Captive (2016) s01e01 Episode Script
Prison Riot, U.S.
1 [man.]
We're gonna take our time.
We're gonna move slow.
Uh, we're just worried about booby traps mostly.
And obviously we're missing one body, so be very alert because there could be a live one.
Okay, clear.
Clear.
We have some sort of barricade here, we don't know why.
Maybe a last stronghold.
[chattering.]
This is Control Center Three at the far east end of L-Block.
This is the doorway outside of L-8, the entrance to L-8.
[man 2.]
It's empty, Sergeant.
- Ready? - [man.]
Yeah.
Look behind it.
See there's nothing wired to it.
This is L-7.
[man on TV.]
The new prison at Lucasville is one of the largest in the United States.
It cost more than $23 million to build.
It will hold 1,600 prisoners.
The new maximum security prison has the latest equipment, electronically controlled gates and cell block doors, and the presence of the new prison is already being felt in the town of Lucasville, a small community on the fringe of Appalachia.
In the 1920s, this was a prosperous community.
But then came the Depression.
Steel mills closed down, and the railroad didn't stop here anymore.
Lucasville never really recovered, but they're hoping that the new prison will change all that.
There are 400 jobs available at the prison.
There have been 2,400 applications for those jobs.
[man on radio.]
those storms could be strong to severe and accompanied by high wind and hail and it could spawn an isolated tornado.
I'd done ten years in the military, and I needed a job when I got out.
Really not a whole lot of choices of employment around here.
I wanted a good job.
I wanted health benefits, dental benefits.
I had two small kids.
This was one of the good jobs around here in this whole area.
[radio broadcast continues indistinctly.]
[door opens.]
[door closes.]
[Mike Hensley.]
It's not a job for everybody.
When you're inside, you're locked up just like they are.
- It's a whole different world - [cell door buzzes.]
and we're not talking about guys that just broke a traffic law or something.
We're talking about pedophiles, murderers, guys that really do not play well with others, period.
And if they sense weakness, if they even think that you're afraid of them then they'll act on that weakness.
There's animals in there.
I mean, there's people in there that are just truly animals.
When that gate closes, you could go home at night, - or you couldn't go home at night.
- [cell door buzzes.]
It was really up to the inmates.
[man.]
Lucasville was a dangerous place, man.
It was very dangerous.
It was the most dangerous institution in the state of Ohio at that time.
You're in a place that people get killed on a regular basis.
I mean, there was so much drugs in Lucasville that you'd think you was on the street.
It's a place with a turbulent past.
In 1973, just one year after it opened, two prison guards were killed by inmates.
Almost three years ago, an inmate at Lucasville killed a teacher in a restroom at the prison's learning center.
Inmate Eddie Vaughn stabbed 32-year-old Beverly Taylor with a homemade knife.
Vaughn had been serving a sentence for murder.
[Rodger Snodgrass.]
You're on your way to chow, minding your business [chattering.]
next thing you know, the guy behind you grabs the guy in front of you and cuts his throat.
[laughs.]
You know what I mean? It's like you had to constantly watch everyone.
It was very A very volatile place, man.
[man.]
I get a call one day from the director of corrections in Ohio at the time.
I think I ask him, I said, "I'm not in some kind of trouble, am I, Director?" And he said, "No, sir, you're not.
" He said "The reason I've called you up here is that I want I'm gonna send you to Lucasville.
" It wasn't, "Would you like to go to Lucasville?" It just took the wind out of my sails.
Everybody in the system knew that Lucasville was really, really having a lot of problems.
Prisons are challenging in and of themselves, but this was gonna be the [stammers.]
crème de la crème of challenges for me.
So, I wasn't happy.
When the prison was built, it had roughly 1,600 cells.
And when I got there, it seemed to me like there were 2,000 inmates, 2,100, somewhere thereabouts.
[man on TV.]
Ohio's Lucasville Prison is one of the newest prisons, but like others, overcrowded.
Cells built for one prisoner had to be shared by two, ten-and-a-half feet by six-and-a-half feet.
[man speaking indistinctly on PA.]
[cell door buzzes.]
[Hensley.]
Now you had your Aryan Brotherhood, you had your Black Gangster Disciples, you had a little bit of the Crips, a little bit of Bloods in there [inmate whistles.]
and you had your black Muslim inmates.
And they would have tension amongst themselves.
I had three separate inmates get their throats cut in the first five days.
It was out of control.
Lucasville was like a world within itself.
We was running wild, doing what we want.
Pants hanging out, no badge on, no ID on, walking up and down halls, knives in our shirt and everything.
We was living like that.
That was normal for Lucasville.
That wasn't normal for those other prisons.
These people here, they already know there's no going home.
I made some really tough decisions to try to effect some control over a place that has just literally been off the hook.
Curtailment of programs, mandatory drug tests escorted movement everywhere.
[Snodgrass.]
This guy coming in here, and he's making it his job to step on our necks, all right, any way he can.
I don't know.
Tate just made it a different joint, man, and the guys wasn't liking it.
Inmates took on the mentality, "Nah, hell nah.
We're not accepting that shit, right?" [Art Tate.]
Lucasville was an explosive environment every day.
While all this tension is going on, the need that came down from the department "We're gonna start testing all inmates in the Ohio prison system for tuberculosis.
" Well, the Muslim inmates indicated that they weren't gonna take this test.
It was verbally told to me by several of the guys that, "Look, we've got some guys that you're probably gonna have to use force.
" [man.]
Hello.
Can you hear me? No, I can't hear you, but can can you shake your head if you can hear me? Can you hear me? Okay.
All right, I see you a lot better now.
Okay, go ahead.
Taking the TB test was an infringement on our rights as believers in Islam.
It contains phenol.
Phenol is an alcoholic substance.
In Islamic belief, it is not permissible to consume alcohol, to use alcohol, to transport alcohol.
[Snodgrass.]
You know, Hasan's a really quiet guy.
All right? He don't talk much, but when he does, everybody listens because, you know, he's got a lot of polish.
He was educated.
[Siddique Abdullah Hasan.]
Just because you are a prisoner and the doors and gates are closed behind you, it does not forfeit you of your constitutional rights.
Tate was not willing to listen to us because he cannot allow prisoners, or us in particular, the Muslim body, to dictate to him how he run his institution.
[Tate.]
I picked up the telephone, called Columbus and said, "We need to talk.
This is not going well down here.
I can tell you we're gonna have problems.
" They said, "Go back and handle it.
" I had put together a very thorough plan.
I was gonna lock the prison down the day after Easter, and over that three-day period, we were gonna take teams of people into the different cell houses and affect the test right in the inmate's cell.
[Ronnie Owens.]
We have clerks, convicts, working right there in the offices was hear things.
They'd come back and tell their brothers, somebody can tell the Muslims, and so on and so forth.
That they're gonna lock y'all down.
[man.]
I came in the kitchen to get Well, I came to eat, but I was also picking up some weed, some marijuana.
And the guy that gave me the marijuana said, "Man, we're making up a lot of sandwiches and bagged lunches back here.
" He said, "They're gonna lock the institution down Monday and gonna feed everybody in their cell and make everybody take their TB test.
" So I said, "Well, look" I said, "Man, bring me two bags of weed uh, this evening to the dining hall.
" So I would make sure I would be cool during the lockdown.
These Muslims felt like "Well, if we're gonna make a stand against the administration, then we need to do it on a day and a time that affects them the most.
" They knew that Arthur Tate, he's gonna be home eating Easter dinner with his kids and his wife and stuff, and that it was gonna be low on security because a lot of officers took that day off.
I was only five days away from a transfer.
It was just kind of an average, boring day to start with.
[cell door buzzes.]
[radio chatter.]
[inmates laughing.]
[inmate laughing.]
[Snodgrass.]
I was a rec worker, and I had access to a lot of, you know, things that the Muslims wanted, and one of them was ball bats.
On this day, we broke out about 25 ball bats that weren't even supposed to be out.
When the Muslims come in, we handed 'em ball bats.
I waited until about six or seven of 'em had them and they went right through the door and started at the metal detector, beat the guards down - and hit them with the ball bats.
- [officer.]
Hey, get down! [inmate.]
Fuck you! Say your prayers, motherfucker! - [blows landing.]
- [man grunting.]
They really messed them up, you know.
[Hensley.]
It was real quiet.
There wasn't no music.
There was no TVs playing.
Kind of an eerie feeling, and something caught my eye.
I'd seen inmates running.
The inmates aren't allowed to run.
They're not allowed to run anywhere in that institution.
[alarm blaring.]
[clamoring.]
[Kenneth Daniels.]
We had a call go across the radio that there was a fight in our corridor.
- [cell door buzzes.]
- [man shouting indistinctly.]
- [radio chatter.]
- [alarm continues blaring.]
And the first thing I see is inmates running up, saying, "Don't go down there.
" [keys rattling.]
- I went on to do my job.
- [blows landing.]
And I found an officer that was getting beat by an inmate.
[shouting.]
Somebody beat me in the head.
Somebody put cuffs on me.
And, uh But once the handcuffs went on, I knew it was it was wrong, and it was way out of control.
- [shouting.]
- [alarm blaring.]
[DeWayne Guynes.]
With this many officers getting beat, I know we're fittin' to get locked down or worse.
- [footsteps receding.]
- [indistinct radio chatter.]
I'm trying to get to my cell to get the weed.
I wanna hurry up and consume my stuff before reinforcements come in.
[Tate.]
I had been invited by some friends to Easter dinner, and the phone rang.
It was a friend of mine, and she said, "Art I don't know what's going on, but something's happening at Lucasville.
" [chattering.]
[clamoring.]
I called the prison.
One of my deputies answered the phone.
He was almost incoherent.
"Warden, uh, we're having a major riot.
The inmates are on the fence.
The inmates got the keys.
They're on the roof.
" I'm thinking, "Oh, my God.
" And I drove like a bat out of hell to Lucasville.
The next thing I knew, - the doors start opening.
- [door opening.]
The consoles, somebody was at the consoles.
All the doors opened up.
And I looked down on the bottom wings and I see these guys, they had their face covered up, masked men.
And there was a guy downstairs, and they was beating him with a crowbar, and he was begging for his life.
But he was a snitch.
He should have been dead a long time ago.
And they killed him right there.
[inmate.]
Snitching bitch! Kill that motherfucker! Snitches get ditches.
[Guynes.]
Once they hit the doors and let everybody out, there were a lot of old vendettas being settled.
[sighs heavily.]
I'm sitting thinking about all the things, and it's hard for me to explain all at once, but I can tell you this.
It was the most chaotic and, uh violent and dangerous situation that I've ever seen in my life.
Four-hundred, 500 guys running around extremely hyped up and mad.
Those inmates were burning files.
That way they ain't got no information on us when this is all over and shit.
It was just madness.
People just started breaking up everything figuring, "If we tear all this up, that means we can't live here.
So that means we going somewhere.
