black band on your arm
and just sit there.
Take a spoon when you come in.
Take no food.
We didn't speak
during the whole time,
and we didn't pick up any food.
That, I think,
kind of alerted the institution
that we was in solidarity.
They'd probably never 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 there,
and there was great concern.
It was a time bomb
ready to blow,
and we lived with it
every day in my house,
and every day,
I said good-bye 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,
and 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.
But he said,
"Something's gonna happen."
He said, "I just don't know
what or when.
But I think I'll be okay."
There was a fight
in A yard on September 8th.
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 the cells, and...
About three or four of them,
and then...
Then we started
throwing bottles
or whatever glass
they may have had,
or cans, or whatever
they may have had,
and it was a disturbance,
that there.
So the inmates decided
at that moment,
- "- Man, this is it, man.
- We tired.
I mean, they killed
George Jackson.
They did this
throughout the years.
We tired."
You know? And 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 loved my dad.
But we didn't really know
what was going on.
It seems to be
a little misunderstanding
about why
this incident developed
here at Attica,
and this declaration here
will explain the reasons.
The entire incident
that has erupted here at Attica
is not a result
of the dastardly bushwhacking
of the two prisoners
September 8th of 1971,
but of the unmitigated
oppression
wrought by the racist
administrative network
of this prison
throughout the years.
We want the governor
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.
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 Oswald.
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, JJ."
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 allowed to film
only when 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.
We want to see your hostages.
Show the hostages first.
I was able to ask one question
before I was moved
to the negotiation table.
Been treated all right?
Yes, I have so far
been treated very good.
- No complaints?
- No.
But no problems so far?
So far, been treated very good.
Shortly thereafter,
one of the inmates,
a young man
by the name of L.D. Barkley,
started to read the demands.
The entire prison populace...
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
wanted 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 I understand.
- 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 as such.
LD was only gonna be here
for 90 days.
He'll be getting out.
But he wanted the outside world
to know that...
...the prisons were inhumane.
What has happened here
is but the sound
before the fury of those
who are oppressed.
We will not compromise
on any terms
except those terms
that are agreeable to us.
We call upon all...
You felt it.
And at that moment,
I heard it, and I seen it.
And that reaffirmed
why we was there.
Why I was there.
There 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've 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?
But now, the table was turned,
and we had the power.
So when we asked him
for something,
he had to give it to us
'cause he didn't have
no choice.
We wanted some assurance
that we weren't gonna be
retaliated against.
So we asked Herman Schwartz
to go to District Court
in New York
and 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 of eight.
We've been shooting this tape
for approximately two hours.
We started about 6:00 p.m.
The light is almost gone now.
We can see lights
in cell block D.
Singers vocalizing
The guy next to me
was named Raymond White.
He was walking around,
looking up in the air.
- It's dark.
- I said, "Yo, Raymond White.
Yo, Ray, you all right?"
He said, "Man, I ain't been out
after dark in 22 years."
And we was talking,
singing songs...
It was a festive night.
I loved it. I loved it.
Man, I was out
in the nighttime,
looking at the stars.
I was drunk. I was happy.
You know, I was... I liked it,
you know.
I was having a good time.
And it was good. I felt free.
You know, I mean,
prison was there,
but, you know, I felt free.
I didn't have to hear
the doors locking.
And if... it was a good feeling
at that first night.
When it got dark,
and everybody was talking
about finding somewhere
to sleep...
But, 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 your peers, even.
I knew this wasn't
gonna last forever.
I knew there would...
There would be an end to this.
But just because
we was incarcerated
didn't mean that we were
less than human.
Somebody had to take a stand.
At dawn, as 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 are the administrators?"
I said, "I don't know.
I'm here, but I don't know
where they are."
Finally, at ten o'clock,
Oswald and the others show up.
The prisoners were furious.
They had been,
as they would put it, dissed.
