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dramatic music playing

[Nieves] Something always was ready to happen at Attica.

The population was tired.

Tired of lies, of promises.

We were tired.

Someone hit the guard.

And after you hit a guard, it's over.

But then all hell broke loose.

[sirens blaring]

I'm in the metal shop.

We start hearing these sirens going off.

I said, "Damn, what the hell is this?"

I was in the shower.

I came out, I'm soaking wet,

and the place is going crazy.

And all of a sudden,

I seen the metal shop door open,

and I seen guys come running in there

with great big pipes and knives.

And before you knew it,

everybody was running all over the place.

Then you started seeing people sticking their faces

through the broken windows and saying,

"Grab the guards! Grab the guards!

Grab the keys! Get the keys!"

There's guards that are getting beat up.

Anybody that fell in your hand that was part

of the administration was gonna get a beatdown.

Here's my opportunity to fight those who beat me down now,

'cause I'm with a whole lot of killers now.

It's us versus them.

I just jumped in there. I didn't plan anything.

I wasn't that type of thinker.

I was kicking the police's ass. I felt good about it.

It would have ended right there,

because they were in a confined area,

locks on the block, locks here, Times Square was locked,

but the prisoners went back towards Times Square

and began to yank on the gates.

[Sheppard] All the four blocks met at Times Square.

In the context of the layout of the prison,

Times Square is the hub,

the central hub of the prison.

suspenseful music playing

[Quinn Miller] The morning of the riot,

my father was in Times Square.

He had keys to all of the doorways,

and unfortunately, the inmates that were in A tunnel

continued to push against, uh,

that cell door,

and they began yelling, um,

for my dad to unlock the gate.

As Quinn jumped back, I said, "Oh, shit, this is--"

and he hit that horn, and the foghorn, like...

[imitating alarm]

And then they started banging on the gate,

banging on the gate, banging on the gate.

And unbeknownst to anybody,

one of the hinges has been welded together,

kind of jury-rigged during the construction in the 1930s.

That weld broke.

The lock just popped.

And they rushed out. Boom.

When the gate came down, they attacked my father,

and they took his keys,

which, of course, gave them access

to all of the doors within Times Square.

Um, and he was beaten very severely.

I double back,

and I put two knuckles on Quinn's neck.

I could feel a pulse, but it was very faint.

It was like a flutter,

and a minute or two later, another flutter.

There were some inmates that knew my dad,

four Muslim inmates who got a mattress out of A block

and put my dad on the mattress,

and they brought him from Times Square

and told them that they have a correction officer

that has been badly injured,

and he needs medical attention.

At some point, an ambulance did arrive.

During that time, my mother was notified

that my father was injured.

[siren wailing]

After they got Quinn's keys, they opened up all four sides

and said, "We got the joint."

And they hollered it. "We got the joint!"

[prisoners shouting]

[Roche] We took every block in the joint.

We took it.

But we couldn't hold it.

So we all retreated back to D block.

[helicopter blades whirring]

[reporter] The place is blowing up.

Smoke pouring from five buildings,

the prison chapel and laundry gutted by flames.

[Harrison] We only had control of that yard.

They had control of the system.

They had control of the gates and the doors and the walkways.

They was up on the walkways with guns,

where they can watch you.

[reporter] I'm panning now from B block,

taking in the group on the roof of C block.

Now D yard and D block is coming into view.

[police officer] Shooting now through the .270 rifle scope.

And there is the ugliest, Blackest Negro gentleman

I've ever seen in my life.

[Sheppard] We knew they were out there on the catwalks.

They would position themselves in a way--

although you knew they were there,

they positioned themselves out of sight.

[reporter] Most of the prisoners

have concealed their faces by wearing scarves, towels,

and what have you over their faces.

There was a way to guard your identity from being exposed,

and if they came in, you know, you had protection.

Or we thought we did.

In Attica, New York, about 1,000 long-term convicts

today rioted, and they gained control

of the maximum security prison.

They also seized 33 guards as hostages

and injured others in the fighting.

State police have regained control of most of the prison,

but the trouble isn't over yet.

[Sheppard] When we got to D yard with the hostages,

we hollered, "We got hostages!"

And you had about 1,000 men shouting that out.

You know, and the hostages keep the police from coming

and bapping on us.

You gotta have hostages.

That's the only-- that's your only leverage.

As long as they had the hostages--

they didn't have guns, and they didn't have this,

and they didn't have that,

but they had hostages, and they're your people,

and you're responsible for your people.

You're responsible to protect your people

and do your job.

"Sit down. Negotiate with us."

[reporter] You're getting into the area

where the 21 hostages are being held.

They're in that main group. In the center.

[reporter] We can't distinguish them

because the prisoners have taken

their clothing away and put prison clothes on.

They were blindfolded in a circle,

in the middle of the yard.

They also had guards, inmate guards,

that were around them, protecting them.

[Sharif] And we seen them as captives.

We seen them as people who were in--

under our supervision.

So we couldn't do harm to them.

My understanding of Islam was that you don't harm a captive.

Therefore, it was decided

to allow the Muslim brothers

to look out for them.

I was so mad at them for not letting us get to the police,

because I wanted to put my hands--

I wanted to get one or two of them

and really fuck them up.

These are the same police that was talking down to me,

dirty to me, and telling me,

"Get over here, do this, do that."

So I said, "Yeah, now, what do you think about me now?

Yeah, yeah."

And a good thing that them Muslims was there,

because a lot of them police would have been hurt.

Really hurt.

[Brosig] It's hard for somebody

that has never been incarcerated to understand

how surreal everything is at this point in time.

We had nobody threatening us.

We had--you know, it sounds crazy,

but it was--when you had a little bit of--

even this much control over your own life,

even for a short period,

and you know it's gonna cost you, you know, in spades,

you know, it was a moment of exuberation,

of somehow doing something

to have some control over your own life.

upbeat funk music playing

[Victory] When you first got out there,

it was total chaos.

Guys are coming out with food, clothing, setting up tents.

It was a festive time. We were free.

[Sharif] We came together as a community.

That's when there was not such thing

as Black, white, Hispanic, or whatever.

It was about we are inmates,

and we need to be able to survive whatever's going on.

Power! Unity!

[indistinct chatter]

Come on, 38.

-Tell 'em we ain't dead. -Tell 'em we ain't dead.

Yeah, get all this here.

[laughter]

Tell 'em we ain't dead.

Ain't nothing dead about us.

We ain't gonna die.

-[prisoner] Nothing. -We will not die in here.

[Sheppard] The guys that had been to Vietnam,

they said, "Let's make hooches."

Hooch was a tent.

You took a stick, and you put a sheet over it

and pulled it back,

and that was your sleeping quarters.

By the time guys started, uh,

having to go to the bathrooms,

it was--none were working.

The guys that had been to Vietnam

and been in the army,

they said, "We gotta make a latrine."

They knew what a latrine was.

I didn't know what a latrine was.

[indistinct chatter]

Give him a little lap.

All right, all right.

Okay.

There was this brother--

and I say brother.

He was white.

His--they called him Tiny,

and he was, like, a nurse

before the Attica rebellion happened.

They set up the medical section in the yard

for anybody who had any problems to go,

and Tiny would take care of them.

And the medical attention in the yard was much better

than the medical attention we got throughout the years.

[Killebrew] Oh, and we had a good time.

We was making wine and cooking food outside.

It was like a big picnic, like a shantytown.

You know, like Deadwood when, uh,

when, uh, Buffalo Bill was out.

You ever--you ever watch Gunsmoke?

The Western?

Well, Matt Dillon was the marshal of Gunsmoke.

He kept order.

In D yard, we didn't have a Matt Dillon.

Every man was a law unto himself.

You did whatever the hell you wanted to do.

And there was no order.

[prisoners shouting]

[siren wailing]

solemn music playing

[Johnson] The assignment editor says,

"There's this place called Attica,

and there's some prison riot up there,

and we want you to go up and do it.

We're not sure about any of what the details are,

specifically."

And all five went, uh,

up to Buffalo,

and then on to Attica.

This is John Johnson, ABC News, Attica, New York.

It was just an extremely,

uh, fluid situation,

to say the least.

And it was hard to get information.

I mean, we couldn't get inside,

and all we heard was,

these inmates want to talk, and they have prisoners.

And this was something almost that had never happened

in history, this huge institution,

where the inmates had taken over.

Oh, my goodness.

[Dan] "Attica, New York?

I never heard of Attica, New York.

What's in Attica?"

Quite frankly, I did not know what to expect

when I got to Attica.