I don't know about going home, but we're gonna leave here.
" [shouting.]
What was intended to be a peaceful protest to gain the attention of central office became a full-scale rebellion.
That was never part of the plan.
[Tate.]
In training, the officers were taught, God forbid, if you're ever in a hostage situation lock yourself in the backroom.
It's a safe haven.
You call the control center and help will come.
The wall between that room and the cell house was supposed to have been rebarred.
Well, the inmates - they punched through those walls - [glass shatters.]
like you were cutting through hot butter.
There was no rebar.
[Hensley.]
That little room filled up quick with inmates, and they were all armed.
And we lost that fight pretty quick.
[men breathing heavily.]
Once they got us under control, they basically covered our faces, and tied us up, and put us in the shower.
[man 1.]
Fuck you! Fuck you.
[man 2.]
Take it easy.
After I smoked that weed and went back into the block, I noticed you got five or six guards just sitting on the floor down in the shower, cuffed up.
[stammers.]
This is, you know It's kind of deep.
- [man groaning.]
- [inmate.]
Get your fucking head down! [Daniels.]
They took our wallets and keys, dressed us in inmate clothing.
[inmate.]
Shut the fuck up! I felt like I'd had my identity stripped away.
I was just now another inmate.
[Hensley.]
My partner said, "What are we gonna do?" I said, "Make your peace now, 'cause we're getting ready to die.
" [Guynes.]
It's a wonder that the riot didn't kick off way before it did.
It was just like one of them times where the guys just say, "We're gonna show you.
" [Snodgrass.]
I really had a lot of aggression and a lot of hatred for the system.
They took me away from my family and sent me to prison when I was 17 years old.
[sighs.]
You've gotta understand, I was forced to fight every day in order to survive.
You're either gonna become a solid dude, or you're gonna be a little bitch.
I learned the best thing to do is stand up for yourself at all times.
Okay, I'm locked in here, but still, I'm a human being.
Still I'm a man.
Still I want that respect that you want.
Y'all can just say, "Fuck me.
" No, fuck y'all.
[sirens blaring.]
[Tate.]
By the time I got there at about six o'clock the perimeter of the prison was totally ringed with State Highway Patrol.
To any bad situation, you have a window of opportunity where you can infuse a gun team, whatever, and quell a problem before it just keeps magnifying.
That didn't occur.
[man.]
We knew that some inmates had been killed.
We knew there were hostages in there.
They had complete control of L-Block.
With eight different wings running off of a single corridor plus they had control of the M-2 gymnasium.
Our principle was the preservation of life.
And at that point in time, we had no idea where the hostages were being held.
So what we wanted to do was to stabilize the situation and begin negotiations.
All the while preparing for that we might have to attack.
Our top story, a full-scale riot at Ohio's maximum security prison in Lucasville.
The lives of eight guards hang in the balance tonight.
[man on radio.]
So, Mike, what can you tell us? We are flying above it right now.
Let's take a look at the situation down on the scene.
There was some kind of uprising shortly after three o'clock this afternoon, confined, so far, to one of the cell blocks.
[man on TV.]
We will be there throughout the evening, and we'll bring you the latest as it develops.
- [glass shatters.]
- [shouting.]
[Tom Rice.]
The inmates started dropping bodies out onto the yard.
[helicopter hovering.]
[man.]
It's getting so dark out there, I can't focus anymore.
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Rice.]
Those bodies were inmates that were murdered.
They had terrible, terrible injuries.
[man.]
What is it? [indistinct radio chatter.]
Shit! [man 2.]
Here comes another one.
[man 3.]
They're bringing all of 'em out.
They're bringing all of 'em out.
[man.]
Got any rules of engagement here? [man 2.]
Nothing.
[man.]
Two in there, or one? Gimme a count.
[man 2.]
One, two, three [man on radio.]
I can see four.
Four is the count.
[man 1.]
Five.
[man 2.]
Here comes another one.
[man.]
Six? Shit.
I don't see no movement and a lot of blood.
[man 2.]
They're dead.
[inmate laughing.]
We had a lot of people.
A little bit better than 400 of us.
A lot of those guys don't have a clue what's going on.
[clamoring.]
They're scared, worried, confused and they can't get out.
There! Motherfucker! [man screaming.]
If you didn't get out initially, you ain't no getting out.
'Cause the door wasn't gonna be open anymore.
We started taking control, right? The chaos had to stop.
[Owens.]
There had to be some rules here, even though it's wild and crazy.
'Cause if everybody just go around just killing everybody, then everybody is just gonna be dead up in here.
[Hasan.]
People was on edge, and people was just fearful, not knowing who to trust, other than their own ethnic group that they actually belongs to.
[Snodgrass.]
The first night, we were all in the gym, right? And I'm like, "Look, we need to get us a block.
" The Muslims, they took L-6, and they had control.
The Aryan Brotherhood, we ended up going to L-2.
This is our block.
We're taking it over.
And we just told them all to get the fuck out.
[panting.]
[man yells indistinctly.]
[Hensley.]
They moved us around 'cause they didn't want us in one group.
Each group had one or two of us.
First few days, I was with the whites.
Then they switched me over to the Black Gangster Disciples.
I knew where I was every time they moved me.
It's part of survival.
If you don't know where you're at, and if you get loose, you don't know where to go.
[Daniels.]
The Black Gangster Disciples had me.
Their orders was that if there was any assault on the prison, we was to be killed first.
[banging echoes.]
One guy, he sat there and bounced an aluminum baseball bat off the floor, onto the concrete.
It was almost nonstop.
"This is for you.
If they come in, you're gonna be the first.
" [banging continues.]
You don't have control of anything.
The next breath could be your last, and it's not your decision.
[banging accelerates.]
[screams.]
[Tate.]
We get into the early hours of Monday and we did some of the traditional kinds of things that you do.
We had people down underneath the institution in the tunnels.
The Bureau were able to glean good intelligence by literally bugging the areas.
[man speaks indistinctly on recording.]
We cut the electricity and the water off to create a tougher situation for the hostage-takers so, hopefully, they'll come to the table quicker to resolve issues.
[inmate laughing.]
[man.]
7:51.
[man 2.]
I'm freezing! [coughing.]
[man.]
Who is that? [man 2.]
Skatzes.
Inmate Skatzes.
Who we got up there in that tower? We got anybody of high-ranking status Ohio State Patrol up there? [Tate.]
George was one of the inmates who was purported to be a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.
This is Lieutenant Lewis.
I'm the assistant District Six commander, talking to you now.
If anything happens to either one of us, something will probably happen to those hostages.
I want you people to understand this ain't no fucking joke, boys.
We got eight lives in there that we're all concerned about.
Now let's get something rolling here! What do you want to do? You wanna talk to one of our negotiators? We want the news media! Skatzes! - Call 245.
- [George Skatzes.]
Two-four-five? - [man.]
Yes.
- Two-four-five.
They will talk to you.
All right.
I hope I got your word on that.
Okay, hang on just a minute.
He's walking away.
I think he's going for it.
[Tate.]
You try to open up lines of communication.
There was tremendous distrust on their part.
And, hey, there was tremendous distrust on our part.
Hell, I mean Christ, they've just killed nine inmates.
So, I mean, what the hell? [man speaks indistinctly on recording.]
Inmate negotiator.
Hi, this is Dave.
Who's this? This is inmate negotiator.
Hold on for a minute.
Let me get George for you, all right? [negotiator.]
I wish you would, yeah.
Okay, sir.
What can we do for you, George? Well, we can start out with the lights.
We can start out with the water.
We can start out with news media, and deliver you two hostages.
How's that? I can't guarantee that the news media will even talk to you.
Oh, cut it out.
Let's knock off the bullshit.
What do you say? Get me Channel 10 News.
Channel 10 News.
And for that, you would give me two hostages? Is that what you're telling me? George, let me discuss it with my boss.
How long am I going to have to sit around here and hold my nuts till you give me a decision on that? As soon as I can get the information.
Where will you be? Oh, I'll be here on L corridor.
You can bet on that.
Well, I expect you're right about that.
[Rice.]
Negotiation is an art and not a science.
In a situation this size, it's best to not have a person in command to be on the phone because that allows the negotiators to say, "Well, I need to check with someone.
I need to get back to you.
" And they was putting us on hold, playing us crazy and shit, to where we stopped answering the phone for a while just to - just to aggravate 'em.
- [busy tone ringing.]
[Rice.]
We felt that the longer it went on, without any loss of life, the better off we were.
Just let it drag on.
They're hungry.
I'm not hungry.
They're tired.
I'm not tired.
They don't have water.
I have water.
Just let it drag on.
While all this is going on, all the hostage families are gathered at a school right across the street from the prison.
[woman on TV.]
The school's doors remain open for loved ones.
Dozens of family members have been here since the standoff started, and they vow to stay till the end.
I got a phone call from prison officials.
They said that a riot had erupted at the prison and that Bob was unaccounted for.
And that's when I threw the phone.
I thought, "If I get this phone out of my hand, it'll all go away.
" But it didn't.
I didn't stay in the building.
I went out on the parking lot and sat in a van facing the prison, and I watched.
I don't know what I thought I was gonna accomplish.
I didn't eat.
I knew he wasn't.
And until he was gonna eat, I wasn't gonna eat again.
[man on TV.]
Today, hundreds of police officers from around the state, including SWAT teams from several cities, arrived to begin working in shifts.
[man.]
All the reporters and the photojournalists were all kind of penned in to this little area where we had no access to the prison.
Bob, what's the latest? Jerry, I wish we had more facts, really, to give you, but the facts basically are as they have been through the day.
No electricity, no water, they've cut off all utilities, they are not serving food.
They're hoping that maybe that will bring about some kind of peaceful end.
Okay.
That's right in my face.
Please don't.
Okay? The state had full control of the story.
And sometimes, points were calling them every ten minutes, or they're calling us.
[woman.]
Any more indication, Sharon, whether or not this was premeditated? - No.
No.
- Idea about that? [woman 2.]
Can you give us a statement on the condition of the hostages? I don't know their condition.
Can you give us a generalized sense of what is the condition? - I don't know their condition.
- [reporters clamoring.]
[Bob Orr.]
We had no access to the prisoners.
We had no access to the prison authorities.
Everything was filtered.
We had no idea what the inmates wanted.
Some of the elders, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, they got together, and they came up with 21 demands.
[Hensley.]
I just asked them, I said, "What are you all asking for?" 'Cause they was complaining.
They didn't feel like they was being negotiated with fairly.
And I said, "Has it ever dawned on you that a lot of things you're asking for is just stupid?" I said, "Why don't you reduce your list to common sense and actually necessary things?" [Tate.]
If it had have been just a matter of taking the list of demands, the riot would have been over.
I mean, I'd had no problems with any of 'em.
[Hasan.]
Prison authorities do not honor their word.
They tell you one thing, and afterwards, they do something diametrically opposed to what they agreed to.