They were supposed to meet
at seven or eight o'clock,
and it was very clear...
The air was very tense.
You had the tables spread out.
We were on one side.
The inmates were on the other.
And I gave them the document
that the judge had signed.
This is nothing.
I'm sorry,
I spent seven hours of...
And got no sleep,
and traveled...
He claimed that the federal
judge signed off
on an injunction saying that
there would be no reprisals.
And he came back in,
waving that at us,
and Jerry the Jew said,
"Where's the seal?"
There is no judicial seal
on this.
I have received injunctions
from the Southern District
which had judicial seals.
This paper is an empty gesture.
- Jerry the Jew.
- That was his nickname.
Jerry Rosenberg
was a hell of a guy.
And he was well-respected.
He had a law degree.
- And he knew law.
- He would help all the inmates.
He was a jailhouse lawyer.
You can take this piece
of paper and throw it away,
because this is no protection.
Jerry Rosenberg, God bless him,
say, uh,
"Judge ain't signed this.
There's no
Western District Court stamp
on this document saying that,
you know what,
nothing will happen to us,"
and tore it up.
Herman, we know you mean well,
but, uh, don't come
with the bullshit, Herm.
We want a judicial seal
and a continuing
restraining order
until the litigation
is finally ended,
without any reprisals
or brutality
against any inmates
of this institution.
Well, lawyers know that seals
don't mean anything,
uh, so long as the signature
is there.
I could have
kicked Jerry's ass.
And I should have.
Really, 'cause he just
started to grandstand.
You know, he was caught up
in the moment.
Smart as he is,
and as shrewd as he is,
he overreacted,
and we lost
an opportunity there.
And then somebody said,
"Let's hold them.
Let's add
to the hostage count."
I hope I'm speaking
for every brother here.
I want to address this
to you, Oswald.
You come in here
popping that game.
I know you don't give a fuck
about none of them hacks
out there.
Let me tell you something.
- I don't give a fuck about you.
- Nothing.
I know them people don't mean
nothing to you.
Nothing.
And I'ma tell you before
you leave here... if you leave.
Mr. Oswald, it seems to me
that you weren't honest.
It seems to me that you weren't
honest at prevarications.
I bear witness
to your evil deeds, Mr. Oswald.
Now, I repeat,
as I told you yesterday,
we're being lenient with you.
- We're negotiating.
- We are talking.
- We shouldn't be.
- We should be demanding.
Why?
Because we have 35 lives,
not hostages.
And I repeat, Mr. Oswald,
a moment's hesitation
will cause you their lives.
The meeting
in the yard got very tense
because Oswald
would talk to you
from one side of his mouth,
and then when he left the yard
and go outside,
he talks from the other side
of the mouth.
Have the inmates made
any demands that you know of?
There are all kinds
of demands, you know,
for the change in...
Change in the whole world.
But what he forgot was that
he was being seen on TV.
- Come on. How could he do that?
- We're watching 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 you left it like that.
You walked away
from the reporters.
Would you reply to that,
Mr. Oswald?
Yes, I did say that.
No, we didn't ask
you that, because we didn't...
Let him finish, please.
I did say that.
Can't bullshit a bullshitter.
You can't do that.
The first time he came in,
"I'ma do this,
A, B, C, D, E, F, G,"
and people was happy.
"All right, go on about
your business, get it done."
Came back in and started
talking, you know...
You know, he was going
roundabout there
and roundabout there,
and they said,
"No, don't let the hostages go.
All right, how about
you be a hostage?"
We have been asking for over
29 hours for food and water.
- We haven't got none.
- We're gonna keep Mr. Russell...
Russell G. Oswald here
until we get
some food and water.
"No, we're not
letting him out of here.
We're keeping him hostage."
We all... we shut that down.
- We're not gonna be like them.
- We're not gonna break our word.
And he says,
"Well, inmates would be
more honorable than them?"
Yes, we were.