We parked right in front of the prison.

So consequently, we just set up

and started filming

as much as we possibly could

of the activities outside of the prison.

We had no idea what was happening inside.

[police officer] Your instructions are

that your weapon is not to be taken,

nor are you to be taken.

You're to meet force with force.

There have been some of the prison personnel

severely injured here this morning,

and we certainly don't want to see any of our people hurt.

[Dan] The state police officers

were being handed out weapons.

They were making sure they had gas masks.

It looked to me like they were ready to go in

and retake the prison.

[reporter] Sir, are there any circumstances

might you go inside?

Pardon me?

[reporter] Might you go inside under some circumstances?

Well, one doesn't know. I'll have to feel this out.

Have the inmates made any demands?

Do the prisoners want to meet with you, sir?

I don't know, they say that they only want to speak

with the governor or me.

There seemed to be some sense, at the time,

that we're going to have to negotiate something

to save the lives of the hostages.

Because of the hostages that they have,

there's a possibility that negotiations will begin.

[indistinct speech through loudspeaker]

[reporter] We're looking at a man

using a loudspeaker, a bullhorn.

There appears to be a large meeting going on in this area,

although we can't hear anything

from that section.

The inmates decided that, you know,

they're in a situation that, you know,

that required a little bit more focus,

a little bit more discipline.

We asked the population,

"Who do you want to represent you?"

Legal prosecution of any kind!

[Sheppard] We had elections block by block.

That's where we got our leaders from.

Now, some guys had some juice in there already.

The guys that had been there a while,

who other inmates respected.

[Harrison] What they were saying made sense

to most everybody that was in that yard.

They had a plan.

And they had a plan about making things different

for the prison system itself.

All we wanted is the basic necessities

of being treated like human beings.

Even though we're in prison,

we're human beings, and stuff like that.

The prisoners in the yard must have had a radio.

They heard I was outside.

So they asked for me to come in.

I said, "Sure."

And they then said,

"We would like Commissioner Oswald to come in."

And some of his assistants said,

"Don't go. Don't go.

They'll--you can't trust them."

And Oswald said, "Well, of course I'm gonna go in."

[Sharif] We are glad to have someone

from the administration, point blank, coming in.

We making some kind of headway.

We getting here.

We got some contact with somebody.

We got some negotiations. You're listening to us.

I've never heard of this before,

negotiating with inmates,

and I just assumed

that this was going to be a landmark moment

in American history.

I thought that this was going to be negotiated

to a decent humanitarian end.

It seems to be a little misunderstanding about why

this incident developed here at Attica,

and this declaration here will explain the reasons.

The entire incident

that has erupted here at Attica is not a result...

serene music playing

There are college towns, and there's factory towns--

there's all kinds of towns in this country,

and this is Attica, New York.

It's a prison town.

[narrator] Most of the people

in the village of Attica make their living

working at the state prison.

For 40 years, most have lived

within sight of the prison walls.

They have never feared it.

The village of Attica was a great place to live.

It was very typical,

I think, small town,

where you knew everyone.

You were related to probably half of the town.

[local] We'd ride our bikes through town,

we'd go to the park, we'd go swimming

at the public pool,

we'd go hiking up in the woods.

[Quinn Miller] Attica is a company town.

Many of the people who work there

and had lived in our town

worked as either civilian employees

or corrections officers at Attica.

My grandfather worked there,

my dad worked there,

and between six or eight of the houses

that were on our street

had correction officers or civilian individuals

working in them with their families.

[Heath] These were the only jobs in the area.

Dairy farming and the prison.

So there was this culture clash that came together at Attica.

You had all white guards

and a population of prisoners

that was 70 or more percent

Black and brown.

What could go wrong?

Attica's reputation was called "the last stop."

This was the most strict prison in the state of New York.

It was known.

The word was there that when you got there,

you know what you was in for.

A hard place. The last place.

The last place. Attica was the last place.

That was--that was the last--

and you had to really be there to see why.

There was no Black guards in Attica.

There was no Spanish guards. They were all white.

People, man, that come from the local neighborhoods,

that don't know nothing about people who come from Brooklyn,

people who come from Manhattan, people who come from The Bronx.

They don't know nothing about this culture.

Most of them don't even want to talk to you.

They're you giving you the straight--

"Don't talk to me."

And it was like that. "Don't talk to me."

They would hit that stick--bop.

And this is a metal-- a metal-tipped stick,

and it rings out, and it--bop.

And you walk.

And then when they want you to stop, they say bop-bop.

That was their communication.

The only thing was right was being white.

And I mean that in all sincerity.

Everybody was sort of, like,

not so much mixing with other cultures,

but staying together for the purpose of...

survival.

I was white, so I got the best jobs.

I was always given a little bit more leeway

than the Blacks.

I could get an extra meal if I wanted one,

because I was a white guy.

"I'm a white guy.

You know, give me a little extra."

And I got it.

I always was able to manipulate the system inside the prison

because I was a white guy.

I'm almost ashamed to say

that I took advantage of that back then.

But it was the only way to survive.

It really, really was.

[Harrison] A roll of toilet paper

would have to last you a month.

You have to be a magician or tear up papers out of,

you know, the books and stuff like that

to wipe your behind and stuff like that.

Guys were complaining about basic things,

like toothpaste, toilet paper,

a change of sheets more than once a month,

things like that-- clothes being cleaned,

personal hygiene things,

being treated like human beings.

No school program. Attica was--

I can't describe it. I mean...

it was dead.

It was just dead.

[Heath] There was no religious freedom,

particularly for

the burgeoning Muslim movement.

They were denied the right to worship.

They were fed pork because the prison also had a farm

where they raised pigs, so that's what you got.

[Roche] They fed us on 63¢ a day,

so that's 21¢ a meal.

How can you feed somebody on 21¢?

I swear to God, one time I got my head opened up by a guard,

and I was put into a segregation cell.

And the doctor came,

you know, just out of-- I was bleeding all over.

So I said, "I got a-- they cracked my head.

It's wide open."

He says, "Put it over here."

They had a feeding hole in the cell.

So I put it there, and he put a flashlight like--

I swear to God, he hit me with the fucking flashlight,

right where the cut was...

...and walked away.

[Nieves] They wait until everybody's

locked up at night, and then they come for you.

Come for you as a goon squad.

[Larkins] These are the beat-up police.

These the guys, they come nine, ten deep.

Real big guys with real big sticks.

Then they come in, and they beat you up in your cell,

and then they take you to segregation,

and sometimes, you don't come back.

Attica was...

[stammers]

Fear.

They ran the prison with fear.

Being scared of them was their means

of running the prison.

[Victory] You either shut your mouth,

or you were in big trouble.

Some people died.

Some were crippled.

Some were psychologically damaged for life.

And, uh, it was a bad place to be.

They wanted to institute and instill that fear

and that they were in control,

even though they knew they were losing control.

[Larkins] My generation that came into Attica,

at that time,

we felt that we wasn't broken.

In other words, we wasn't shuffling our feet.

We would walk with our heads up high.

We would talk in our own lingo.

We was rebellious. That's all.

We wasn't gonna take nothing from nobody.

We wanted respect.

You had to give it to us, whether you wanted to or not.

[Asbury] I'd read Eldridge Cleaver's

Soul on Ice, Huey Newton,

and, you know, the Panther Party,

and the George Jackson story.

I read all that stuff.

George Jackson was a revolutionary.

He's the guy that got busted for a ten dollar, uh,

gas station robbery and got life.

He ended up in the system, in the Soledad prison.

He showed us--and I mean "us,"

the younger guys that came into Attica--

that it was okay to say no.

It was okay to be rebellious.

Understand, there may be consequences

to saying no,

but it was okay.

And it was uplifting.

It was uplifting.

[George Jackson] I think racism is a control device,

control mechanism.

Create an atmosphere whereby they can control you.

Of course, here in prison, we see the repression,

the exploitation,

the victimization of, uh,

lower-class peoples.

[Sheppard] A lot of Black Panthers

were coming into the prison.

I started hanging out with them,

and they politicized me.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense

calls upon the American people in general

and the Black people in particular

to take careful note of the racist police agencies

throughout the country are intensifying the terror,

brutality, murder, and repression of Black people.

Of course, you had the Black Muslims,

and his message to a Black man

really awoke a lot of guys that were in jail.

We want one thing!

We declare our right on this Earth to be a man,

to be a human being,

to be respected as a human being,

to be given the rights of a human being

in this society, on this Earth, in this day,

which we intend to bring into existence

by any means necessary!