So it was very important that we get the media involved, to try to air out our concerns, to actually shine some light as to what was actually going on behind enemy lines in the prison system.
Hasan was very influential.
He said, "This is not a racial thing.
" He said, "This is us against the establishment.
" It just became a respect thing, all right? That All right, we're gonna respect you.
You're Muslim, you're black, this, that and the other.
We don't we don't love you [scoffs.]
but we're not against what you're doing.
One of our demands previously was to talk to the news media.
We were willing to give you two hostages.
I don't see why you won't let us meet with these news people.
Because we can't trust the media.
You can't trust the media? Why? Because they're gonna broadcast this thing exactly the way it is? [Sharon Kornegay.]
Regarding equal media pool coverage, we are not operating a media pool situation some of the wild speculation and rumors.
And it's really gotten out of control, in part, I must say, because the prison authorities haven't given us anything concrete, really, in terms of new information or prisoner demands.
[phone ringing.]
- [man.]
George? - [Skatzes.]
Yes, sir.
George, there's no reason for anybody to be injured or anything.
Well, then let's talk, man.
All you wanna do is fuck us, man.
That's all you wanna do.
What will it take to get you out of there? Have you talked to anybody about us, even so much as talking to the media? Have you even done that? This is a fucking death or fucking die situation, man.
It's simple as that.
We're talking about it and trying Yeah, we're talking about it.
Motherfucker, you've had two days to talk about it, at least, you know.
I can't make that decision.
You can't make it? Listen, motherfucker, I'm asking you now.
You talk to somebody that can make that decision! Shit! Fuck this! [man.]
That standoff continues in Lucasville, Ohio, eight prison guards held hostage, hundreds of inmates barricaded since the riot on Sunday as the day also brought a warning.
[woman on TV.]
A main demand for the prisoners is talking to the media, and they're going to great lengths to try and reach the media.
That is not going over well with the prison officials.
They want those negotiations handled on the phone, one-on-one.
[Rice.]
They put sheets outside.
"In three-and-a-half hours, we're gonna kill a guard.
" And this wasn't the first time that that type of information had come back to us.
[woman.]
It was a message clearly meant for the media.
But from a distance, you couldn't read the prisoners' threat.
Prison officials had already heard it.
It's a standard threat.
It's nothing new, that if we don't have something in three and a half hours, we're gonna kill a hostage.
Everybody heard her say that they didn't believe we would kill a guard.
[shouting.]
They were like, "What the fuck is she talking about? They think we won't send them a fucking body out there, man? She's talking like we're a bunch of fucking cowards in here or something.
" [inmate.]
Kill this bitch! [Hensley.]
The inmates went nuts in there.
I mean, all of a sudden, it went from almost a calm place to be [clamoring continues.]
to the inmates just started hollering and screaming, raising hell.
"The state ain't taking us serious about none of this shit.
We're gonna have to kill somebody to make a statement.
" [clamoring continues.]
[Rice.]
It may not have been the best way to say it, but if it hadn't been that it could have been something else.
[clamoring continues.]
[water dripping.]
[man 1.]
Three-five, over.
[man 2.]
Go ahead.
[man 1.]
Sheriff's bringing a body out.
[man 2.]
There's one now? [man 1.]
Yeah, they just brought a body out.
[man 2.]
Get the tapes rolling on it.
[Tate.]
I was in the hostage negotiation room, and we get a call "Warden Tate, uh we think you need to come down here right away.
Um, we think we have the body of one of our hostages.
" Phew.
[clicks tongue.]
[clicks tongue.]
[crying.]
Nobody had to tell me.
I could tell by the look on everybody's faces that it was him.
[clicks tongue.]
You just can't imagine the image that's burned to my brain.
I see them wheeling his body out on a stretcher, covered up in a bag.
That's horrible.
Nobody should have to go through that.
[inmate.]
Inmate negotiator.
[negotiator.]
Please give us the respect of coming in and getting our body.
We need to come in and get it and get it out of there.
We need safe passage.
Do we have an agreement that we can come in and get our body? [inmate.]
Okay.
The riot ended on the fifth day for me.
[man on TV.]
A tragic development.
One of the eight prison guards being held hostage was found dead.
[Kornegay.]
The body of correctional officer Robert R.
Vallandingham was recovered at 12:20 this afternoon.
His family has been notified.
[Guynes.]
Bobby Vallandingham.
He never bothered us.
He never came down the range, trying to be nosy, you know? I thought he was a real decent guy.
[Snodgrass.]
When they killed Vallandingham, a lot of us were like, "Man, that was a good dude.
Why him?" But I knew it was Vallandingham chosen because he saw too much when the riot jumped off.
[Tate.]
Up to this point, things weren't good, but we hadn't lost anybody.
Now, the stakes are way up here.
So now you're thinking "Okay, they've killed They've killed a hostage.
They've got six or eight other hostages or however many at that point.
What's gonna happen now?" [Guynes.]
I had read a book called A Time to Die, about the prison riot in 1971 at Attica in New York.
And I knew that when they came in they killed most of the hostages.
The guards included.
And so I was thinking all the time that they might bum-rush us and do the same thing.
[clamoring.]
When you murder an officer, negotiations stop.
We're coming in.
And they were scared to death the SWAT teams would come rushing in and a lot of people would start dying.
[woman on TV.]
People tell us the killing makes them want authorities to storm the prison.
Told them they were gonna kill 'em anyway, and I truly think if they would have went in at the beginning, I mean It's happening anyway.
We figured, "Yeah, it won't be long before they make a move on us.
" They come in here, they're gonna come deep and they're gonna kill as many people as they can possibly kill.
They'll probably Everything standing up is getting shot.
[Rice.]
The pressure to attack became very, very great.
[clamoring.]
[Snodgrass.]
We had a lot of intelligent people in there.
We made a maze with all the bunk beds out of the cells, that way the officers couldn't rush in there and just run through the block.
They had to go through our maze.
We had guys that had served in Vietnam.
We had a guy, he built these bombs out of lighters.
[chuckles.]
You know, and he was good at it, too.
[Rice.]
Petitions were actually being circulated to, you know, go in there and get those SOBs because they've given up all their rights.
[Snodgrass.]
We had weapons set up in our block, like this volleyball bar.
We brought that from the gym, tied a sheet on each side of it.
Seventy or eighty pounds of solid steel coming from the ceiling, and if you released it, anything in its path, it's wiping out.
Art was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It was damn lonely.
Damn lonely.
I mean, it's one of the loneliest jobs a person can have, I think.
Bob was killed in the morning, on Thursday, so the afternoon shift came in with fire in their eyes.
They wanted an immediate assault.
"God damn it! They're gonna kill the rest of these people.
We need to get in there now! We've got all the weaponry.
We've got this, we've got that.
" So I'm trying to pull everything from the reserve tank.
[chuckles.]
I said, "Look, assaulting L-Block right now is only gonna cause a lot more bloodshed, and we don't need that.
" Well, it worked.
After that little speech, I went back into a restroom.
I totally lost it.
So I got it I pulled it together and things started happening pretty quickly then.
I know in my heart that tonight's the night.
I know that.
I know that if we don't go out there and do something, as you've got it set up, and you're blowing and coming in here.
I know that.
We know that your end resolve is to kill as many of us as you can.
We know that.
What happened, George? Did you lose control? I never had control.
I'm just a negotiator.
I'm just one man.
George, if you get me one hostage and you, I'll sit down face-to-face on live radio.
You owe me that much.
Can I come out there and talk to you on live radio, just me? No, one hostage with you.
I can't do that.
Yes, you can, George.
Put a stop to this in a peaceful, orderly manner.
I want nobody else hurt.
[Rice.]
George was able to come out and broadcast, to get their thoughts out to the public.
[Skatzes.]
My brothers, if you can hear me on that radio, please holler at me! [shouting.]
I think he was just wanting to let people know that he was the big cheese, if you will.
[Skatzes.]
We hope there is no more violence.
We hope there are no more unnecessary murders.
Okay.
From the onset of this, we have tried desperately, desperately, desperately to get in contact with the news media.
We have beat our brains out, we have been stopped by this administration.
They think they can confine this incident within the walls of this prison, like no part of the world can hear this.
[Rice.]
He had a little trouble with the language and putting his thoughts together.
It was more off-the-cuff type things.
[Skatzes.]
Okay, I'm very limited in time.
I'm sorry.
[stammers.]
I mean, the list of demands and all like that is by no means short, I could rattle on forever.
Now, we are releasing one Darrold Ray Clark Jr.
here, on the other side of this fence.
[woman on TV.]
23-year-old corrections officer Darrold Clark was freed after prison officials agreed to allow inmates to make a statement on local radio.
[Rice.]
That was a trade-off.
We got a hostage, and we were getting hostages out any way we could.
Their mind games start to break you down.
They're swinging ball bats over my head, against a brick wall, sharpening knives, and things like saying they're going to throw my guts in my face.
That's enough to break anybody.
[woman on TV.]
There is expected to be another live broadcast later this morning.
Another hostage is supposed to be freed.
[Tate.]
Jim Demons was being held by the Muslim group.
He apparently told them, "I'll convert to Islam if you'll let me go.
" So, shit, the next thing we know, he comes out on the yard in traditional Muslim garb.
My name is Officer CO Demons.
My Muslim name is Mustafa Akhmed Lee.
If you know you're gonna be released and that's what you need to do, probably 99 out of 100 people would say, "You know what, put one of those damn things on me, and give me one of those robes, and I'm outta here.
" [woman on TV.]
But then, a bombshell.
Now I knew Vallandingham.
He was a good friend of mine.
The only reason that man is dead, 'cause he stayed in there so long, 'cause they wanna cut off water and turn off electricity, which had me scared for my life in there.
So I adjusted to the Nation of Islam.
Can y'all hear me in there? [woman on TV.]
Demons muttered angrily at negotiators as he left the prison yard and shrugged off an offered jacket.
[Tate.]
When Jim Demons was released, every employee in the prison turned their backs on him 'cause they thought he was a traitor for converting to Islam.
[man.]
I understand now you wanna make a clarification.
Well, clarification is that I said what I had to say.
I said whatever it took to make the inmates in there happy, and to make sure that those officers in there were safe there.
[man.]
So you didn't believe any of that that we just saw? No, I haven't.
No, I didn't.
You have obviously been through an ordeal.
Are you going to have problems resuming your former duties? Right now, I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
[Rice.]
It was kind of a strange thing to begin with, but we really didn't care because we got another one out.
Demons' story is certainly chilling, especially since there are five guards still being held hostage.
Now, if we had to do that a couple times, fine.
Didn't care.
[chuckles.]
We'd just keep bringing the hostages out.
[clamoring.]
[laughter.]
[Hensley.]
You can't show emotion, so you have to just deal with it.
If I had concentrated on my family, if I had concentrated on food, water, any of those other things would've just gradually wore me down and broke me down.
You know, the administration, it seemed like it was doing nothing.
