From the archives: ATTIKA! ATTICA! (1991)

By William M. Kunstier

September 13 marked the 20th anniversary of the authorities’ retaking of the D-Yard at Attica State Correctional Facility — a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. The military assault on the yard by an army of state police, correctional officers, and sheriff’s deputies resulted in the deaths of 33 inmates and 10 hostages, and seriously injured scores of other prisoners. Many died from blood loss or lack of medical care because the state did not provide enough doctors, nurses, and plasma for the expected death toll. After the attack, inmates were forced to run the gauntlet with batons or otherwise abused.

About 17 years ago, a dedicated group of attorneys involved in the court cases following the facility’s repossession filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Buffalo, NY, on behalf of the affected inmates. The lawsuit sought damages for both the brutality towards her clients and the failure to plan for adequate medical and human resources. The original defendants included the estate of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Correctional Commissioner Russell Oswald, Warden Vincent Mancusi and his deputy. Although Rockefeller’s attorneys were able to obtain an order to dismiss the estate, the lawsuit against the other defendants has just been upheld by a federal appeals court, which also ordered that a trial be held immediately.

An Attica Judicial Committee has been formed to prepare for this process, which is estimated to take six to seven months. Its hundred or so members include Susan Sarandon, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Spike Lee, Father Daniel Berrigan, Ramsey Clark, Bishop Paul Moore, and painters Leon Golub and Nancy Spero. The committee’s purpose is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the uprising and to assist Attica plaintiffs and their families during the Buffalo trial. The trial is estimated to have a budget of $100,000, which is expected to cover the cost of transporting many witnesses to Buffalo. These include dr. Michael Baden, the former New York City coroner; New York Times columnist Tom Wicker; and Malcolm Bell, who, as New York State’s Assistant Attorney General, exposed the unfair prosecution of the Attica inmates in his book Turkey Shoot, prompting Governor Hugh Carey to order the dismissal of all charges against them.

As one of the observers requested by the inmates, I, along with the other members of our small party, spent the four days leading up to the September 13 invasion persuading Governor Rockefeller not to use force to retake D-Yard until every effort was made to take it an attempt was made to find a peaceful solution. Tragically, we didn’t succeed. On the morning of the 13th, a Monday, I stood at the entrance to the prison and watched the officers pour through the gates and many shouted, “Save me, a nigger!” I could smell the CS gas from hovering helicopters and listened with tears in my eyes to the staccato bang of bullets, which I later learned were being fired into the bodies of prisoners and hostages alike. As long as I live, I will never forget those sounds and smells. I also can’t forget how a police officer tried to hit me with his car as I was leaving the gate after the shooting stopped.

Our last contact with the rebellious prisoners was on Sunday September 12th. That day we entered D-Yard with a television crew from WGR-TV in Buffalo, who eventually recorded pleas from some of the hostages being held by authorities to end the takeover being shelved pending further negotiations. Just before we left the facility, Inspector Oswald showed us a document he was about to send to the yard. It contained the false statement that we agreed with him that the inmates should surrender. We begged him not to deliver it because we felt it might cost us our lives.

Although he assured that he would not send it in, he did it anyway. Then, for the first time, we were asked to sign a general release statement on our behalf and on behalf of our heirs, stating that the state could not be held liable if anything happened to us within the court. I firmly believe that Commissioner Oswald and others in the correctional hierarchy – and perhaps the governor as well – were hoping that we would be branded traitors and killed by the inmates so that a planned state attack could be legitimized in public view. Fortunately, the inmates were far more understanding than the authorities and did not fall for this grotesque attempt to justify an attack. After the latter took place, the press was told that this was necessary because inmates cut the throats of their hostages. That turned out to be a lie. Two days later, the Monroe County coroner announced that there had been no people who had their throats cut and that all of the casualties were the result of gunshots.

It is hoped that the pending lawsuit will expose not only the prison officials’ perfidy, but also their refusal to act on inmates’ many grievances until their frustrations blew them up that September so long ago. But its real value will be in emphasizing that conditions in our prisons are worse than they were in 1971, as evidenced by the recent riot at Southport Correctional Facility near Elmira, NY. It is indescribably sad that, as Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

High Times Magazine, October 1991

Read the full issue here.