[cheers and applause]

[reporter] Officials at California's

San Quentin Prison still are trying

to piece together exactly what happened and how

in that attempted prison break yesterday

in which three convicts and three guards died.

One of the dead convicts was George Jackson

of the self-styled Soledad Brothers.

Jackson was 29.

[Harrison] George Jackson was that final straw to say,

"I don't give a fuck no more.

They're gonna kill us anyway. We can't get out.

We're in this fucking cage, so where we going at?

So if we gonna die, let's die as men."

And brothers just got frustrated.

We'd go into the mess hall with a Black band on your arm

and just sit there.

Take a spoon when you come in.

Take no food.

We didn't speak during the whole time,

and we didn't pick up any food.

That, I think, kind of alerted the institution

that we was in solidarity.

They'd probably never seen that type of solidarity before.

apprehensive music playing

There was a lot of talk discussing the situation,

because the inmates were very upset,

and things were happening there,

and there was great concern.

It was a time bomb ready to blow,

and we lived with it every day in my house,

and every day, I said good-bye to my dad,

and I knew it might be the last day I saw him.

It was open conversation.

[Quinn Miller] Things were getting worse.

And so they had a meeting with the administration,

and the administration essentially dismissed

their concerns and said, "Everybody back to work.

However, we think maybe it's a good idea

if you left your personal belongings at home,

like wedding rings, wallets, et cetera."

So my father absolutely knew that something was going on.

I was having breakfast with him and he was talking to me.

And I knew he was nervous.

But he said, "Something's gonna happen."

He said, "I just don't know what or when.

But I think I'll be okay."

[Heath] There was a fight in A yard on September 8th.

And the guards promised nothing would happen

as a result of this,

because they could feel the tension building up.

Then that night, they broke that promise.

They came and pulled them out of the cells, and--

about three or four of them, and then...

Then we started throwing bottles

or whatever glass they may have had,

or cans, or whatever they may have had,

and it was a disturbance, that there.

So the inmates decided at that moment,

"Man, this is it, man. We tired.

I mean, they killed George Jackson.

They did this throughout the years.

We tired."

You know? And they went off.

[sirens wailing]

I was in school that day,

and the whistle from the prison just kept going,

and we could hear it.

[Jaime Valone] We got calls from somebody from the prison

saying that "Your dad, you know,

is definitely being held."

You know, I was scared. I was worried for my dad.

I loved my dad.

But we didn't really know what was going on.

[Elliot Barkley] It seems to be

a little misunderstanding about why

this incident developed here at Attica,

and this declaration here will explain the reasons.

The entire incident that has erupted here at Attica

is not a result of the dastardly bushwhacking

of the two prisoners September 8th of 1971,

but of the unmitigated oppression

wrought by the racist administrative network

of this prison throughout the years.

We want the governor to guarantee

that there will be no reprisals,

and we want all facets of the media

to articulate this.

We needed the media in there because we needed

to let the world know what was happening.

[Schwartz] This is one of the turning points

in the whole thing.

We would like the press to come in,

including the television cameras.

That transformed everything...

...because now the prisoners had a worldwide audience.

Whatever happens here at Attica State Prison...

I'm not sure how they heard

that there was a Black journalist outside,

that they wanted me

to be on the group that went in with Oswald.

Suddenly, I'm on-- in this group,

going into the prison,

with this head of the prison system.

I was surprised that they had asked for me.

But I guess because of the fact

that they had watched the news,

my reports were factual,

and I was not taking anybody's side

in the whole thing.

[Johnson] We went in,

and it was completely surreal.

Like, you're walking down a tunnel,

and suddenly, you walk into this huge yard

where there are men everywhere--

like, thousands of men.

And I remember

some people yelling, "Hey, JJ."

I said hello to people that I knew

from Bed-Stuy and Harlem, and they were in Attica.

[Dan] Once inside, we were brought along

through the yard with a member of the inmate security force

constantly at our side.

We were allowed to go where they told us to go.

We were allowed to film

only when the prisoners told us we could.

Inmates' faces were covered

so as to keep their identities secret.

Our first concern on entering

was to learn how the hostages were.

[Oswald] We want to see your hostages.

Show the hostages first.

I was able to ask one question

before I was moved to the negotiation table.

Been treated all right?

Yes, I have so far been treated very good.

-[Dan] No complaints? -No.

[Dan] But no problems so far?

So far, been treated very good.

Shortly thereafter, one of the inmates,

a young man by the name of L.D. Barkley,

started to read the demands.

The entire prison populace--

that means each and every one of us here--

have set forth to change forever

the ruthless brutalization

and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here

and throughout the United States.

He was saying what we all wanted to scream.

But he was explaining it

so that everybody could understand,

so that when you were sitting in your living room,

you could say, "Well, the guy's a criminal.

Yeah, but he is saying something that's...

...that I understand. How could we do that?"

You know? He was waking up America.

And he was the best one to do it.

We are men!

We are not beasts, and we do not intend

to be beaten or driven as such.

LD was only gonna be here for 90 days.

He'll be getting out.

But he wanted the outside world to know that...

...the prisons were inhumane.

What has happened here is but the sound

before the fury of those who are oppressed.

We will not compromise on any terms

except those terms that are agreeable to us.

We call upon all...

[prisoners shouting]

[Larkins] You felt it.

And at that moment, I heard it, and I seen it.

And that reaffirmed why we was there.

Why I was there.

There was a feeling that this was big.

This was huge.

Corrections Commissioner Oswald

maintained that he had done

quite a bit of the things

that the inmates had requested.

I've, uh, complied

with the several things I said I would do as my part.

I've brought the press

and other media in here

to listen as we talk.

And now, my question is--

I asked earlier,

when will you release the hostages?

[Nieves] But now, the table was turned,

and we had the power.

So when we asked him for something,

he had to give it to us

'cause he didn't have no choice.

We wanted some assurance

that we weren't gonna be retaliated against.

So we asked Herman Schwartz

to go to District Court in New York

and get an injunction that would assure us

that we wouldn't be retaliated against.

I sat down and wrote an injunction

which barred any kind of retaliation.

It had been agreed that there would be

another meeting the next morning.

[reporter] The time is now ten minutes of eight.

We've been shooting this tape for approximately two hours.

We started about 6:00 p.m.

The light is almost gone now.

We can see lights in cell block D.

singers vocalizing

soulful doo-wop music playing

[Roche] The guy next to me was named Raymond White.

He was walking around, looking up in the air.

It's dark. I said, "Yo, Raymond White.

Yo, Ray, you all right?"

He said, "Man, I ain't been out after dark in 22 years."

[Killebrew] And we was talking,

singing songs-- it was a festive night.

I loved it. I loved it.

Man, I was out in the nighttime,

looking at the stars.

I was drunk. I was happy.

You know, I was--I liked it, you know.

I was having a good time.

And it was good. I felt free.

You know, I mean, prison was there,

but, you know, I felt free.

I didn't have to hear

the doors locking.

And if--it was a good feeling

at that first night.

[Asbury] When it got dark, and everybody was talking

about finding somewhere to sleep--

but, you know, don't sleep alone,

and, you know, that type of thing.

There's a lot of psychopaths and sociopaths

in those facilities, so, you know,

you had to protect yourself from your peers, even.

[Sharif] I knew this wasn't gonna last forever.

I knew there would-- there would be an end to this.

But just because we was incarcerated

didn't mean that we were less than human.

Somebody had to take a stand.

foreboding music playing

[reporter] At dawn, as smoke from yesterday's fires

lingered over prison walls,

a federal injunction was obtained

prohibiting physical reprisal

against those involved in the riot.

[Schwartz] When I brought in the injunction,

we talked to the prisoners at opposite ends

of a rather long tunnel.

They said, "Where are the administrators?"

I said, "I don't know.

I'm here, but I don't know where they are."

Finally, at ten o'clock, Oswald and the others show up.

The prisoners were furious.

They had been, as they would put it, dissed.

They were supposed to meet at seven or eight o'clock,

and it was very clear--

the air was very tense.

You had the tables spread out.

We were on one side.

The inmates were on the other.

And I gave them the document that the judge had signed.

This is nothing.

[Schwartz] I'm sorry, I spent seven hours of--

and got no sleep, and traveled...

He claimed that the federal judge signed off

on an injunction saying that there would be no reprisals.

And he came back in, waving that at us,

and Jerry the Jew said, "Where's the seal?"

There is no judicial seal on this.

I have received injunctions from the Southern District

which had judicial seals.