And we just felt like we was just, you know, left pigs to slaughter or whatever.
They didn't care about us any longer.
We didn't matter.
I had a young family I needed to take care of and I knew my wife could survive, but we'd only been married a few years, so I didn't want her to have to do that on her own.
[helicopter hovering.]
[Skatzes.]
A list of demands.
[stammers.]
Excuse me if I seem to rattle on.
I've got so much on my mind that I can't possibly keep it in order.
As the days went on, George's role diminished as the "hostage negotiator" for the inmates.
[clattering.]
Another voice became more prevalent for the Brotherhood, and that was Jason Robb.
Hey, George.
No, this ain't him.
He went to get him some rest.
I'm here to take care of this.
I need to talk to George.
He and I have been working on things.
I've been right here with him.
I hear everything he has to say.
Okay.
Jason Robb was known as "The Mayor.
" [Jason Robb.]
We knew that this was a chess game that we're playing.
There's gotta be a way out of here, with minimal damage towards them and us.
We knew what their end game is, that's get-back, revenge.
Our end game is trying to get out alive.
I knew the system.
I've been down since I was 17.
And I knew when they were bullshitting and when they weren't.
[Rice.]
When the inmates took over the L-Block, they took over the offices in L-Block.
And, unfortunately, our disturbance control manual was in L-Block.
So we were actually negotiating against our own manual.
We were reading their book, and we knew what their book said.
Once you read the book, it's quite clear.
So in the book, they were basically saying you need to wear them down.
You need to wear down their psyche, their mentality And that's what they were doing, day after day.
They were slowly trying to wear us down.
We just had to incorporate what they had in the manual.
We just had to use reverse psychology on them.
We had to do to them what they were doing to us, basically.
Jason, Jason, Jason Now we can play these games.
This "Jason, Jason, Jason" shit.
Okay? Now, we're not going to play games.
The cards are in our hands, and you understand that.
I've given you TV time.
I've given you radio time.
I've given you national media.
Oh, but you got two officers.
We've made a lot of progress, and I just want to see us continue to move forward.
If we end it peacefully, we don't storm.
[Robb.]
It was the retaliation thing we worried about.
They tell us our word doesn't mean shit, so their word doesn't mean shit to us.
We had to have something in writing, a contractual type of agreement between us that's binding.
[Rice.]
The inmates wanted to have an attorney, and the one that they decided they wanted was Niki Schwartz out of Cleveland.
I think they felt this is someone outside the system.
This is an independent person who's going to look out for our best interests.
I think they needed me because, as I quickly found out, they were talking at each other and not talking to each other.
I had had a lot of experience dealing with prisoners and dealing with prison administrations.
And I thought I had a feel for how to relate to each.
Hello, this is Niki Schwartz speaking.
Your name? My name's Jason Robb.
Hey, Jason.
How are you? [Robb.]
I'm making it.
[Niki Schwartz.]
Okay.
Now we wanna be able to come out here and confer with you.
Right now, I'm talking to you on the phone.
I wanna talk to you face-to-face, eye-to-eye.
[Schwartz.]
I understand.
[Robb.]
For a man to talk to another man, eye-to-eye.
[chanting.]
Free our guards! Free our guards! Free our guards! Free our guards! [Schwartz.]
It was decided that they would put tables on either side of the inner fence.
So it was as though we were talking across the table to each other.
Law enforcement was very concerned about my safety.
[Robb.]
We didn't know what to expect.
Nervous is an understatement.
We'd been in that cave the whole time with no lights.
Coming out, getting hit with that sunlight and stuff.
I don't know how to put it into words, man.
There was a lot of snipers on the roof trying to conceal themselves.
I was hoping and praying that the state would not do something foolish.
[Robb.]
They had us stop and raise our hands and strip down so they could see that we didn't have no weapons and stuff on us.
When we got up to the table and sat down with Niki, we needed to make sure who he was.
We got to see his driver's license.
[Schwartz.]
The first thing I said to them when I sat down, I said, "I'm not always gonna be able to tell you what you wanna hear but I'm not gonna give you any bullshit.
" [Robb.]
I'm pretty good at reading people, and he was sincere.
[Hasan.]
To me, he was a man that believed in standing up for truth, justice and equality, no matter who he was for or against.
You have to trust somebody like that.
They were bright.
They were articulate.
They seemed to have leadership skills, and I think if life had dealt them different cards at an earlier stage, they could have been responsible members of society.
I handed them a two-page document that had 21 points, a response to the inmates' 21 demands.
Their first concern was, "Is this legally binding?" And I said, "No way.
You're holding hostages.
They're free to repudiate this agreement as soon as they get the hostages back.
But they assured me that they intended to comply with it.
" [Rice.]
Niki is talking about reality.
Niki's saying, "You know, there's a dead corrections officer, there's nine dead inmates, there's probably $20 or $30 million worth of damage.
They aren't gonna say, 'King's Act, it's all over, you guys are going to Hawaii.
'" [Schwartz.]
The prisoners were most concerned about their safety upon the surrender.
Their demands included that it be televised live.
That there be neutral observers because they feared retaliation from the guards.
[Robb.]
Yeah, there's a possibility that they'll renege on a lot of these agreements.
But that's what we got the attorney for.
And these were agreements that we had made with Niki, so I had to trust in that.
And I had to put a lot of trust in Niki, a man I'd just met.
They were ready to surrender.
[birds chirping.]
[Orr.]
If you've just joined us, this is live coverage, a special report from Lucasville with the good news that the 11-day siege now has ended.
[man on TV.]
They have reached an agreement.
It sounds like Niki Schwartz was pivotal.
He must have worked some sort of magic with these inmates on the inside.
They trusted him enough to agree to end the siege today.
[Orr.]
In an hour or two, this evacuation, as they call it now, will begin.
Lo and behold, the doors opened, and we see these guys come out in small groups.
[man on TV.]
And here we have some inmates coming out.
[woman.]
I wanna point out, all of these are inmates.
There have been no hostages released.
No hostages have been released.
These are inmates.
[Orr.]
I just remember standing there, actually kind of awestruck that we're actually This is actually happening.
We're seeing this.
[Guynes.]
I wasn't ready to come out.
I wasn't ready to come out.
I enjoyed my freedom.
I do remember sitting by a window, looking out.
It rained all day long.
I said, "I know them state troopers is mad as hell.
They standing out there in that rain.
" [Orr.]
What you're watching is continuous live coverage of truly a historic and extraordinary event.
There are five prison guard hostages still inside.
[Hensley.]
Everybody got real tense and quiet, so I knew something was going on.
And they come to my cell, and said, "Have you heard that we're surrendering?" I said, "Yeah, right.
" I really thought they were gonna kill me.
He just didn't have the guts to tell me.
He said, "Nobody's gonna lay a hand on you.
" He said, "I give you my word.
" I said, "I want more than your word.
" I said, "Let me put my hands around your neck while we walk out, then.
" I said, "Anybody touches me, I choke you to death.
" He said, "Deal.
" [woman on TV.]
Prison officials here are still not in charge of what's going on.
The inmates still have five hostages.
[Hensley.]
I thought they were just taking me someplace else to kill me.
We turned that corner, and it was like a breeze hit me.
And I thought, "Damn, we really are going out.
We really are.
" [laughs.]
- [helicopters hovering.]
- [indistinct radio chatter.]
[woman.]
This is interesting.
The first time we've seen 'em with hands on their shoulders.
[man.]
Could those be hostages? [woman.]
These might be the hostages.
[man.]
We've just been told they may come out with the last group.
So you may be looking at the hostages.
Let's take a close look at this.
[woman.]
Here is what looks like another hostage.
[man.]
I think if you could listen real close, you could probably hear some cheers - [woman.]
I hear it, Mark.
Yeah, I do.
- [laughs.]
from across the way.
[cheering.]
[Hensley.]
If I'd have got my hands on a shotgun, I'd have started blasting inmates.
I didn't care who, which ones.
It didn't matter.
I wanted revenge.
It's sickening.
It's a sickening feeling to have.
But I had it.
[chattering.]
[man on TV.]
This just into us from the State Corrections Department officials.
All five hostages have been released.
We'll try to come up with [Guynes.]
I was one of the very last to come out.
When I came out somebody locked the door and threw the keys up on the roof.
[water dripping.]
[camera shutter clicking.]
They stripped us naked and then had us go sit up in the gym.
About 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, they load us up on three buses and took us away.
[Tate.]
You know there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened.
[clicks tongue.]
And I still get, you know, a little emotional about it.
I really wanted to do the best I could do down there.
When society wrings itself out of these people, they're put in they're put in prison.
And we're then entrusted to deal proactively with them.
And it's just a huge, huge responsibility.
[Hensley.]
A lot of people wanted to blame Tate.
A lot of people wanted to blame the correction officers.
"It was all their fault.
" It was none of that.
It was the inmates.
Nobody destroyed that place, nobody murdered those inmates nobody murdered Bobby, except the inmates.
The crime scene was tremendously huge.
There were over 1,200 pieces of evidence that they had to dig through.
To categorize it, to tag it, to photograph it, to mark it for prosecution.
They did a tremendous job.
[Peggy Vallandingham.]
Did they get everyone that was involved? They got as many of them as they could get.
They had to plea bargain with some of them and is that hard to swallow? You betcha.
It's very hard.
But without them, we wouldn't have the ones we have.
Mm-hmm.
I know I snitched.
I gave up information on guys to the authorities, right? It makes no difference to me if you're judging me and you're judging me, you're judging you and anybody else wants to judge me for it, fine, man.
Judge me, all right? Put yourself in my shoes, you know See how you handle that situation.
I don't think most people would still have enough mind to be sane after all the shit that I've seen and done and been through in that fucking riot.
You know? [clicks tongue.]
That's how I feel, man.
It's been a long one.
[man.]
The jury in this case, find the defendant, Jason Robb, guilty of aggravated murder as it stands charged [Robb.]
At the end of the day, somebody has to pay.
Somebody has to answer.
They need somebody to be the sacrificial lamb.
They didn't have anyone to point a finger at except for the people who were actually in the forefront as far as negotiations.
I felt that law enforcement wanted to pin the death of the guard on them, to punish them for their role in the riot, when in fact, it's very arguable whether they had any role in the death or not.
So, I I think that the the the death penalties are are troubling to me.
If these guys who were the negotiators for a peaceful surrender are executed, next time there's a prison riot, nobody's gonna be willing to come forward to be a peacemaker.
[Vallandingham.]
As long as they get what's coming to them and ultimately that's death.
And I do live for that day.
[man on radio.]
but some of those storms could be strong to severe and accompanied by high wind [Hensley.]
I was able to go back and face it.
I was able to walk back in that place 121 days later.
I was able to overcome it and do my job professionally.
But I had to prove to myself that I could do that and I did it.
I never retaliated against one inmate for the entire thing.
- [cell door buzzes.]
- So I knew I did okay.
At least I knew I was still human.