'Cause we gave them our word
nothing would happen to them.
And everybody
started screaming,
"Let him go! Let him go!"
Security, please.
Security, please.
And he got out of Dodge,
and 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.
The group was basically people
whom they knew.
People like Tom Wicker,
who had written a column
about prisoners.
Senator John Dunne
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.
I have a driver
who's driving me up
to the Amsterdam News.
And the driver says, "Boss!
They're calling your name
on the radio."
I said, "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 pick you up
and take you
to a private airport...
...where a state private plane
is waiting for you."
And there, I'm off to Attica,
to be part
of the observers committee.
My wife and I were off
on a 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 the chairman
of the Prison Committee,
I ought to be there.
I was optimistic.
I thought, "Give it a shot."
For the rebel
prisoners of Attica,
the encouraging appearance of
people they consider friends,
a 30-man mediation committee,
including a congressman,
four 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's
in good faith,
something will work out.
- It was scary.
- The tension was tremendous.
You could have cut the air
with a knife.
It was terrifying.
I remember going into the yard
and saying to Mel Rivers,
"Do you have a cigarette?"
And he said, "You have one
in your... one in your hand,
one in your mouth,
and one in your ear."
I was scared.
When you see a tower
with people with rifles...
I kept thinking, um,
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.
He was the big man.
I mean, this fella was big.
They was responsible
to making sure that
the observers that came in...
The same way they came in
is the same way they left.
You know, no harm come to them.
He said, "Well, we gotta have
a inmate security force."
- Said, "All right.
- We're looking for volunteers.
You, you, you, you, you,
y'all on the inmate force.
And it can't be all Black guys.
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 began to talk to with them
about what they wanted.
And they had their list
of things
that they wanted
already written.
You know,
everybody wanted a voice...
Good, bad, and the whacked 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,
uh, decent food,
uh, fair disciplinary hearings.
Basically, they wanted
to be treated
like human beings.
Prisoners late last night
met with a 30-member
civilian committee
in an attempt
to clarify demands
ranging from better
prison life conditions
to more religious
and political freedom.
I injected into the demands
for some people to go
to a non-imperialistic country,
you know, to be flied out.
We thought Cuba
was gonna come and get us.
You ship troops to Vietnam,
to Santo Domingo,
to all these foreign countries,
to oppress the brothers.
You can bring one of these
helicopters in here
and ship us
on out of this country.
We done seen people snatch
airplanes and all like that
and go to Cuba and Algiers
and all other places.
Why not get out of jail?
An Air France jet was hijacked
by Palestinian guerillas.
A 17-year-old girl
hijacked a TWA jetliner on a...
I had four years in
on a 25-to-life sentence.
Why not get out of jail?
Why not?
Well, we all knew that
that wasn't gonna happen.
We weren't gonna go to Algeria
in their plane, I knew that.
Everybody, the back
of their minds, knew that.
But we needed amnesty.
We want the federal judiciary
to guarantee complete amnesty
to each and every one of us
that has taken part
in the struggle here at Attica,
to ensure that this amnesty
will not be
just a groping in the wind,
but a reality for each
and every one of us.
They were not looking
to be relieved
of the prison sentences
to which they had 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
that they're gonna do to us,
which is, you know, automatic,
we knew that they could also
take us and bring us to courts
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 of us.
If any of you gentlemen
own dogs...
You're treating them better
than we have been treated
the last year.
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 of society.
Now, 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
on getting the...
power structure of Attica
to recognize...
That they continued
to be somebody.
The observers,
they all were listening to us.
I feel that they
were supporting us.
You 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 there was somebody
that believed in us.
It felt that way.
That somebody believed that,
you know,
you did have some rights,
even though you were
a convicted felon of whatever.
We'd be able to get better
mailing privileges,
better medical privileges.
We tried to nail it down
to that which was realistic
and possible,
distinguished from a plane
waiting for us
outside the cell block,
flying us to Cuba.