This paper is an empty gesture.

[Larkins] Jerry the Jew. That was his nickname.

Jerry Rosenberg was a hell of a guy.

And he was well-respected.

He had a law degree.

And he knew law. He would help all the inmates.

He was a jailhouse lawyer.

You can take this piece of paper and throw it away,

because this is no protection.

Jerry Rosenberg, God bless him,

say, uh, "Judge ain't signed this.

There's no Western District Court stamp

on this document saying that, you know what,

nothing will happen to us," and tore it up.

Herman, we know you mean well,

but, uh, don't come with the bullshit, Herm.

We want a judicial seal

and a continuing restraining order

until the litigation is finally ended,

without any reprisals or brutality

against any inmates of this institution.

[prisoners cheering]

Well, lawyers know that seals

don't mean anything,

uh, so long as the signature is there.

I could have kicked Jerry's ass.

And I should have.

Really, 'cause he just started to grandstand.

You know, he was caught up in the moment.

Smart as he is, and as shrewd as he is,

he overreacted,

and we lost an opportunity there.

And then somebody said, "Let's hold them.

Let's add to the hostage count."

[inmate] I hope I'm speaking for every brother here.

I want to address this to you, Oswald.

You come in here popping that game.

I know you don't give a fuck

about none of them hacks out there.

Let me tell you something.

I don't give a fuck about you. Nothing.

I know them people don't mean nothing to you.

Nothing.

And I'ma tell you before you leave here--if you leave.

Mr. Oswald, it seems to me that you weren't honest.

It seems to me that you weren't honest at prevarications.

I bear witness to your evil deeds, Mr. Oswald.

Now, I repeat, as I told you yesterday,

we're being lenient with you.

We're negotiating. We are talking.

We shouldn't be. We should be demanding.

Why?

Because we have 35 lives, not hostages.

And I repeat, Mr. Oswald,

a moment's hesitation will cause you their lives.

[Nieves] The meeting in the yard got very tense

because Oswald would talk to you

from one side of his mouth,

and then when he left the yard and go outside,

he talks from the other side of the mouth.

[reporter] Have the inmates made

any demands that you know of?

There are all kinds of demands, you know,

for the change in-- change in the whole world.

But what he forgot was that he was being seen on TV.

Come on. How could he do that? We're watching you.

[inmate] And you stated it yesterday on the news media,

in a huff, in a panic.

You said, "Well, I don't know what they want.

They want the world." And you left it like that.

You walked away from the reporters.

Would you reply to that, Mr. Oswald?

[Oswald] Yes, I did say that.

[inmate] No, we didn't ask you that, because we didn't--

[inmate] Let him finish, please.

[Oswald] I did say that.

[Larkins] Can't bullshit a bullshitter.

You can't do that.

The first time he came in, "I'ma do this,

A, B, C, D, E, F, G," and people was happy.

"All right, go on about your business, get it done."

Came back in and started talking, you know--

you know, he was going roundabout there

and roundabout there, and they said,

"No, don't let the hostages go.

All right, how about you be a hostage?"

We have been asking for over 29 hours for food and water.

We haven't got none. We're gonna keep Mr. Russell--

Russell G. Oswald here

until we get some food and water.

[inmates cheering]

[Victory] "No, we're not letting him out of here.

We're keeping him hostage."

We all--we shut that down.

We're not gonna be like them. We're not gonna break our word.

And he says, "Well, inmates would be

more honorable than them?"

Yes, we were.

'Cause we gave them our word nothing would happen to them.

[prisoners shouting]

[Sheppard] And everybody started screaming,

"Let him go! Let him go!"

[inmate] Security, please.

Security, please.

And he got out of Dodge, and he never came back.

[reporter] In New York state, some 500 inmates

of the Attica Maximum Security Prison are still in revolt.

Authorities tried unsuccessfully to reach

a settlement with the prisoners over demands for reforms

and to obtain release of more than 30 hostages.

We have a report on what's been happening at Attica

from ABC's John Johnson.

[Johnson] Fires were still burning

at Attica State Prison.

Despite a small army of police and state troopers,

the prisoners continue to call the shots at Attica.

Commissioner Oswald announced that prison officials

were attempting to bring to the prison

those people requested by the prisoners.

The group was basically people

whom they knew.

People like Tom Wicker,

who had written a column about prisoners.

Senator John Dunne

was chairman of the Prisons Committee

and sympathetic.

He was asked to come.

Bill Kunstler, a lawyer for the Chicago Seven.

Asked him to come in.

And Clarence Jones,

publisher of the Amsterdam News.

apprehensive music playing

[Jones] I have a driver who's driving me up

to the Amsterdam News.

And the driver says, "Boss!

They're calling your name on the radio."

I said, "What you mean?"

Called Rockefeller, and lo and behold,

the governor picked up the phone.

He said, "Thank you so much, Mr. Jones.

We have a major situation.

A number of the inmates have called your name.

We'll have a car pick you up

and take you to a private airport...

...where a state private plane is waiting for you."

And there, I'm off to Attica,

to be part of the observers committee.

My wife and I were off on a vacation at the time,

and we got a call that they had asked me to come there,

and I felt that, with my prior experience

and my responsibilities

as the chairman of the Prison Committee,

I ought to be there.

I was optimistic.

I thought, "Give it a shot."

[reporter] For the rebel prisoners of Attica,

the encouraging appearance of people they consider friends,

a 30-man mediation committee,

including a congressman, four newsmen,

and most importantly, lawyer William Kunstler.

[Johnson] Have you heard anything

from Governor Rockefeller's office?

I mean, has he put any time limit on these negotiations?

No, but I understand that there is no present plan

to use force in this prison, and I hope that continues.

I just hope that they realize that this is

a unique situation, and that it may take time,

and that if everyone's in good faith,

something will work out.

[Rothenberg] It was scary. The tension was tremendous.

You could have cut the air with a knife.

It was terrifying.

I remember going into the yard and saying to Mel Rivers,

"Do you have a cigarette?"

And he said, "You have one in your--one in your hand,

one in your mouth, and one in your ear."

I was scared.

When you see a tower with people with rifles--

[chuckles]

I kept thinking, um, we should stay close

to Tom Wicker and Herman Badillo,

because they would be the least likely to be shot.

Frank "Big Black" Smith

was the overall security leader.

He took that job on himself already.

He was the guy.

[Nieves laughing] He was the big man.

I mean, this fella was big.

They was responsible to making sure that

the observers that came in--

the same way they came in

is the same way they left.

You know, no harm come to them.

He said, "Well, we gotta have a inmate security force."

Said, "All right. We're looking for volunteers.

You, you, you, you, you, y'all on the inmate force.

And it can't be all Black guys.

We need Black guys, white guys, and Puerto Ricans."

[Brosig] We would line up and create a corridor,

and they would walk down the middle of the corridor,

with us being a barrier between general population

and the negotiators.

So we would just stand shoulder to shoulder

and give them that safe space to walk through.

[Scott] We began to talk to with them

about what they wanted.

And they had their list of things

that they wanted already written.

You know, everybody wanted a voice--

good, bad, and the whacked out.

So nothing went easy, but it went.

We got to a point where we had

what we thought might be possible.

Their demands were, you know,

reasonable demands about living conditions.

They wanted medical care,

uh, decent food,

uh, fair disciplinary hearings.

Basically, they wanted to be treated

like human beings.

[reporter] Prisoners late last night

met with a 30-member civilian committee

in an attempt to clarify demands

ranging from better prison life conditions

to more religious and political freedom.

I injected into the demands

for some people to go to a non-imperialistic country,

you know, to be flied out.

We thought Cuba was gonna come and get us.

You ship troops to Vietnam, to Santo Domingo,

to all these foreign countries, to oppress the brothers.

You can bring one of these helicopters in here

and ship us on out of this country.

[inmates cheering]

We done seen people snatch airplanes and all like that

and go to Cuba and Algiers and all other places.

Why not get out of jail?

An Air France jet was hijacked by Palestinian guerillas.

A 17-year-old girl hijacked a TWA jetliner on a...

I had four years in on a 25-to-life sentence.

Why not get out of jail?

Why not?

Well, we all knew that that wasn't gonna happen.

We weren't gonna go to Algeria in their plane, I knew that.

Everybody, the back of their minds, knew that.

But we needed amnesty.

[inmate] We want the federal judiciary

to guarantee complete amnesty

to each and every one of us that has taken part

in the struggle here at Attica, to ensure that this amnesty

will not be just a groping in the wind,

but a reality for each and every one of us.