[blues music playing.]
We're gonna take our time.
We're gonna move slow.
Uh, we're just worried about booby traps mostly.
And obviously we're missing one body, so be very alert because there could be a live one.
Okay, clear.
Clear.
We have some sort of barricade here, we don't know why.
Maybe a last stronghold.
[chattering.]
This is Control Center Three at the far east end of L-Block.
This is the doorway outside of L-8, the entrance to L-8.
[man 2.]
It's empty, Sergeant.
- Ready? - [man.]
Yeah.
Look behind it.
See there's nothing wired to it.
This is L-7.
[man on TV.]
The new prison at Lucasville is one of the largest in the United States.
It cost more than $23 million to build.
It will hold 1,600 prisoners.
The new maximum security prison has the latest equipment, electronically controlled gates and cell block doors, and the presence of the new prison is already being felt in the town of Lucasville, a small community on the fringe of Appalachia.
In the 1920s, this was a prosperous community.
But then came the Depression.
Steel mills closed down, and the railroad didn't stop here anymore.
Lucasville never really recovered, but they're hoping that the new prison will change all that.
There are 400 jobs available at the prison.
There have been 2,400 applications for those jobs.
[man on radio.]
those storms could be strong to severe and accompanied by high wind and hail and it could spawn an isolated tornado.
I'd done ten years in the military, and I needed a job when I got out.
Really not a whole lot of choices of employment around here.
I wanted a good job.
I wanted health benefits, dental benefits.
I had two small kids.
This was one of the good jobs around here in this whole area.
[radio broadcast continues indistinctly.]
[door opens.]
[door closes.]
[Mike Hensley.]
It's not a job for everybody.
When you're inside, you're locked up just like they are.
- It's a whole different world - [cell door buzzes.]
and we're not talking about guys that just broke a traffic law or something.
We're talking about pedophiles, murderers, guys that really do not play well with others, period.
And if they sense weakness, if they even think that you're afraid of them then they'll act on that weakness.
There's animals in there.
I mean, there's people in there that are just truly animals.
When that gate closes, you could go home at night, - or you couldn't go home at night.
- [cell door buzzes.]
It was really up to the inmates.
[man.]
Lucasville was a dangerous place, man.
It was very dangerous.
It was the most dangerous institution in the state of Ohio at that time.
You're in a place that people get killed on a regular basis.
I mean, there was so much drugs in Lucasville that you'd think you was on the street.
It's a place with a turbulent past.
In 1973, just one year after it opened, two prison guards were killed by inmates.
Almost three years ago, an inmate at Lucasville killed a teacher in a restroom at the prison's learning center.
Inmate Eddie Vaughn stabbed 32-year-old Beverly Taylor with a homemade knife.
Vaughn had been serving a sentence for murder.
[Rodger Snodgrass.]
You're on your way to chow, minding your business [chattering.]
next thing you know, the guy behind you grabs the guy in front of you and cuts his throat.
[laughs.]
You know what I mean? It's like you had to constantly watch everyone.
It was very A very volatile place, man.
[man.]
I get a call one day from the director of corrections in Ohio at the time.
I think I ask him, I said, "I'm not in some kind of trouble, am I, Director?" And he said, "No, sir, you're not.
" He said "The reason I've called you up here is that I want I'm gonna send you to Lucasville.
" It wasn't, "Would you like to go to Lucasville?" It just took the wind out of my sails.
Everybody in the system knew that Lucasville was really, really having a lot of problems.
Prisons are challenging in and of themselves, but this was gonna be the [stammers.]
crème de la crème of challenges for me.
So, I wasn't happy.
When the prison was built, it had roughly 1,600 cells.
And when I got there, it seemed to me like there were 2,000 inmates, 2,100, somewhere thereabouts.
[man on TV.]
Ohio's Lucasville Prison is one of the newest prisons, but like others, overcrowded.
Cells built for one prisoner had to be shared by two, ten-and-a-half feet by six-and-a-half feet.
[man speaking indistinctly on PA.]
[cell door buzzes.]
[Hensley.]
Now you had your Aryan Brotherhood, you had your Black Gangster Disciples, you had a little bit of the Crips, a little bit of Bloods in there [inmate whistles.]
and you had your black Muslim inmates.
And they would have tension amongst themselves.
I had three separate inmates get their throats cut in the first five days.
It was out of control.
Lucasville was like a world within itself.
We was running wild, doing what we want.
Pants hanging out, no badge on, no ID on, walking up and down halls, knives in our shirt and everything.
We was living like that.
That was normal for Lucasville.
That wasn't normal for those other prisons.
These people here, they already know there's no going home.
I made some really tough decisions to try to effect some control over a place that has just literally been off the hook.
Curtailment of programs, mandatory drug tests escorted movement everywhere.
[Snodgrass.]
This guy coming in here, and he's making it his job to step on our necks, all right, any way he can.
I don't know.
Tate just made it a different joint, man, and the guys wasn't liking it.
Inmates took on the mentality, "Nah, hell nah.
We're not accepting that shit, right?" [Art Tate.]
Lucasville was an explosive environment every day.
While all this tension is going on, the need that came down from the department "We're gonna start testing all inmates in the Ohio prison system for tuberculosis.
" Well, the Muslim inmates indicated that they weren't gonna take this test.
It was verbally told to me by several of the guys that, "Look, we've got some guys that you're probably gonna have to use force.
" [man.]
Hello.
Can you hear me? No, I can't hear you, but can can you shake your head if you can hear me? Can you hear me? Okay.
All right, I see you a lot better now.
Okay, go ahead.
Taking the TB test was an infringement on our rights as believers in Islam.
It contains phenol.
Phenol is an alcoholic substance.
In Islamic belief, it is not permissible to consume alcohol, to use alcohol, to transport alcohol.
[Snodgrass.]
You know, Hasan's a really quiet guy.
All right? He don't talk much, but when he does, everybody listens because, you know, he's got a lot of polish.
He was educated.
[Siddique Abdullah Hasan.]
Just because you are a prisoner and the doors and gates are closed behind you, it does not forfeit you of your constitutional rights.
Tate was not willing to listen to us because he cannot allow prisoners, or us in particular, the Muslim body, to dictate to him how he run his institution.
[Tate.]
I picked up the telephone, called Columbus and said, "We need to talk.
This is not going well down here.
I can tell you we're gonna have problems.
" They said, "Go back and handle it.
" I had put together a very thorough plan.
I was gonna lock the prison down the day after Easter, and over that three-day period, we were gonna take teams of people into the different cell houses and affect the test right in the inmate's cell.
[Ronnie Owens.]
We have clerks, convicts, working right there in the offices was hear things.
They'd come back and tell their brothers, somebody can tell the Muslims, and so on and so forth.
That they're gonna lock y'all down.
[man.]
I came in the kitchen to get Well, I came to eat, but I was also picking up some weed, some marijuana.
And the guy that gave me the marijuana said, "Man, we're making up a lot of sandwiches and bagged lunches back here.
" He said, "They're gonna lock the institution down Monday and gonna feed everybody in their cell and make everybody take their TB test.
" So I said, "Well, look" I said, "Man, bring me two bags of weed uh, this evening to the dining hall.
" So I would make sure I would be cool during the lockdown.
These Muslims felt like "Well, if we're gonna make a stand against the administration, then we need to do it on a day and a time that affects them the most.
" They knew that Arthur Tate, he's gonna be home eating Easter dinner with his kids and his wife and stuff, and that it was gonna be low on security because a lot of officers took that day off.
I was only five days away from a transfer.
It was just kind of an average, boring day to start with.
[cell door buzzes.]
[radio chatter.]
[inmates laughing.]
[inmate laughing.]
[Snodgrass.]
I was a rec worker, and I had access to a lot of, you know, things that the Muslims wanted, and one of them was ball bats.
On this day, we broke out about 25 ball bats that weren't even supposed to be out.
When the Muslims come in, we handed 'em ball bats.
I waited until about six or seven of 'em had them and they went right through the door and started at the metal detector, beat the guards down - and hit them with the ball bats.
- [officer.]
Hey, get down! [inmate.]
Fuck you! Say your prayers, motherfucker! - [blows landing.]
- [man grunting.]
They really messed them up, you know.
[Hensley.]
It was real quiet.
There wasn't no music.
There was no TVs playing.
Kind of an eerie feeling, and something caught my eye.
I'd seen inmates running.
The inmates aren't allowed to run.
They're not allowed to run anywhere in that institution.
[alarm blaring.]
[clamoring.]
[Kenneth Daniels.]
We had a call go across the radio that there was a fight in our corridor.
- [cell door buzzes.]
- [man shouting indistinctly.]
- [radio chatter.]
- [alarm continues blaring.]
And the first thing I see is inmates running up, saying, "Don't go down there.
" [keys rattling.]
- I went on to do my job.
- [blows landing.]
And I found an officer that was getting beat by an inmate.
[shouting.]
Somebody beat me in the head.
Somebody put cuffs on me.
And, uh But once the handcuffs went on, I knew it was it was wrong, and it was way out of control.
- [shouting.]
- [alarm blaring.]
[DeWayne Guynes.]
With this many officers getting beat, I know we're fittin' to get locked down or worse.
- [footsteps receding.]
- [indistinct radio chatter.]
I'm trying to get to my cell to get the weed.
I wanna hurry up and consume my stuff before reinforcements come in.
[Tate.]
I had been invited by some friends to Easter dinner, and the phone rang.
It was a friend of mine, and she said, "Art I don't know what's going on, but something's happening at Lucasville.
" [chattering.]
[clamoring.]
I called the prison.
One of my deputies answered the phone.
He was almost incoherent.
"Warden, uh, we're having a major riot.
The inmates are on the fence.
The inmates got the keys.
They're on the roof.
" I'm thinking, "Oh, my God.
" And I drove like a bat out of hell to Lucasville.
The next thing I knew, - the doors start opening.
- [door opening.]
The consoles, somebody was at the consoles.
All the doors opened up.
And I looked down on the bottom wings and I see these guys, they had their face covered up, masked men.
And there was a guy downstairs, and they was beating him with a crowbar, and he was begging for his life.
But he was a snitch.
He should have been dead a long time ago.
And they killed him right there.
[inmate.]
Snitching bitch! Kill that motherfucker! Snitches get ditches.
[Guynes.]
Once they hit the doors and let everybody out, there were a lot of old vendettas being settled.
[sighs heavily.]
I'm sitting thinking about all the things, and it's hard for me to explain all at once, but I can tell you this.
It was the most chaotic and, uh violent and dangerous situation that I've ever seen in my life.
Four-hundred, 500 guys running around extremely hyped up and mad.
Those inmates were burning files.
That way they ain't got no information on us when this is all over and shit.
It was just madness.
People just started breaking up everything figuring, "If we tear all this up, that means we can't live here.
So that means we going somewhere.
I don't know about going home, but we're gonna leave here.
" [shouting.]