That's what it was.
It was realism from fantasy.
We want to be treated
as human beings.
We will be treated
as human beings.
We have come
to the conclusion...
...after close study,
after much suffering,
after much consideration,
that if we cannot
live as people,
then we will at least
try to die like men.
That statement resounded
everywhere.
In that yard,
when he said that,
a roar went up like no other.
This was their stand.
I saw that I really...
None of us
were gonna be observers.
We were gonna 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 gonna end
in disaster.
If you people
do not understand,
if you people
do not stick with us,
if you people cannot make
the commitment
that we have made here...
...we are dead.
I appeal, beseech you all
to stand with us,
walk with us,
die with us, if necessary!
- I hear you!
- You and all the people!
Power to you
and all the people!
Things were growing
on the outside.
Don't tape this.
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, or who knew what,
you were just scared
to death that, you know,
they'd just kill them all
or something
if they didn't get their way.
Families of the 31 hostages
wait for word as part
of the prison
remains in control
of the inmates.
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.
Just panic.
People were afraid to talk
in the parking lot
because they thought that...
To any reporters or anybody,
even.
They did it all in privacy
because they didn't want
their relatives targeted,
singled out by the inmates.
I had sympathy for them.
They... where else
were you gonna 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... these were aliens.
These were people
from a different world.
And your family members
maybe are gonna 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 were
given microphones on TV,
I mean... very upsetting.
They should have
resolved it right away.
- It just went on too far.
- We all just wanted it to end.
What I would hear
over the radio
and the TV
was not satisfying
to me at all,
because it seemed to me
that what I was hearing,
I didn't think was...
They were doing
the right thing.
It just seemed
sort of limp to me.
And that was frustrating.
You'd hear stuff from people.
That's where it got
a little scary, too,
'cause 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's getting.
The tensions got worse
and worse and worse.
Emotions got worse
and worse and worse.
Saturday,
I think that the hope
was stronger than the doubt,
because after three days,
you know, Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday,
they hadn't came in there.
We had, like, 30 demands,
and most of them were possible.
And we were exuberant
about it.
I've never seen
anything like this.
The people in here
are treated like dogs.
Not only the Black...
The Puerto Rican and the white.
And we're gonna get
what we demand,
or we gonna die trying.
Thank you.
We thought that,
whatever happened,
we could 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 hope.
There's a report that prison
officials have yielded
to most of the demands
by the rebelling inmates
at 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 have demonstrated
my commitment
to deal with the issues
they have raised
by accepting 28 of the 30
major inmate proposals.
Mr. Kunstler, can you tell me
what's gonna happen now?
Well, we hope negotiations
will start this afternoon
and continue
until they reach a solution.
Is Huey Newton or Bobby Seale,
- are they coming?
- They were asked for.
We hope so,
and we understood
that they were en route.
We had kind of settled in
on the demands,
and we had negotiated
with Oswald for his commitment
to 28 of them.
And the whole point
of Bobby Seale's 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 live.
He was a Panther,
the second-in-command.
I really thought
he was gonna help us out.
Every demand. Every demand.
- Bobby didn't stay long.
- Bobby didn't stay long.
Came up to where
the negotiating table was,
made his little speech.
He ain't walk around the yard.
Bobby walked right up
out the jail.
It was quite a letdown.
- Let's go.
- Let's go, big man.
He stayed
all about three minutes.
At that point,
everybody 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
has hardened the position
of prison officials,
and there are strong...
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, uh,
that 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 knew that
it was a new ballgame.
It was depression and fear...
and, you know, anxiety,
and, yeah,
everything you could imagine.
We had to drop a lot of issues
and focus on amnesty as one,
as the main issue,
because we didn't want
to be charged with murder.
We said, as a group...
...that we was gonna stand
in solidarity with everyone.
If they could not give amnesty
to everybody,
then we was not gonna leave
anyone in the clutch
or in... to take...