[Dunne] They were not looking to be relieved

of the prison sentences to which they had been sent

by the courts after being convicted.

They were looking to be freed from any prosecution

or any penalties for their engaging in the riot.

Besides the normal beatings and everything else

that they're gonna do to us, which is, you know, automatic,

we knew that they could also take us and bring us to courts

and, you know, and turn us into the monster inmates

who took over the prison.

[inmate] We are not advocating violence.

We all want to live.

All of us.

If any of you gentlemen own dogs...

You're treating them better than we have been treated

the last year.

[inmates cheer]

[Jones] They were fiercely trying

to convince prison authorities

that they didn't cease being a human being

merely by the fact that they were incarcerated

because they had broken a law of society.

Now, that's a profound thing.

"I am somebody.

I'm not a thing.

You can't treat me like a dog.

I may be a prisoner, but I have dignity."

And that's what they insisted

on getting the...

power structure of Attica to recognize--

that they continued to be somebody.

[Nieves] The observers, they all were listening to us.

I feel that they were supporting us.

You see, and that meant a lot to us.

"This is our situation. Please listen to us."

And that's what they were doing. They were listening.

It felt like there was somebody that believed in us.

It felt that way.

That somebody believed that,

you know, you did have some rights,

even though you were a convicted felon of whatever.

We'd be able to get better mailing privileges,

better medical privileges.

We tried to nail it down to that which was realistic

and possible, distinguished from a plane

waiting for us outside the cell block,

flying us to Cuba.

That's what it was.

It was realism from fantasy.

We want to be treated as human beings.

We will be treated as human beings.

We have come to the conclusion...

...after close study,

after much suffering,

after much consideration,

that if we cannot live as people,

then we will at least try to die like men.

[inmates cheering]

That statement resounded everywhere.

In that yard, when he said that,

a roar went up like no other.

This was their stand.

I saw that I really--

none of us were gonna be observers.

We were gonna be mediators.

Whether we wanted to be mediators or not,

whether we were called up to be mediators,

this prison uprising had to be mediated.

Otherwise, it was gonna end in disaster.

If you people do not understand,

if you people do not stick with us,

if you people cannot make the commitment

that we have made here...

...we are dead.

I appeal, beseech you all

to stand with us,

walk with us,

die with us, if necessary!

-[inmate] I hear you! -You and all the people!

Power to you and all the people!

[inmates cheering]

suspenseful music playing

[Johnson] Things were growing on the outside.

Don't tape this.

[Johnson] There were more journalists.

There were more police.

And it was just getting bigger

and bigger and bigger.

People are coming night and day,

vans with reporters and police, and things are building up.

[reporter] Among those keeping a vigil

outside the prison walls,

the families of some of the 38 men held hostage.

I was just home, watching the TV.

I just kept looking for my husband.

Maybe he'd be killed or brutalized in some way,

because the inmates at that time

had the power there, you know.

And if they didn't like somebody, or who knew what,

you were just scared to death that, you know,

they'd just kill them all or something

if they didn't get their way.

[reporter] Families of the 31 hostages

wait for word as part of the prison

remains in control of the inmates.

[Quinn Miller] They were upset,

they were angry, and they were scared,

standing out there

while their loved ones are being held hostage,

and they are waiting

for any scrap of information,

to hear something.

And many of those families

stood vigil day and night out there.

[Maryann Valone] A bunch of people crying,

the wives and brothers and fathers,

freaking out.

Just panic.

People were afraid to talk in the parking lot

because they thought that--

to any reporters or anybody, even.

They did it all in privacy

because they didn't want their relatives targeted,

singled out by the inmates.

I had sympathy for them.

They--where else were you gonna get a job

if you lived in that area?

And you had no training

and no understanding

of what it was like

to grow up in a poor,

Black, urban area.

You--these were aliens.

These were people from a different world.

And your family members

maybe are gonna get killed because of them?

Sure, you were infuriated.

All these dogs up there with all those rifles

are trying to kill us.

Well, we ain't gonna quit.

The inmates that were given microphones on TV,

I mean--very upsetting.

They should have resolved it right away.

It just went on too far. We all just wanted it to end.

What I would hear over the radio

and the TV

was not satisfying to me at all,

because it seemed to me that what I was hearing,

I didn't think was--

they were doing the right thing.

It just seemed sort of limp to me.

And that was frustrating.

[Jaime Valone] You'd hear stuff from people.

That's where it got a little scary, too,

'cause you could see how the inmates were considered,

like, less than human, kind of like animals.

There was people saying, you know,

"Don't worry about your dad."

You know, "they'll get theirs" type thing.

And so that kind of made it even more scary.

You realize how emotionally charged

the community's getting.

The tensions got worse and worse and worse.

Emotions got worse and worse and worse.

solemn music playing

[Asbury] Saturday, I think that the hope

was stronger than the doubt, because after three days,

you know, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday,

they hadn't came in there.

We had, like, 30 demands,

and most of them were possible.

And we were exuberant about it.

I've never seen anything like this.

The people in here are treated like dogs.

Not only the Black-- the Puerto Rican and the white.

And we're gonna get what we demand,

or we gonna die trying.

Thank you.

[Victory] We thought that, whatever happened,

we could maybe really walk away

with some improvement in our lives.

Point was is that whatever happened,

it just had to make a difference.

Change had to happen. You had to embrace hope.

There's a report that prison officials have yielded

to most of the demands by the rebelling inmates

at the Attica State Prison in New York,

where more than 30 persons have been held hostage

for three days.

[Oswald] As you know, during this ordeal,

I have personally met with inmates

on several occasions in areas under their control,

and have demonstrated my commitment

to deal with the issues they have raised

by accepting 28 of the 30

major inmate proposals.

Mr. Kunstler, can you tell me what's gonna happen now?

Well, we hope negotiations will start this afternoon

and continue until they reach a solution.

[reporter] Is Huey Newton or Bobby Seale,

are they coming? They were asked for.

[Kunstler] We hope so, and we understood

that they were en route.

[Dunne] We had kind of settled in

on the demands,

and we had negotiated with Oswald for his commitment

to 28 of them.

And the whole point of Bobby Seale's coming there

would be for him to bless and support

and urge the inmates to accept them.

[Asbury] Bobby Seale was our hero,

because he was speaking out about the brutality

that was happening in the prison system.

He was doing what we were trying to live.

He was a Panther, the second-in-command.

I really thought he was gonna help us out.

Every demand. Every demand.

[continues speaking indistinctly]

Bobby didn't stay long. Bobby didn't stay long.

Came up to where the negotiating table was,

made his little speech.

He ain't walk around the yard.

Bobby walked right up out the jail.

[Larkins] It was quite a letdown.

Let's go. Let's go, big man.

[Larkins] He stayed all about three minutes.

At that point, everybody just sitting around

waiting for something to happen.

[Schwartz] But then Billy Quinn died,

and that transformed everything.

[reporter] The State Prison in Attica, New York,

is at the crisis point.

The death of one of the guards has hardened the position

of prison officials, and there are strong...

You don't get amnesty for a murder.

I immediately knew...

...that the process of negotiations

just became far more difficult.

I knew that was, uh,

that was the worst possible thing that could happen.

How could they peacefully negotiate

with inmates who they held responsible

for the death of a guard?

Prior to his passing on,

there was a hope and even an expectation,

because people were listening,

people were coming to understand

what we had been living through

and suffering as prisoners there.

We knew that it was a new ballgame.

It was depression and fear...

and, you know, anxiety, and, yeah,

everything you could imagine.

We had to drop a lot of issues

and focus on amnesty as one,

as the main issue,

because we didn't want to be charged with murder.

We said, as a group...

...that we was gonna stand in solidarity with everyone.

If they could not give amnesty to everybody,

then we was not gonna leave anyone in the clutch

or in--to take-- or throw anybody under the bus,

so to speak, to take this.

We acted together.

We understood that this was us,

that if we didn't stand together now,

we never would, and it would--

we would live like dogs for the rest of our lives.

We understood that.

Did I wish that we could somehow back away?

But not without amnesty.

[reporter] How do the inmates feel

about the current situation?

A group of us were in with the inmates.

We met with them.

We had two and a half hours. Some of the people are here.

But we really have nothing to say about it

except they are firm in their demands, and that's it.

In other words, they're not gonna let the hostages go

until they're granted total amnesty.

That was their last position.

[reporter] The flag at half staff

for the injured guard who had died the night before

set the mood this morning.

It was clear that the troubles of this troubled prison

had grown worse.