What was intended to be a peaceful protest to gain the attention of central office became a full-scale rebellion.
That was never part of the plan.
[Tate.]
In training, the officers were taught, God forbid, if you're ever in a hostage situation lock yourself in the backroom.
It's a safe haven.
You call the control center and help will come.
The wall between that room and the cell house was supposed to have been rebarred.
Well, the inmates - they punched through those walls - [glass shatters.]
like you were cutting through hot butter.
There was no rebar.
[Hensley.]
That little room filled up quick with inmates, and they were all armed.
And we lost that fight pretty quick.
[men breathing heavily.]
Once they got us under control, they basically covered our faces, and tied us up, and put us in the shower.
[man 1.]
Fuck you! Fuck you.
[man 2.]
Take it easy.
After I smoked that weed and went back into the block, I noticed you got five or six guards just sitting on the floor down in the shower, cuffed up.
[stammers.]
This is, you know It's kind of deep.
- [man groaning.]
- [inmate.]
Get your fucking head down! [Daniels.]
They took our wallets and keys, dressed us in inmate clothing.
[inmate.]
Shut the fuck up! I felt like I'd had my identity stripped away.
I was just now another inmate.
[Hensley.]
My partner said, "What are we gonna do?" I said, "Make your peace now, 'cause we're getting ready to die.
" [Guynes.]
It's a wonder that the riot didn't kick off way before it did.
It was just like one of them times where the guys just say, "We're gonna show you.
" [Snodgrass.]
I really had a lot of aggression and a lot of hatred for the system.
They took me away from my family and sent me to prison when I was 17 years old.
[sighs.]
You've gotta understand, I was forced to fight every day in order to survive.
You're either gonna become a solid dude, or you're gonna be a little bitch.
I learned the best thing to do is stand up for yourself at all times.
Okay, I'm locked in here, but still, I'm a human being.
Still I'm a man.
Still I want that respect that you want.
Y'all can just say, "Fuck me.
" No, fuck y'all.
[sirens blaring.]
[Tate.]
By the time I got there at about six o'clock the perimeter of the prison was totally ringed with State Highway Patrol.
To any bad situation, you have a window of opportunity where you can infuse a gun team, whatever, and quell a problem before it just keeps magnifying.
That didn't occur.
[man.]
We knew that some inmates had been killed.
We knew there were hostages in there.
They had complete control of L-Block.
With eight different wings running off of a single corridor plus they had control of the M-2 gymnasium.
Our principle was the preservation of life.
And at that point in time, we had no idea where the hostages were being held.
So what we wanted to do was to stabilize the situation and begin negotiations.
All the while preparing for that we might have to attack.
Our top story, a full-scale riot at Ohio's maximum security prison in Lucasville.
The lives of eight guards hang in the balance tonight.
[man on radio.]
So, Mike, what can you tell us? We are flying above it right now.
Let's take a look at the situation down on the scene.
There was some kind of uprising shortly after three o'clock this afternoon, confined, so far, to one of the cell blocks.
[man on TV.]
We will be there throughout the evening, and we'll bring you the latest as it develops.
- [glass shatters.]
- [shouting.]
[Tom Rice.]
The inmates started dropping bodies out onto the yard.
[helicopter hovering.]
[man.]
It's getting so dark out there, I can't focus anymore.
[indistinct radio chatter.]
[Rice.]
Those bodies were inmates that were murdered.
They had terrible, terrible injuries.
[man.]
What is it? [indistinct radio chatter.]
Shit! [man 2.]
Here comes another one.
[man 3.]
They're bringing all of 'em out.
They're bringing all of 'em out.
[man.]
Got any rules of engagement here? [man 2.]
Nothing.
[man.]
Two in there, or one? Gimme a count.
[man 2.]
One, two, three [man on radio.]
I can see four.
Four is the count.
[man 1.]
Five.
[man 2.]
Here comes another one.
[man.]
Six? Shit.
I don't see no movement and a lot of blood.
[man 2.]
They're dead.
[inmate laughing.]
We had a lot of people.
A little bit better than 400 of us.
A lot of those guys don't have a clue what's going on.
[clamoring.]
They're scared, worried, confused and they can't get out.
There! Motherfucker! [man screaming.]
If you didn't get out initially, you ain't no getting out.
'Cause the door wasn't gonna be open anymore.
We started taking control, right? The chaos had to stop.
[Owens.]
There had to be some rules here, even though it's wild and crazy.
'Cause if everybody just go around just killing everybody, then everybody is just gonna be dead up in here.
[Hasan.]
People was on edge, and people was just fearful, not knowing who to trust, other than their own ethnic group that they actually belongs to.
[Snodgrass.]
The first night, we were all in the gym, right? And I'm like, "Look, we need to get us a block.
" The Muslims, they took L-6, and they had control.
The Aryan Brotherhood, we ended up going to L-2.
This is our block.
We're taking it over.
And we just told them all to get the fuck out.
[panting.]
[man yells indistinctly.]
[Hensley.]
They moved us around 'cause they didn't want us in one group.
Each group had one or two of us.
First few days, I was with the whites.
Then they switched me over to the Black Gangster Disciples.
I knew where I was every time they moved me.
It's part of survival.
If you don't know where you're at, and if you get loose, you don't know where to go.
[Daniels.]
The Black Gangster Disciples had me.
Their orders was that if there was any assault on the prison, we was to be killed first.
[banging echoes.]
One guy, he sat there and bounced an aluminum baseball bat off the floor, onto the concrete.
It was almost nonstop.
"This is for you.
If they come in, you're gonna be the first.
" [banging continues.]
You don't have control of anything.
The next breath could be your last, and it's not your decision.
[banging accelerates.]
[screams.]
[Tate.]
We get into the early hours of Monday and we did some of the traditional kinds of things that you do.
We had people down underneath the institution in the tunnels.
The Bureau were able to glean good intelligence by literally bugging the areas.
[man speaks indistinctly on recording.]
We cut the electricity and the water off to create a tougher situation for the hostage-takers so, hopefully, they'll come to the table quicker to resolve issues.
[inmate laughing.]
[man.]
7:51.
[man 2.]
I'm freezing! [coughing.]
[man.]
Who is that? [man 2.]
Skatzes.
Inmate Skatzes.
Who we got up there in that tower? We got anybody of high-ranking status Ohio State Patrol up there? [Tate.]
George was one of the inmates who was purported to be a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.
This is Lieutenant Lewis.
I'm the assistant District Six commander, talking to you now.
If anything happens to either one of us, something will probably happen to those hostages.
I want you people to understand this ain't no fucking joke, boys.
We got eight lives in there that we're all concerned about.
Now let's get something rolling here! What do you want to do? You wanna talk to one of our negotiators? We want the news media! Skatzes! - Call 245.
- [George Skatzes.]
Two-four-five? - [man.]
Yes.
- Two-four-five.
They will talk to you.
All right.
I hope I got your word on that.
Okay, hang on just a minute.
He's walking away.
I think he's going for it.
[Tate.]
You try to open up lines of communication.
There was tremendous distrust on their part.
And, hey, there was tremendous distrust on our part.
Hell, I mean Christ, they've just killed nine inmates.
So, I mean, what the hell? [man speaks indistinctly on recording.]
Inmate negotiator.
Hi, this is Dave.
Who's this? This is inmate negotiator.
Hold on for a minute.
Let me get George for you, all right? [negotiator.]
I wish you would, yeah.
Okay, sir.
What can we do for you, George? Well, we can start out with the lights.
We can start out with the water.
We can start out with news media, and deliver you two hostages.
How's that? I can't guarantee that the news media will even talk to you.
Oh, cut it out.
Let's knock off the bullshit.
What do you say? Get me Channel 10 News.
Channel 10 News.
And for that, you would give me two hostages? Is that what you're telling me? George, let me discuss it with my boss.
How long am I going to have to sit around here and hold my nuts till you give me a decision on that? As soon as I can get the information.
Where will you be? Oh, I'll be here on L corridor.
You can bet on that.
Well, I expect you're right about that.
[Rice.]
Negotiation is an art and not a science.
In a situation this size, it's best to not have a person in command to be on the phone because that allows the negotiators to say, "Well, I need to check with someone.
I need to get back to you.
" And they was putting us on hold, playing us crazy and shit, to where we stopped answering the phone for a while just to - just to aggravate 'em.
- [busy tone ringing.]
[Rice.]
We felt that the longer it went on, without any loss of life, the better off we were.
Just let it drag on.
They're hungry.
I'm not hungry.
They're tired.
I'm not tired.
They don't have water.
I have water.
Just let it drag on.
While all this is going on, all the hostage families are gathered at a school right across the street from the prison.
[woman on TV.]
The school's doors remain open for loved ones.
Dozens of family members have been here since the standoff started, and they vow to stay till the end.
I got a phone call from prison officials.
They said that a riot had erupted at the prison and that Bob was unaccounted for.
And that's when I threw the phone.
I thought, "If I get this phone out of my hand, it'll all go away.
" But it didn't.
I didn't stay in the building.
I went out on the parking lot and sat in a van facing the prison, and I watched.
I don't know what I thought I was gonna accomplish.
I didn't eat.
I knew he wasn't.
And until he was gonna eat, I wasn't gonna eat again.
[man on TV.]
Today, hundreds of police officers from around the state, including SWAT teams from several cities, arrived to begin working in shifts.
[man.]
All the reporters and the photojournalists were all kind of penned in to this little area where we had no access to the prison.
Bob, what's the latest? Jerry, I wish we had more facts, really, to give you, but the facts basically are as they have been through the day.
No electricity, no water, they've cut off all utilities, they are not serving food.
They're hoping that maybe that will bring about some kind of peaceful end.
Okay.
That's right in my face.
Please don't.
Okay? The state had full control of the story.
And sometimes, points were calling them every ten minutes, or they're calling us.
[woman.]
Any more indication, Sharon, whether or not this was premeditated? - No.
No.
- Idea about that? [woman 2.]
Can you give us a statement on the condition of the hostages? I don't know their condition.
Can you give us a generalized sense of what is the condition? - I don't know their condition.
- [reporters clamoring.]
[Bob Orr.]
We had no access to the prisoners.
We had no access to the prison authorities.
Everything was filtered.
We had no idea what the inmates wanted.
Some of the elders, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, they got together, and they came up with 21 demands.
[Hensley.]
I just asked them, I said, "What are you all asking for?" 'Cause they was complaining.
They didn't feel like they was being negotiated with fairly.
And I said, "Has it ever dawned on you that a lot of things you're asking for is just stupid?" I said, "Why don't you reduce your list to common sense and actually necessary things?" [Tate.]
If it had have been just a matter of taking the list of demands, the riot would have been over.
I mean, I'd had no problems with any of 'em.
[Hasan.]
Prison authorities do not honor their word.
They tell you one thing, and afterwards, they do something diametrically opposed to what they agreed to.
So it was very important that we get the media involved, to try to air out our concerns, to actually shine some light as to what was actually going on behind enemy lines in the prison system.