Or throw anybody under the bus,
so to speak, to take this.
We acted together.
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?
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
gonna 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 fog that came over,
and it was a certain chill
in the air.
You know, something
didn't feel right.
It didn't feel right.
There are
strong indications tonight
that police will be sent
into the cell block
in an attempt to rescue
the rest of the hostages
by force.
Water was cut off.
Food was getting scarce.
Patience was getting short.
And people were totally
wondering
what is gonna be
the outcome of the situation.
There was enormous pressure,
and I witnessed it
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 in.
It was all about these rumors
that the prisoners
were castrating the hostages,
that they were torturing them,
and it's gonna 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.
- They should hang them.
And crazy stuff.
I mean,
it was just really crazy.
It was a very hostile
environment.
I'd like to show them
a little brutality.
Is this being brutal
to us or not?
- Don't point that bitch at me.
- I'll stick it up your ass!
I'm a father of eight children,
and Michael is the oldest,
and I wouldn't want to see
any one of them die.
But if he is gonna die,
I want that whole damn thing
bombed right the hell off.
While the talking went on,
the state police
kept reinforcing.
At least 500 men
in and out of the walls.
No indication that any
of this force will be used,
but the police are ready.
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'd been held back,
and...
...they wanted to move.
They wanted to... to attack.
Yeah, they were
very impatient.
Very unhappy.
They were all thrown
into a situation
which they were
not prepared for,
and about which they had
basically an animosity.
I wish you
would take any of the men
that belongs to us
off the roof,
and any of the troopers
out of here,
because if you get
these shaky guys shooting off
or getting up in a goober
over something,
somebody's gonna get excited,
and then we're all gonna pay.
Now, this is not a joke.
This is not a...
Some kind of a little tea party
we got here.
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 Oswald
to agree to give them
until seven o'clock
on Monday morning.
By Sunday morning,
everything else had failed.
And so the...
The final shot
was going to be
to try to get to Rockefeller.
And there was a committee of
people put together to do that.
Good morning, Governor.
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 if he says no, I'm dead."
I and some of my fellow members
of the observers 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 a call
to Governor Rockefeller
somewhere around
three o'clock.
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 meaning."
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, no, no, no"
meant
"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...
Not a prisoner,
but a hostage taken...
Being involved
in the negotiation...
The next thing would be,
"We don't want the governor.
We want the president."
Then we get to a situation
which is 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 his having consulted,
on an ongoing basis,
during those days,
with the White House.
The administration
in Washington encouraged Rocky
to take a strong,
hardline position,
which was unfortunate.
It was all a part
of President Nixon's
law and order agenda.
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.
And if he wanted
the support of Nixon
and the Republican Party,
then he needed to go along.
And so he wouldn't come.
You know,
now that Rockefeller
wasn't coming in...
...it's like slamming
the door on you.
You know,
they slammed the door,
and we was locked in this room
and we didn't know what to do.
We were
to a great degree despondent
that we had
no solution to this.
We didn't know what to do.
We made one last chance
to convince the inmates
to surrender.
That last night
in cell block D...
...as we were trying
to negotiate
demands that we thought
were 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 gonna 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...
...rather than be
shot down like dogs."
I said,
"This is what we achieved.
Okay?
And turn around and look.
Cell block...
You see all those guns?
They're 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."
We were warned
by the observers
that if we didn't settle
even without the amnesty,
they were gonna come in,
and it could get very bad.
And, of course, we talked
amongst ourselves,
and we just couldn't go
without the amnesty,
'cause it would have been
literally
sending all our leaders...
to the dogs, to be tortured,
murdered, uh,
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 D yard.
We witnessed the stationing
of sharpshooters
on one of the ledges
looking down into D yard.
Fear overtook
the observers committee.
It seemed like they felt
something was gonna happen.
They were more...
hesitant to leave.