[Larkins] That Sunday, you had that fog that came over,

and it was a certain chill in the air.

You know, something didn't feel right.

It didn't feel right.

[reporter] There are strong indications tonight

that police will be sent into the cell block

in an attempt to rescue

the rest of the hostages by force.

[Sharif] Water was cut off.

Food was getting scarce.

Patience was getting short.

And people were totally wondering

what is gonna be the outcome of the situation.

[Dunne] There was enormous pressure,

and I witnessed it as I took a breather

and went out to the public space,

just outside the prison,

where a lot of correction officers,

their families, troopers,

and other officials were gathered together.

[Gaynes] I mean, the news was completely about that--

you know, that the state troopers

and everybody were poised on the top, looking in.

It was all about these rumors

that the prisoners

were castrating the hostages,

that they were torturing them,

and it's gonna end in bloodshed.

And that was the storyline that was terrifying people.

[reporter] Could you turn around this way, to the camera?

[Johnson] I think I did a few interviews,

and the people were-- made it very clear

that these are bad people in there,

and they shouldn't be doing this,

you know, they should be taken care of.

You know what I mean. They should hang them.

And crazy stuff.

I mean, it was just really crazy.

It was a very hostile environment.

I'd like to show them a little brutality.

Is this being brutal to us or not?

Don't point that bitch at me. I'll stick it up your ass!

I'm a father of eight children,

and Michael is the oldest,

and I wouldn't want to see any one of them die.

But if he is gonna die,

I want that whole damn thing bombed right the hell off.

[reporter] While the talking went on,

the state police kept reinforcing.

At least 500 men in and out of the walls.

No indication that any of this force will be used,

but the police are ready.

[Steel] Well, any time you went

in and out of the prison, there was an army,

and they were armed

with every conceivable type of weapon.

And it really looked like

they wanted to use those weapons.

You had the sense of their anger,

and they'd been held back, and...

...they wanted to move.

They wanted to--to attack.

[Dunne] Yeah, they were very impatient.

Very unhappy.

They were all thrown into a situation

which they were not prepared for,

and about which they had basically an animosity.

[Cunningham] I wish you would take any of the men

that belongs to us off the roof,

and any of the troopers out of here,

because if you get these shaky guys shooting off

or getting up in a goober over something,

somebody's gonna get excited, and then we're all gonna pay.

Now, this is not a joke.

This is not a--

some kind of a little tea party we got here.

[Smith] I just hope that the commissioner

and the other people in the committee

that they've gathered together

can come up with a solution

to solve these people's problems, and ours.

[reporter] Thank you very much.

[Dunne] Late Sunday afternoon,

Commissioner Oswald and the officials

were prepared and intended to retaking.

But I pressed Oswald to agree to give them

until seven o'clock on Monday morning.

By Sunday morning, everything else had failed.

And so the--

the final shot

was going to be to try to get to Rockefeller.

And there was a committee of people put together to do that.

Good morning, Governor.

[Dunne] We wanted four friends of the governor

to call him and, "Please, as your friend,

let me ask you to come to Attica.

Not to meet with the prisoners,

but to come and lay your hand on approving these measures."

Sergeant Cunningham, now, would you give us a message

for Governor Nelson Rockefeller?

I certainly would.

One of the recommendations is,

"And if he says no, I'm dead."

I and some of my fellow members

of the observers committee felt very strongly

that if Governor Rockefeller were to come to

and identify with finding a solution,

it might have broken the logjam.

So I placed a call to Governor Rockefeller

somewhere around three o'clock.

Governor, what about your personal feelings right now?

[Steel] On one level, it was a Hail Mary.

On the other level, it was more than a Hail Mary.

These were prominent people.

People that you would think

Rockefeller respected,

making a sincere pitch.

"Come up here. You don't have to go in.

You don't have to agree to anything.

Your presence will have meaning."

Maybe if he came, that would be an opening

that would have allowed us to negotiate.

Maybe some other negotiators

could be brought in who would help the negotiation.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe.

But "no, no, no, no"

meant "death, death, death, death."

[Rockefeller] Prisoners had been demanding

from the very beginning that I come into the yard,

and I frankly felt that the idea of governors--

any time there was an uprising

or any time there was a prisoner taken--

not a prisoner, but a hostage taken--

being involved in the negotiation--

the next thing would be, "We don't want the governor.

We want the president."

Then we get to a situation

which is an impossible one for this country.

By the time they spoke to him,

he had made up his mind.

He listened carefully, he listened politely,

but by then, he had made up his mind.

We didn't understand the background

of his having consulted, on an ongoing basis,

during those days, with the White House.

The administration in Washington encouraged Rocky

to take a strong, hardline position,

which was unfortunate.

It was all a part of President Nixon's

law and order agenda.

[Scott] Rockefeller wasn't calling the shots,

because he was on the phone

with Richard Nixon.

Rockefeller wanted to be president...

...but the word on him was that he was too soft on crime.

And if he wanted the support of Nixon

and the Republican Party,

then he needed to go along.

And so he wouldn't come.

tense music playing

[Nieves] You know, now that Rockefeller

wasn't coming in...

...it's like slamming the door on you.

You know, they slammed the door,

and we was locked in this room and we didn't know what to do.

[Dunne] We were to a great degree despondent

that we had no solution to this.

We didn't know what to do.

We made one last chance

to convince the inmates to surrender.

[Jones] That last night in cell block D...

...as we were trying to negotiate

demands that we thought were realistic...

...was a come-to-Jesus moment.

"This is what you wanted-- the demands.

This is what we were able to achieve.

This is where we stand now.

I'm not gonna mislead you

and believe that you can get anything better.

I do not believe you can get anything better.

I think we have to make a peaceful accommodation...

...rather than be shot down like dogs."

I said, "This is what we achieved.

Okay?

And turn around and look.

Cell block-- you see all those guns?

They're just waiting to kill us.

They want to kill us. Do you understand that?

They want to show that they have the power

from the barrel of a gun.

That's what they want to do."

[Victory] We were warned by the observers

that if we didn't settle even without the amnesty,

they were gonna come in, and it could get very bad.

And, of course, we talked amongst ourselves,

and we just couldn't go without the amnesty,

'cause it would have been literally

sending all our leaders...

to the dogs, to be tortured,

murdered, uh, convicted of crimes,

and who knows what else?

We had observed the organization

and preparation of the troopers to enter,

hundreds of them, with their shotguns,

just outside the immediate area of D yard.

We witnessed the stationing of sharpshooters

on one of the ledges looking down into D yard.

Fear overtook the observers committee.

[Sharif] It seemed like they felt

something was gonna happen.

They were more...

hesitant to leave.

They leave with a solemn mood.

They left us with a solemn mood.

It was like, "Brothers,

just be careful, just take care."

[Nieves] I remember seeing them leaving, you know,

and it was a scary moment to see them leaving,

you know, knowing that they wasn't coming back.

[Scott] I remember Big Black saying,

"I want to thank you for what you guys tried to do.

We really appreciate it."

So there was a lot of that.

When we went out of that yard that night...

...there were tears.

There were tears.

And I think all of us were hoping

that something happened at the last minute to stop it.

[Jones] I felt complete failure.

A failure that I had let them down.

One of the most painful things

is when inmates began to...

hand me written notes,

the telephone number of their--

of their next of kin,

in case they didn't make it.

Okay?

They wanted me--I mean,

a couple of them looked me in the eye with tears.

"Brother Jones, if I don't make it,

you're gonna call, right?"

I said, "You have my word.

I will call."

[reporter] Are you any way optimistic

that this thing can be settled by sometime tomorrow?

I think I'm much too tired

to be either optimistic or pessimistic.

At the moment, I'm kind of just freaked out.

[thunder rumbling]

It rained all night.

It didn't stop raining till about

six in the morning.

Cold, mountain rain.

And we were not prepared for it.

Those little hooches that we had,

them tents that people had dug the yard up and everything,

all them started collapsing.

And you had to get on solid ground,

concrete, and huddle together,

'cause everybody was shivering and everything else.

It was a miserable night.

One of the miserable-est nights I ever spent in my life.

[Sharif] I could feel the tension in the air.

The tension was so strong

that I could just basically grab it and hold on to it.

"Am I gonna make it? Am I gonna live through this?"

And that tension was so strong, I could touch it,

I could cut and hold it in my hand.

Death was written in the air.

[Harrison] We've been out there for about four days.

We wake up that morning,

and it's wet and dreary out there.