Hasan was very influential.
He said, "This is not a racial thing.
" He said, "This is us against the establishment.
" It just became a respect thing, all right? That All right, we're gonna respect you.
You're Muslim, you're black, this, that and the other.
We don't we don't love you [scoffs.]
but we're not against what you're doing.
One of our demands previously was to talk to the news media.
We were willing to give you two hostages.
I don't see why you won't let us meet with these news people.
Because we can't trust the media.
You can't trust the media? Why? Because they're gonna broadcast this thing exactly the way it is? [Sharon Kornegay.]
Regarding equal media pool coverage, we are not operating a media pool situation some of the wild speculation and rumors.
And it's really gotten out of control, in part, I must say, because the prison authorities haven't given us anything concrete, really, in terms of new information or prisoner demands.
[phone ringing.]
- [man.]
George? - [Skatzes.]
Yes, sir.
George, there's no reason for anybody to be injured or anything.
Well, then let's talk, man.
All you wanna do is fuck us, man.
That's all you wanna do.
What will it take to get you out of there? Have you talked to anybody about us, even so much as talking to the media? Have you even done that? This is a fucking death or fucking die situation, man.
It's simple as that.
We're talking about it and trying Yeah, we're talking about it.
Motherfucker, you've had two days to talk about it, at least, you know.
I can't make that decision.
You can't make it? Listen, motherfucker, I'm asking you now.
You talk to somebody that can make that decision! Shit! Fuck this! [man.]
That standoff continues in Lucasville, Ohio, eight prison guards held hostage, hundreds of inmates barricaded since the riot on Sunday as the day also brought a warning.
[woman on TV.]
A main demand for the prisoners is talking to the media, and they're going to great lengths to try and reach the media.
That is not going over well with the prison officials.
They want those negotiations handled on the phone, one-on-one.
[Rice.]
They put sheets outside.
"In three-and-a-half hours, we're gonna kill a guard.
" And this wasn't the first time that that type of information had come back to us.
[woman.]
It was a message clearly meant for the media.
But from a distance, you couldn't read the prisoners' threat.
Prison officials had already heard it.
It's a standard threat.
It's nothing new, that if we don't have something in three and a half hours, we're gonna kill a hostage.
Everybody heard her say that they didn't believe we would kill a guard.
[shouting.]
They were like, "What the fuck is she talking about? They think we won't send them a fucking body out there, man? She's talking like we're a bunch of fucking cowards in here or something.
" [inmate.]
Kill this bitch! [Hensley.]
The inmates went nuts in there.
I mean, all of a sudden, it went from almost a calm place to be [clamoring continues.]
to the inmates just started hollering and screaming, raising hell.
"The state ain't taking us serious about none of this shit.
We're gonna have to kill somebody to make a statement.
" [clamoring continues.]
[Rice.]
It may not have been the best way to say it, but if it hadn't been that it could have been something else.
[clamoring continues.]
[water dripping.]
[man 1.]
Three-five, over.
[man 2.]
Go ahead.
[man 1.]
Sheriff's bringing a body out.
[man 2.]
There's one now? [man 1.]
Yeah, they just brought a body out.
[man 2.]
Get the tapes rolling on it.
[Tate.]
I was in the hostage negotiation room, and we get a call "Warden Tate, uh we think you need to come down here right away.
Um, we think we have the body of one of our hostages.
" Phew.
[clicks tongue.]
[clicks tongue.]
[crying.]
Nobody had to tell me.
I could tell by the look on everybody's faces that it was him.
[clicks tongue.]
You just can't imagine the image that's burned to my brain.
I see them wheeling his body out on a stretcher, covered up in a bag.
That's horrible.
Nobody should have to go through that.
[inmate.]
Inmate negotiator.
[negotiator.]
Please give us the respect of coming in and getting our body.
We need to come in and get it and get it out of there.
We need safe passage.
Do we have an agreement that we can come in and get our body? [inmate.]
Okay.
The riot ended on the fifth day for me.
[man on TV.]
A tragic development.
One of the eight prison guards being held hostage was found dead.
[Kornegay.]
The body of correctional officer Robert R.
Vallandingham was recovered at 12:20 this afternoon.
His family has been notified.
[Guynes.]
Bobby Vallandingham.
He never bothered us.
He never came down the range, trying to be nosy, you know? I thought he was a real decent guy.
[Snodgrass.]
When they killed Vallandingham, a lot of us were like, "Man, that was a good dude.
Why him?" But I knew it was Vallandingham chosen because he saw too much when the riot jumped off.
[Tate.]
Up to this point, things weren't good, but we hadn't lost anybody.
Now, the stakes are way up here.
So now you're thinking "Okay, they've killed They've killed a hostage.
They've got six or eight other hostages or however many at that point.
What's gonna happen now?" [Guynes.]
I had read a book called A Time to Die, about the prison riot in 1971 at Attica in New York.
And I knew that when they came in they killed most of the hostages.
The guards included.
And so I was thinking all the time that they might bum-rush us and do the same thing.
[clamoring.]
When you murder an officer, negotiations stop.
We're coming in.
And they were scared to death the SWAT teams would come rushing in and a lot of people would start dying.
[woman on TV.]
People tell us the killing makes them want authorities to storm the prison.
Told them they were gonna kill 'em anyway, and I truly think if they would have went in at the beginning, I mean It's happening anyway.
We figured, "Yeah, it won't be long before they make a move on us.
" They come in here, they're gonna come deep and they're gonna kill as many people as they can possibly kill.
They'll probably Everything standing up is getting shot.
[Rice.]
The pressure to attack became very, very great.
[clamoring.]
[Snodgrass.]
We had a lot of intelligent people in there.
We made a maze with all the bunk beds out of the cells, that way the officers couldn't rush in there and just run through the block.
They had to go through our maze.
We had guys that had served in Vietnam.
We had a guy, he built these bombs out of lighters.
[chuckles.]
You know, and he was good at it, too.
[Rice.]
Petitions were actually being circulated to, you know, go in there and get those SOBs because they've given up all their rights.
[Snodgrass.]
We had weapons set up in our block, like this volleyball bar.
We brought that from the gym, tied a sheet on each side of it.
Seventy or eighty pounds of solid steel coming from the ceiling, and if you released it, anything in its path, it's wiping out.
Art was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.
It was damn lonely.
Damn lonely.
I mean, it's one of the loneliest jobs a person can have, I think.
Bob was killed in the morning, on Thursday, so the afternoon shift came in with fire in their eyes.
They wanted an immediate assault.
"God damn it! They're gonna kill the rest of these people.
We need to get in there now! We've got all the weaponry.
We've got this, we've got that.
" So I'm trying to pull everything from the reserve tank.
[chuckles.]
I said, "Look, assaulting L-Block right now is only gonna cause a lot more bloodshed, and we don't need that.
" Well, it worked.
After that little speech, I went back into a restroom.
I totally lost it.
So I got it I pulled it together and things started happening pretty quickly then.
I know in my heart that tonight's the night.
I know that.
I know that if we don't go out there and do something, as you've got it set up, and you're blowing and coming in here.
I know that.
We know that your end resolve is to kill as many of us as you can.
We know that.
What happened, George? Did you lose control? I never had control.
I'm just a negotiator.
I'm just one man.
George, if you get me one hostage and you, I'll sit down face-to-face on live radio.
You owe me that much.
Can I come out there and talk to you on live radio, just me? No, one hostage with you.
I can't do that.
Yes, you can, George.
Put a stop to this in a peaceful, orderly manner.
I want nobody else hurt.
[Rice.]
George was able to come out and broadcast, to get their thoughts out to the public.
[Skatzes.]
My brothers, if you can hear me on that radio, please holler at me! [shouting.]
I think he was just wanting to let people know that he was the big cheese, if you will.
[Skatzes.]
We hope there is no more violence.
We hope there are no more unnecessary murders.
Okay.
From the onset of this, we have tried desperately, desperately, desperately to get in contact with the news media.
We have beat our brains out, we have been stopped by this administration.
They think they can confine this incident within the walls of this prison, like no part of the world can hear this.
[Rice.]
He had a little trouble with the language and putting his thoughts together.
It was more off-the-cuff type things.
[Skatzes.]
Okay, I'm very limited in time.
I'm sorry.
[stammers.]
I mean, the list of demands and all like that is by no means short, I could rattle on forever.
Now, we are releasing one Darrold Ray Clark Jr.
here, on the other side of this fence.
[woman on TV.]
23-year-old corrections officer Darrold Clark was freed after prison officials agreed to allow inmates to make a statement on local radio.
[Rice.]
That was a trade-off.
We got a hostage, and we were getting hostages out any way we could.
Their mind games start to break you down.
They're swinging ball bats over my head, against a brick wall, sharpening knives, and things like saying they're going to throw my guts in my face.
That's enough to break anybody.
[woman on TV.]
There is expected to be another live broadcast later this morning.
Another hostage is supposed to be freed.
[Tate.]
Jim Demons was being held by the Muslim group.
He apparently told them, "I'll convert to Islam if you'll let me go.
" So, shit, the next thing we know, he comes out on the yard in traditional Muslim garb.
My name is Officer CO Demons.
My Muslim name is Mustafa Akhmed Lee.
If you know you're gonna be released and that's what you need to do, probably 99 out of 100 people would say, "You know what, put one of those damn things on me, and give me one of those robes, and I'm outta here.
" [woman on TV.]
But then, a bombshell.
Now I knew Vallandingham.
He was a good friend of mine.
The only reason that man is dead, 'cause he stayed in there so long, 'cause they wanna cut off water and turn off electricity, which had me scared for my life in there.
So I adjusted to the Nation of Islam.
Can y'all hear me in there? [woman on TV.]
Demons muttered angrily at negotiators as he left the prison yard and shrugged off an offered jacket.
[Tate.]
When Jim Demons was released, every employee in the prison turned their backs on him 'cause they thought he was a traitor for converting to Islam.
[man.]
I understand now you wanna make a clarification.
Well, clarification is that I said what I had to say.
I said whatever it took to make the inmates in there happy, and to make sure that those officers in there were safe there.
[man.]
So you didn't believe any of that that we just saw? No, I haven't.
No, I didn't.
You have obviously been through an ordeal.
Are you going to have problems resuming your former duties? Right now, I have no idea what I'm gonna do.
[Rice.]
It was kind of a strange thing to begin with, but we really didn't care because we got another one out.
Demons' story is certainly chilling, especially since there are five guards still being held hostage.
Now, if we had to do that a couple times, fine.
Didn't care.
[chuckles.]
We'd just keep bringing the hostages out.
[clamoring.]
[laughter.]
[Hensley.]
You can't show emotion, so you have to just deal with it.
If I had concentrated on my family, if I had concentrated on food, water, any of those other things would've just gradually wore me down and broke me down.
You know, the administration, it seemed like it was doing nothing.