They leave with a solemn mood.
They left us
with a solemn mood.
It was like, "Brothers,
just be careful,
just take care."
I remember
seeing them leaving, you know,
and it was a scary moment
to see them leaving,
you know, knowing that
they 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.
There were tears.
And I think all of us
were hoping
that something happened
at the last minute to stop it.
I felt complete failure.
A failure
that I had let them down.
One of the most painful things
is when inmates began to...
hand me written notes,
the telephone number of their...
Of their next of kin,
in case they didn't make it.
Okay?
They wanted me... I mean,
a couple of them looked me
in the eye with tears.
"Brother Jones,
if I don't make it,
you're gonna call, right?"
I said, "You have my word.
I will call."
Are you any way optimistic
that this thing can be settled
by sometime tomorrow?
I think I'm much too tired
to be either optimistic
or pessimistic.
At the moment,
I'm kind of just freaked out.
It rained all night.
It didn't stop raining
till about
six in the morning.
Cold, mountain rain.
And we were not
prepared for it.
Those little hooches
that we had,
them tents that people had dug
the yard up and everything,
all them started collapsing.
And you had to get
on solid ground,
concrete, and huddle together,
'cause everybody was shivering
and everything else.
It was a miserable night.
One of the miserable-est 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 gonna make it?
- Am I gonna live through this?"
And that tension was so strong,
I could touch it,
I could cut
and hold it in my hand.
Death was written in the air.
We've been
out there for about four days.
We wake up that morning,
and it's wet and dreary
out there.
And you could always smell
the fumes of guys' body
in that trench
that we dug in the yard
to use the bathroom,
right there in front of us,
so you breathing this shit in
all day, so you want out.
The weather was really bad.
People's moods was that way,
and, uh...
it was cloudy.
It started to rain
a little bit.
- You know, it was dark.
- 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 restore law and order."
And I think that's
a rotten exchange for lives.
When 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.
I knew they was coming in.
You could tell.
You could see them starting
to get more people.
I was in A block corridor.
All I saw was blue.
We got another mattress
to put up on that table
'cause we thought they was
gonna shoot rubber bullets.
And that's... that's
what the word was.
I thought there were gonna be
a real, old-fashioned
gang fight,
if that's what
you want to call it.
You know, them versus us.
They got those clubs, we got
a few bats and stuff in here,
so we're gonna... best guy win.
We started making preparations
and putting Vaseline
on every part of our bodies
that could be exposed to gas
and get burnt and stuff
like that,
padding ourselves with clothes.
Some brothers saying,
"If they come in here,
then that's good,
because I know my shit."
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 life and long sentences,
were not going to participate
in 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.
10:05 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 picture
is 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 a shank that somebody made,
rubbing it 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 correction officers
moving in on the prison.
Time is 1:55 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 their neck,
as an... in an effort
to try to stop the assault.
The hostages
are on the catwalks
with knives at their throats.
It was all just a show
to try to get them to say,
"Oh, wait a minute!
That's my cousin, my brother."
All these guards...
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's hostility.
It's gonna 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 just...
I just never expected...
...the carnage
that would actually happen.
I'm sorry.
Here come the helicopters.
They are now heading
for the prison.
One of the large
army helicopters
now going overhead
and over the wall,
into the prison.
It just gets quiet,
and the sky was getting dark.
And then we heard
the helicopters.
- And I said, "Damn, man.
- 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,
and it was flying low.
And you see this...
It's like a sickly green gas
with sparkly stuff in it,
coming down.
It tightens your chest
where you can hardly breathe.
That gas knocked me down.
I don't know what that was.
And it had me so weak
I could not move.
Your eyes are just all burning.
- Your nose is burning.
- Your mouth is burning.
Place your hands
on top of your head
and surrender to an officer.
I repeat:
You will not be harmed.
Place your hands
on top of your head.
And they got
on the microphone.