And you could always smell

the fumes of guys' body

in that trench that we dug in the yard

to use the bathroom, right there in front of us,

so you breathing this shit in all day, so you want out.

[Killebrew] The weather was really bad.

People's moods was that way, and, uh...

it was cloudy.

It started to rain a little bit.

You know, it was dark. The sky was dark gray.

[Crawford] We heard that we would be part

of a medical evacuation.

And early on Monday morning,

we loaded into trucks and headed for Attica prison.

In the three years that I was in the National Guard,

I had not seen any kind of action

in which violence was involved.

But we had a sense of dread,

and we had a wish that we could kind of not go.

And there was the hope, even at the last minute,

that by some miracle,

maybe Rockefeller would intervene.

[Kunstler] His refusal to come here is a monstrosity,

because what he is saying is,

"Kill these men. I have no concern.

All I want to do is restore law and order."

And I think that's a rotten exchange for lives.

[Callaghan] When we got to the prison

and saw the lines of state troopers

and deputies with their raincoats on

and their weapons in hand, they looked exhausted.

They had been there, many of them,

for a couple of days, at least,

and they really didn't look up to the task

that was given to them.

[Killebrew] I knew they was coming in.

You could tell.

You could see them starting to get more people.

I was in A block corridor.

All I saw was blue.

We got another mattress to put up on that table

'cause we thought they was gonna shoot rubber bullets.

And that's--that's what the word was.

[Harrison] I thought there were gonna be

a real, old-fashioned gang fight,

if that's what you want to call it.

You know, them versus us.

They got those clubs, we got a few bats and stuff in here,

so we're gonna--best guy win.

[Asbury] We started making preparations

and putting Vaseline on every part of our bodies

that could be exposed to gas

and get burnt and stuff like that,

padding ourselves with clothes.

Some brothers saying, "If they come in here,

then that's good, because I know my shit."

[laughs]

[Oswald] It became apparent to me

that the situation was seriously deteriorating,

and that the inmates, many of whom are confined

to this maximum-security facility

under life and long sentences,

were not going to participate in reasonable negotiation.

Tensions within the walls have steadily increased.

[reporter] The action now underway

was initiated with extreme reluctance,

only after all attempts

to achieve a peaceful solution failed.

[Callaghan] We were told that our mission was protection

for the medical battalion.

During the commander's briefing, we were told that,

to our knowledge, the inmates had no guns.

They had spears, they had some knives,

they had pipes that they were using as clubs,

but that was the extent of the threat.

So we knew that going in.

[police officer] 10:05 a.m., September 13.

We're on the roof of A block,

waiting for the assault to begin.

This is a team of .270 rifle shooters.

The center of our picture

is men distributing baseball bats to the other prisoners.

We had no guns. We had no real weapons.

We had bullshit pieces of stick or a piece of iron

or a shank that somebody made, rubbing it on the sidewalk.

It was--it was pathetic.

[reporter] Just four days almost to the minute

after the convict insurrection started.

State police, reinforced by sheriff's deputies,

National Guardsmen,

and correction officers moving in on the prison.

[police officer] Time is 1:55 p.m.

We're on the roof of C block,

looking at a detail of .270 marksmen,

with instructions to clear the catwalks upon command.

[Victory] They took some of the hostages

on top of the catwalks,

which is on top of the hallways,

and some of the inmates held knives to their neck,

as an--in an effort to try to stop the assault.

[police officer] The hostages are on the catwalks

with knives at their throats.

[Victory] It was all just a show

to try to get them to say, "Oh, wait a minute!

That's my cousin, my brother."

All these guards...

we were hopeful that if they saw this,

they would back off and try to renegotiate

so they could protect their own people.

[Whiteman] The notion of sending in

correctional officers,

who didn't love the prisoners to begin with,

and state police, who were stressed out,

was a serious miscalculation.

Somebody should have said, "Wait a second, wait a second.

These people are on edge.

There's hostility.

It's gonna get out of control."

We know that now.

Did we know that in real time?

I guess not.

[Brosig] I seen this as a glorious fight.

They would come in with batons and stuff like that,

and we would be fighting

the brave battle with baseball bats

and stuff like that.

I...

[sobs]

[voice breaking] I just--

I just never expected...

...the carnage that would actually happen.

I'm sorry.

[reporter] Here come the helicopters.

They are now heading for the prison.

One of the large army helicopters

now going overhead and over the wall,

into the prison.

It just gets quiet, and the sky was getting dark.

And then we heard the helicopters.

And I said, "Damn, man. This is fucking strange."

[Brosig] The helicopter comes up over the wall,

and it's hovering over the yard.

I seen this-- I thought it was a monster.

It was a helicopter, a green helicopter,

and it was flying low.

[Larkins] And you see this--

it's like a sickly green gas

with sparkly stuff in it, coming down.

It tightens your chest

where you can hardly breathe.

That gas knocked me down.

I don't know what that was.

And it had me so weak I could not move.

Your eyes are just all burning.

Your nose is burning. Your mouth is burning.

[police officer] Place your hands

on top of your head

and surrender to an officer.

I repeat: you will not be harmed.

Place your hands on top of your head.

[Harrison] And they got on the microphone.

"Everybody in D block yard, put your hands in the air,

and you will not be harmed."

"Go to the nearest state police officer,

and you will not be harmed."

-"You will not be harmed." -"You will not be harmed."

"You will not be harmed." But that was bullshit.

[gunfire]

And dudes were standing up doing this

and getting blown away.

They blew a dude's head off, and I'm looking at it.

[Brosig] And it's all of a sudden,

there was all this popping all around us.

And all these little pops all around us

were actually bullets.

[police officer] Surrender. You will not be harmed.

And you couldn't really see because the CO2 pepper gas

had you blind,

but you can hear the bullets going by your head.

[police officer] You will not be harmed.

[reporter] The hostages can't be seen now.

[police officer] Repeat: surrender peacefully.

And I'm just trying to stay on the ground,

as low as possible.

It was just like they was shooting down in a barrel.

They just started shooting point blank range,

blowing guys away.

I got shot in the arm up there.

Right through the back of my fucking arm and stuff.

[gunfire]

[police officer] I repeat: you will not be harmed.

I felt something go through my head, at my skull,

and it was burning, and I knew I was shot.

I felt something hit my arm,

and my arm went numb,

and I realized later I had got shot in the left arm,

about two inches from my heart.

And I saw one kid, he had a football helmet on.

Spanish kid.

Now, the guards was up on the catwalk,

and he jumps out with a hammer and throws it up,

and it hits the catwalk,

and you could hear the sound--clink--

and all of them turned, looked at him,

and all of them turned their guns on him.

And they just riddled that boy's body.

I'm assuming he got shot anywhere from 20 to 50 shots,

'cause his body was just doing like that.

Like, I never seen no shit like that.

I seen some nasty shit in the streets.

I never seen nothing like that.

[police officer] I repeat: you will not be harmed.

Place your hands on top of your head.

This was a holiday for the police.

We ain't got no guns to shoot back.

You know what it is to shoot somebody

and they can't shoot back?

That's--that's a holiday.

Lord have mercy.

And all they was saying was, "Save me a nigger."

That's what they was hollering to each other.

I was scared.

I've done bad things, but I never did shit this bad.

I said, "Now, these guys

are real fucking cold-blooded killers and shit."

Until that moment came...

where the killing really started,

when I realized that,

"You're not that fucking bad guy no more, man.

These motherfuckers is worse than you."

Every bullet that whizzed by me

or hit the mud close to me, I winced.

Then all of a sudden, it just stopped.

[police officer] Surrender to an officer.

I repeat: you will not be harmed.

[Johnson] There are people throwing off their smoke gear.

They ran out screaming, "Niggers, niggers, niggers,"

and two of them pointed their guns at me,

saying, "Niggers, niggers," and I said, "Don't shoot.

Don't shoot. Don't shoot," while I'm coughing.

We've all been gassed.

I've been gassed. It's an awful scene.

William Kunstler has said

that people are dying in there, and...

[distant gunshots]

...and I agree with that.

I think that there are people dying in there.

The shooting went on forever.

And then it was like the shooting subsided,

and then I heard some--

after the big shooting subsided,

I heard some single shots.

Bang! And bang!

tense music playing

[Victory] After they took over the prison,

all those folks that had been speaking to the cameras

were all targeted and tortured.

So, yes, yes, yes, yes, they were targeted.

[Scott] L.D. Barkley, they were calling his name,

going through that fog, looking for him,

and threatening him

with what they were gonna do to him

when they found him.

And they found him.