And we just felt like we was just, you know, left pigs to slaughter or whatever.
They didn't care about us any longer.
We didn't matter.
I had a young family I needed to take care of and I knew my wife could survive, but we'd only been married a few years, so I didn't want her to have to do that on her own.
[helicopter hovering.]
[Skatzes.]
A list of demands.
[stammers.]
Excuse me if I seem to rattle on.
I've got so much on my mind that I can't possibly keep it in order.
As the days went on, George's role diminished as the "hostage negotiator" for the inmates.
[clattering.]
Another voice became more prevalent for the Brotherhood, and that was Jason Robb.
Hey, George.
No, this ain't him.
He went to get him some rest.
I'm here to take care of this.
I need to talk to George.
He and I have been working on things.
I've been right here with him.
I hear everything he has to say.
Okay.
Jason Robb was known as "The Mayor.
" [Jason Robb.]
We knew that this was a chess game that we're playing.
There's gotta be a way out of here, with minimal damage towards them and us.
We knew what their end game is, that's get-back, revenge.
Our end game is trying to get out alive.
I knew the system.
I've been down since I was 17.
And I knew when they were bullshitting and when they weren't.
[Rice.]
When the inmates took over the L-Block, they took over the offices in L-Block.
And, unfortunately, our disturbance control manual was in L-Block.
So we were actually negotiating against our own manual.
We were reading their book, and we knew what their book said.
Once you read the book, it's quite clear.
So in the book, they were basically saying you need to wear them down.
You need to wear down their psyche, their mentality And that's what they were doing, day after day.
They were slowly trying to wear us down.
We just had to incorporate what they had in the manual.
We just had to use reverse psychology on them.
We had to do to them what they were doing to us, basically.
Jason, Jason, Jason Now we can play these games.
This "Jason, Jason, Jason" shit.
Okay? Now, we're not going to play games.
The cards are in our hands, and you understand that.
I've given you TV time.
I've given you radio time.
I've given you national media.
Oh, but you got two officers.
We've made a lot of progress, and I just want to see us continue to move forward.
If we end it peacefully, we don't storm.
[Robb.]
It was the retaliation thing we worried about.
They tell us our word doesn't mean shit, so their word doesn't mean shit to us.
We had to have something in writing, a contractual type of agreement between us that's binding.
[Rice.]
The inmates wanted to have an attorney, and the one that they decided they wanted was Niki Schwartz out of Cleveland.
I think they felt this is someone outside the system.
This is an independent person who's going to look out for our best interests.
I think they needed me because, as I quickly found out, they were talking at each other and not talking to each other.
I had had a lot of experience dealing with prisoners and dealing with prison administrations.
And I thought I had a feel for how to relate to each.
Hello, this is Niki Schwartz speaking.
Your name? My name's Jason Robb.
Hey, Jason.
How are you? [Robb.]
I'm making it.
[Niki Schwartz.]
Okay.
Now we wanna be able to come out here and confer with you.
Right now, I'm talking to you on the phone.
I wanna talk to you face-to-face, eye-to-eye.
[Schwartz.]
I understand.
[Robb.]
For a man to talk to another man, eye-to-eye.
[chanting.]
Free our guards! Free our guards! Free our guards! Free our guards! [Schwartz.]
It was decided that they would put tables on either side of the inner fence.
So it was as though we were talking across the table to each other.
Law enforcement was very concerned about my safety.
[Robb.]
We didn't know what to expect.
Nervous is an understatement.
We'd been in that cave the whole time with no lights.
Coming out, getting hit with that sunlight and stuff.
I don't know how to put it into words, man.
There was a lot of snipers on the roof trying to conceal themselves.
I was hoping and praying that the state would not do something foolish.
[Robb.]
They had us stop and raise our hands and strip down so they could see that we didn't have no weapons and stuff on us.
When we got up to the table and sat down with Niki, we needed to make sure who he was.
We got to see his driver's license.
[Schwartz.]
The first thing I said to them when I sat down, I said, "I'm not always gonna be able to tell you what you wanna hear but I'm not gonna give you any bullshit.
" [Robb.]
I'm pretty good at reading people, and he was sincere.
[Hasan.]
To me, he was a man that believed in standing up for truth, justice and equality, no matter who he was for or against.
You have to trust somebody like that.
They were bright.
They were articulate.
They seemed to have leadership skills, and I think if life had dealt them different cards at an earlier stage, they could have been responsible members of society.
I handed them a two-page document that had 21 points, a response to the inmates' 21 demands.
Their first concern was, "Is this legally binding?" And I said, "No way.
You're holding hostages.
They're free to repudiate this agreement as soon as they get the hostages back.
But they assured me that they intended to comply with it.
" [Rice.]
Niki is talking about reality.
Niki's saying, "You know, there's a dead corrections officer, there's nine dead inmates, there's probably $20 or $30 million worth of damage.
They aren't gonna say, 'King's Act, it's all over, you guys are going to Hawaii.
'" [Schwartz.]
The prisoners were most concerned about their safety upon the surrender.
Their demands included that it be televised live.
That there be neutral observers because they feared retaliation from the guards.
[Robb.]
Yeah, there's a possibility that they'll renege on a lot of these agreements.
But that's what we got the attorney for.
And these were agreements that we had made with Niki, so I had to trust in that.
And I had to put a lot of trust in Niki, a man I'd just met.
They were ready to surrender.
[birds chirping.]
[Orr.]
If you've just joined us, this is live coverage, a special report from Lucasville with the good news that the 11-day siege now has ended.
[man on TV.]
They have reached an agreement.
It sounds like Niki Schwartz was pivotal.
He must have worked some sort of magic with these inmates on the inside.
They trusted him enough to agree to end the siege today.
[Orr.]
In an hour or two, this evacuation, as they call it now, will begin.
Lo and behold, the doors opened, and we see these guys come out in small groups.
[man on TV.]
And here we have some inmates coming out.
[woman.]
I wanna point out, all of these are inmates.
There have been no hostages released.
No hostages have been released.
These are inmates.
[Orr.]
I just remember standing there, actually kind of awestruck that we're actually This is actually happening.
We're seeing this.
[Guynes.]
I wasn't ready to come out.
I wasn't ready to come out.
I enjoyed my freedom.
I do remember sitting by a window, looking out.
It rained all day long.
I said, "I know them state troopers is mad as hell.
They standing out there in that rain.
" [Orr.]
What you're watching is continuous live coverage of truly a historic and extraordinary event.
There are five prison guard hostages still inside.
[Hensley.]
Everybody got real tense and quiet, so I knew something was going on.
And they come to my cell, and said, "Have you heard that we're surrendering?" I said, "Yeah, right.
" I really thought they were gonna kill me.
He just didn't have the guts to tell me.
He said, "Nobody's gonna lay a hand on you.
" He said, "I give you my word.
" I said, "I want more than your word.
" I said, "Let me put my hands around your neck while we walk out, then.
" I said, "Anybody touches me, I choke you to death.
" He said, "Deal.
" [woman on TV.]
Prison officials here are still not in charge of what's going on.
The inmates still have five hostages.
[Hensley.]
I thought they were just taking me someplace else to kill me.
We turned that corner, and it was like a breeze hit me.
And I thought, "Damn, we really are going out.
We really are.
" [laughs.]
- [helicopters hovering.]
- [indistinct radio chatter.]
[woman.]
This is interesting.
The first time we've seen 'em with hands on their shoulders.
[man.]
Could those be hostages? [woman.]
These might be the hostages.
[man.]
We've just been told they may come out with the last group.
So you may be looking at the hostages.
Let's take a close look at this.
[woman.]
Here is what looks like another hostage.
[man.]
I think if you could listen real close, you could probably hear some cheers - [woman.]
I hear it, Mark.
Yeah, I do.
- [laughs.]
from across the way.
[cheering.]
[Hensley.]
If I'd have got my hands on a shotgun, I'd have started blasting inmates.
I didn't care who, which ones.
It didn't matter.
I wanted revenge.
It's sickening.
It's a sickening feeling to have.
But I had it.
[chattering.]
[man on TV.]
This just into us from the State Corrections Department officials.
All five hostages have been released.
We'll try to come up with [Guynes.]
I was one of the very last to come out.
When I came out somebody locked the door and threw the keys up on the roof.
[water dripping.]
[camera shutter clicking.]
They stripped us naked and then had us go sit up in the gym.
About 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, they load us up on three buses and took us away.
[Tate.]
You know there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about what happened.
[clicks tongue.]
And I still get, you know, a little emotional about it.
I really wanted to do the best I could do down there.
When society wrings itself out of these people, they're put in they're put in prison.
And we're then entrusted to deal proactively with them.
And it's just a huge, huge responsibility.
[Hensley.]
A lot of people wanted to blame Tate.
A lot of people wanted to blame the correction officers.
"It was all their fault.
" It was none of that.
It was the inmates.
Nobody destroyed that place, nobody murdered those inmates nobody murdered Bobby, except the inmates.
The crime scene was tremendously huge.
There were over 1,200 pieces of evidence that they had to dig through.
To categorize it, to tag it, to photograph it, to mark it for prosecution.
They did a tremendous job.
[Peggy Vallandingham.]
Did they get everyone that was involved? They got as many of them as they could get.
They had to plea bargain with some of them and is that hard to swallow? You betcha.
It's very hard.
But without them, we wouldn't have the ones we have.
Mm-hmm.
I know I snitched.
I gave up information on guys to the authorities, right? It makes no difference to me if you're judging me and you're judging me, you're judging you and anybody else wants to judge me for it, fine, man.
Judge me, all right? Put yourself in my shoes, you know See how you handle that situation.
I don't think most people would still have enough mind to be sane after all the shit that I've seen and done and been through in that fucking riot.
You know? [clicks tongue.]
That's how I feel, man.
It's been a long one.
[man.]
The jury in this case, find the defendant, Jason Robb, guilty of aggravated murder as it stands charged [Robb.]
At the end of the day, somebody has to pay.
Somebody has to answer.
They need somebody to be the sacrificial lamb.
They didn't have anyone to point a finger at except for the people who were actually in the forefront as far as negotiations.
I felt that law enforcement wanted to pin the death of the guard on them, to punish them for their role in the riot, when in fact, it's very arguable whether they had any role in the death or not.
So, I I think that the the the death penalties are are troubling to me.
If these guys who were the negotiators for a peaceful surrender are executed, next time there's a prison riot, nobody's gonna be willing to come forward to be a peacemaker.
[Vallandingham.]
As long as they get what's coming to them and ultimately that's death.
And I do live for that day.
[man on radio.]
but some of those storms could be strong to severe and accompanied by high wind [Hensley.]
I was able to go back and face it.
I was able to walk back in that place 121 days later.
I was able to overcome it and do my job professionally.
But I had to prove to myself that I could do that and I did it.
I never retaliated against one inmate for the entire thing.
- [cell door buzzes.]
- So I knew I did okay.
At least I knew I was still human.
[blues music playing.]