"Everybody in D block yard,
put your hands in the air,
and you will not be harmed."
"Go to the nearest
state police officer,
and you will not be harmed."
- "You will not be harmed."
- "You will not be harmed."
"You will not be harmed."
But that was bullshit.
And dudes were standing up
doing this
and getting blown away.
They blew a dude's head off,
and I'm looking at it.
And it's all of a sudden,
there was all this popping
all around us.
And all these little pops
all around us
were actually bullets.
- Surrender.
- You will not be harmed.
And you couldn't really see
because the CO2 pepper gas
had you blind,
but you can hear the bullets
going by your head.
You will not be harmed.
The hostages
can't be seen now.
Repeat: Surrender peacefully.
And I'm just trying
to stay on the ground,
as low as possible.
It was just like they was
shooting down in a barrel.
They just started shooting
point blank range,
blowing guys away.
I got shot in the arm up there.
Right through the back
of my fucking arm and stuff.
I repeat:
You will not be harmed.
I felt something go through
my head, at my skull,
and it was burning,
and I knew I was shot.
I felt something hit my arm,
and my arm went numb,
and I realized later
I had got shot in the left arm,
about two inches from my heart.
And I saw one kid,
he had a football helmet on.
Spanish kid.
Now, the guards
was up on the catwalk,
and he jumps out with a hammer
and throws it up,
and it hits the catwalk,
and you could hear
the sound... clink...
And all of them turned,
looked at him,
and all of them
turned their guns on him.
And they just riddled
that boy's body.
I'm assuming he got shot
anywhere from 20 to 50 shots,
'cause his body
was just doing like that.
Like, I never seen
no shit like that.
I seen some nasty shit
in the streets.
I never seen nothing like that.
I repeat:
You will not be harmed.
Place your hands
on top of your head.
This was a holiday
for the police.
We ain't got no guns
to shoot back.
You know what it is
to shoot somebody
and they can't shoot back?
That's... that's a holiday.
Lord have mercy.
And all they was saying was,
"Save me a nigger."
That's what they was hollering
to each other.
I was scared.
I've done bad things,
but I never did shit this bad.
I said, "Now, these guys
are real fucking
cold-blooded killers and shit."
Until that moment came...
where the killing
really started,
when I realized that,
"You're not that fucking
bad guy no more, man.
These motherfuckers
is worse than you."
Every bullet that whizzed by me
or hit the mud close to me,
I winced.
Then all of a sudden,
it just stopped.
Surrender to an officer.
I repeat:
You will not be harmed.
There are people
throwing off their smoke gear.
They ran out screaming,
"Niggers, niggers, niggers,"
and two of them
pointed their guns at me,
saying, "Niggers, niggers,"
and I said, "Don't shoot.
Don't shoot. Don't shoot,"
while I'm coughing.
We've all been gassed.
- I've been gassed.
- It's an awful scene.
William Kunstler has said
that people are dying in there,
and...
...and I agree with that.
I think that there are people
dying in there.
The shooting went on forever.
And then it was like
the shooting subsided,
and then I heard some...
After the big shooting
subsided,
I heard some single shots.
Bang! And bang!
After they took over
the prison,
all those folks that had been
speaking to the cameras
were all targeted
and tortured.
So, yes, yes, yes, yes,
they were targeted.
L.D. Barkley,
they were calling his name,
going through that fog,
looking for him,
and threatening him
with what they were gonna
do to him
when they found him.
And they found him.
And he was yelling, "No, no,"
but it's too fucking late;
They had him then.
I seen them dragging him
towards the A block
far yard over there.
He was hollering
and screaming.
And they killed him.
You can't see it,
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 frightening.
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 trooper
and correction officers
had created a war zone.
There was a pile of bodies,
maybe eight or ten people,
and the man on top
had had his eyes shot out.
Right below us,
there was a huge pool
of rainwater,
and it was blood red.