And he was yelling, "No, no,"

but it's too fucking late; they had him then.

I seen them dragging him towards the A block

far yard over there.

He was hollering and screaming.

And they killed him.

You can't see it, because the gas is so thick.

But all of a sudden,

a puff of wind comes

and disperses the gas,

and then I could see.

And what I saw was frightening.

Hundreds of bodies just laying there.

Some were moaning. Some wasn't moving.

Blood was everywhere.

[Crawford] We were given stretchers

and told to go into the prison.

It was really an unthinkable scene.

It was dead and wounded,

and simply starting to carry them out.

It was far beyond anything I had imagined

when they said we would be doing medical evacuation.

We were basically civilians put into a situation

where state trooper and correction officers

had created a war zone.

There was a pile of bodies, maybe eight or ten people,

and the man on top had had his eyes shot out.

[Callaghan] Right below us, there was a huge pool

of rainwater, and it was blood red.

And I looked down at it, and I said,

"Those are false teeth down there, aren't there?"

And somebody said, "Yeah."

[Crawford] The attitude of the people

who should have been concerned

about what had happened

was simply that they were pleased with what had happened,

and had no qualms or second thoughts

or anything but satisfaction.

Walker wants to go back.

[cheers and applause]

[indistinct shouting]

-White power! -White power!

-[all] Hey! -White power!

solemn music playing

[Brosig] They had control,

and once they had control,

you would think that things would have stopped.

They didn't.

[Callaghan] It was clear that,

at that point, it was all about revenge.

It was all about reestablishing

who was in charge

in the most violent ways possible.

[Harrison] Everybody had to crawl through shit.

Human waste.

But what do you do?

Do you live to tell your story, like I'm doing today,

or do you fucking die?

I made a choice. I wanted to live.

"Crawl, nigger, crawl. Crawl. Like a dog."

[Sheppard] "If you look up, nigger,

I'll blow your motherfucking brains out."

What the fuck they care about calling you a nigger?

That was your name that day.

They had us marching around the yard with our--

with our hands interlocked like this, on top of our heads.

Abject surrender.

[Scott] When I saw these naked bodies

lined up, snaked around the area,

it reminded me of portrayals of African Americans

being herded onto slave ships.

It was just horrendous.

It was just horrible, horrible.

[Harrison] And we're naked

in the middle of the fucking yard,

guards going around with, like, baby bats.

They was shoving them up guys' asses.

I'm laying here,

and I'm hoping they don't come my way.

[Victory] Frank Smith, Big Black, was put on a table

with a football under his throat.

[Crawford] People stood up above him

on the catwalk, aiming their guns down at him,

throwing cigars and cigarette butts on him,

and they said,

"If that football falls, nigger,

we're gonna shoot you."

[Callaghan] He was told to get to his feet.

He tried. He stumbled. He fell.

He was hit with clubs

on his back, between his legs.

And he was crying out, you know,

"Don't do this. Don't do this."

And then you could hear him screaming

as he went up through the prison.

[Harrison] It felt good that I had survived this shit.

And now, I gotta look out,

because some more shit is coming.

The inmates were entering these corridors

off of the yard, and the guards were,

like, five or six feet apart, with their clubs.

And they would hit them against the walls.

And there was just this dull drum-like sound.

And then they were hitting the inmates

as they ran a gauntlet.

We could hear the screams coming out,

so that we knew that they were being tortured,

and that we were somehow part of this unthinkable scene,

that there was no escaping from,

but was completely wrong.

[Brosig] They had guards on both sides,

and they would be hitting you as you were running through,

beating you with hoses and batons

and whatever they had in their hands.

I'm ducking, trying to get through,

protecting my head.

My shoulders got hit, all on my arms,

my elbows, my knees. They still hurt.

Beating you after making you run through the gauntlet,

where they took all the glass out the fucking windows

and put it in the middle of the floor,

so you had to run through glass with bare feet.

Nobody came out of that yard

with--with--picking--

without having to pick glass out of your feet for weeks.

Couldn't walk. Nobody can walk anymore.

But we had to run, because if you didn't run,

they just kept beating you with these clubs.

[reporter] The families of the hostages,

a lot of them waited just outside the prison wall.

-They're gonna get him out. -[sobbing]

[reporter] Then news began to filter out of Attica.

Names of freed hostages were called out to the loved ones.

[police officer] Bob Curtis! Lieutenant Curtis.

[police officer] Curtis!

Al Robbin. Al Robbin.

[reporter] Some didn't see their men come out.

All they learned was the name of the hospital

where the survivors were being treated.

There was no time to wait. They ran off to see their men.

Some people couldn't seem to run fast enough.

[Jaime Valone] My mom came home,

and she was with her sister,

and my mom was crying, obviously upset.

I was outside, sitting on the front porch,

you know, praying and worrying. And "where's Dad?"

I expected him to show up, you know.

And, um, I kept,

"Mom, Mom, where's Dad?

What's--why are you crying? What's going on?"

When my mother came back in the house, and, you know,

she said-- now she had to fight with me--

argue, I mean, you know,

because I didn't want to believe it.

And she finally said,

"I saw him. I saw him!"

[Jaime Valone] Finally, she blurted it out.

"Your father's dead."

So I ran.

I ran for a while, and I came back,

and I was sitting on the front porch,

trying to be strong and not cry,

and I could hear everybody in the house crying.

And I was trying to be so tough, and...

[sighs]

I'm sorry. God damn it.

solemn music playing

The National Guardsmen were told

to get back in their trucks,

and we did that and were taken out to the parking area.

And a colonel then addressed the battalion,

maybe several hundred men.

And he said, essentially,

"You saw things that were excessive and wrong today,

and I have to ask you not to speak of this to anyone,

because the world will not understand

what happened here today."

[reporter] The most violent rebellion

in modern American penal history

came to an end today

at the maximum-security prison in Attica, New York.

In the final hours of the revolt,

led primarily by Blacks,

the inmates murdered nine of their white hostages.

28 convicts were killed by state troopers

and sheriff's deputies,

who regained control of the prison.

The storming of the prison had the full approval

of New York's Governor Rockefeller,

who earlier had rejected a prisoner demand

for complete clemency.

The White House said that, after the prison was retaken,

President Nixon telephoned the governor

to express his approval of Rockefeller's action.

[reporter] Yesterday, officials at the prison

said eight of the hostages had had their throats cut.

But today, the Monroe County medical examiner,

having looked at the bodies,

said no throats were cut at all.

The Medical Examiner says the hostages

were apparently killed by large-caliber ammunition

and shotgun blasts, from a distance,

which immediately raised the possibility

that some of the hostages may, in fact, have been shot down

by the lawmen who broke in to rescue them.

[Brosig] Some of the hostages were actually shot

running towards the state troopers,

thinking, "I'm saved. I'm saved."

And the hostages were dressed the same way the inmates were.

Anything that had inmate garb on it,

they just started shooting at you.

What Rockefeller had done

was treat the hostages

as no more real, live human beings

who deserved to be respected than the prisoners.

And so you kill them all, and you restore order,

and you make me into a major figure

who believes in law and order

at a time when that concept

is beginning to really take hold.

[Jones] It should have ended in a negotiated settlement.

No, they weren't interested in that.

They were interesting in showing

the naked fist of power.

Law and order.

The national mindset of the nation

was law and order.

And law and order does not permit

any challenge

to its authority whatsoever.

God willing, a few more months, in January,

I'll be 90 years old.

I will never, ever, ever, ever,

ever, ever, ever forget Attica.

Ever.

It didn't have to be that way.

soulful doo-wop music playing

All eight cases

died of gunshot wounds.

There was no evidence of slashed throats.

I've never received an apology.

I've never received an apology,

and for me, that's a pretty big deal.

So come

To me

What does money do when you don't have your dad,

or your brother, or your uncle?

How does that replace anything?

And I think it was the state's way of saying,

"We're gonna give you this money,

and we want you to go away."

Beyond the blue

Then my

True love

Will come shining through

[reporter] For nearly 30 years,

former Attica inmates have waited for justice.

Today, it finally came

in the form of a $12 million settlement.

- And be - And be

My love

[Nieves] There was never justice.

All we got was money.

And money wasn't enough.

Then you can't justify all the killings

that happened in Attica.

You can't justify it.

And so there's no justice. There was never justice.

The sun

Will shine

Beyond

The blue

Then my

True love

Will come shining through

- So come - So come to me

On bended knee

- And be - And be

My love

- For as long - For just as long, baby

As you are mine

I know the sun

Will shine