And I looked down at it,
and I said,
"Those are false teeth
down there, aren't there?"
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.
Walker wants to go back.
- White power!
- White power!
- Hey!
- White power!
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
in 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 wanted to live.
- "- Crawl, nigger, crawl.
- Crawl. Like a dog."
"If you look up, nigger,
I'll blow your
motherfucking brains out."
What the fuck they care
about calling you a nigger?
That was your name that day.
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 African Americans
being herded onto slave ships.
It was just horrendous.
It was just horrible,
horrible.
And we're naked
in the middle
of the fucking yard,
guards going around
with, like, baby bats.
They was shoving them up
guys' asses.
I'm laying here,
and I'm hoping
they don't come my way.
Frank Smith,
Big Black, was put on a table
with a football
under his throat.
People stood up above him
on the catwalk,
aiming their guns down at him,
throwing cigars
and cigarette butts on him,
and they said,
"If that football falls,
nigger,
we're gonna 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
through the prison.
It felt good that
I had survived this shit.
And now, I gotta look out,
because some more shit
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 walls.
And there was just
this dull drum-like sound.
And then they were
hitting the inmates
as they ran a gauntlet.
We could hear the screams
coming out,
so that we knew that
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.
My shoulders got hit,
all on my arms,
- my elbows, my knees.
- They still hurt.
Beating you after making you
run through the gauntlet,
where they took all the glass
out the fucking windows
and put it
in the middle of the floor,
so you had to run through glass
with bare feet.
Nobody came out of that yard
with... with... picking...
Without having to pick glass
out of your feet for weeks.
- Couldn't walk.
- Nobody can 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.
They're gonna get him out.-
Then news began
to filter out of Attica.
Names of freed hostages were
called out to the loved ones.
Bob Curtis! Lieutenant Curtis.
Curtis!
Al Robbin. Al Robbin.
Some didn't see
their men come out.
All they learned was the name
of the hospital
where the survivors
were being treated.
- There was no time to wait.
- They ran off to see their men.
Some 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 expected him
to show up, you know.
And, um, I kept,
"Mom, Mom, where's Dad?
- What's... why are you crying?
- What's going on?"
When my mother came back
in the house, and, you know,
she said...
Now she had to fight with me...
Argue, 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 it out.
"Your father's dead."
So I ran.
I ran 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...
- I'm sorry.
- God damn it.
The National Guardsmen
were told
to get back in their trucks,
and we did that and were
taken out to the parking area.
And a 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 Attica, 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,
who regained 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.
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 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 had
inmate garb on it,
they just started
shooting at you.
What Rockefeller had done
was treat the hostages
as no more real,
live human beings
who deserved 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.
It should have ended
in a negotiated settlement.
No, they weren't interested
in that.
They were interesting
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 its authority whatsoever.
God willing, a few more months,
in January,
I'll be 90 years old.
I will never, ever, ever, ever,
ever, ever, ever forget Attica.
Ever.
It didn't have to be that way.
All eight cases
died of gunshot wounds.
There was no evidence
of slashed throats.
I've never received an apology.
I've never received an apology,
and for me,
that's a pretty big deal.
So come.
To me.
What does money do
when you don't have your dad,
or your brother,
or your uncle?
How does that
replace anything?
And I think it was
the state's way of saying,
"We're gonna give you
this money,
and we want you to go away."
Beyond the blue.
Then my.
True love.
Will come shining through.
For nearly 30 years,
former Attica inmates
have waited for justice.
Today, it finally came
in the form
of a $12 million settlement.
- And be.
- And be.
My love.
There was never 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 it.
- And so there's no justice.
- There was never justice.
The sun.
Will shine.
Beyond.
The blue.
Then my.
True love.
Will come shining through.
- So come.
- So come to me.
On bended knee.
- And be.
- And be.
My love.
- For as long.
- For just as long, baby.
As you are mine.
I know the sun.
Will shine