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N0KFQ > TODAY 13.09.16 16:13l 59 Lines 2638 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 7345_N0KFQ
Read: GUEST
Subj: Today in History - Sep 13
Path: IW8PGT<CX2SA<N0KFQ
Sent: 160913/1352Z 7345@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ6.0.12
1971
Massacre at Attica Prison
The four-day revolt at the maximum-security Attica Correctional
Facility near Buffalo, New York, ends when hundreds of state
police officers storm the complex in a hail of gunfire.
Thirty-nine people were killed in the disastrous assault,
including 29 prisoners and 10 prison guards and employees held
hostage since the outset of the ordeal.
On September 9, prisoners rioted and seized control of the
overcrowded state prison. One prison guard was fatally beaten.
Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281
convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they
held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After
negotiations stalled, New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller
ordered the state police to regain control of the prison by
force.
On the rainy Monday morning of September 13, an ultimatum was
read to the inmates, calling on them to surrender. They responded
by putting knives against the hostages' throats. At 9:46 a.m.,
helicopters flew over the yard, dropping tear gas as state police
and corrections officers stormed in with guns blazing. The police
fired 3,000 rounds into the tear gas haze, killing 29 inmates and
10 of the hostages and wounding 89. Most were shot in the initial
indiscriminate barrage of gunfire, but other prisoners were shot
or killed after they surrendered.
In the aftermath of the bloody raid, authorities said that the
inmates had killed the slain hostages by slitting their throats.
One hostage was said to have been castrated. However, autopsies
showed that these charges were false and that all 10 hostages had
been shot to death by police. The attempted cover-up increased
public condemnation of the raid and prompted a Congressional
investigation.
The Attica riot was the worst prison riot in U.S. history. A
total of 43 people were killed-prison guard William Quinn, the 39
killed in the raid, and three inmates killed by other prisoners
early in the riot. In the week after its conclusion, police
engaged in brutal reprisals against the prisoners, forcing them
to run a gauntlet of nightsticks and crawl naked across broken
glass, among other tortures. The many injured inmates received
substandard medical treatment, if any.
In January 2000, New York State settled a 26-year-old
class-action lawsuit filed by the Attica inmates against prison
and state officials. For their suffering during the raid and the
weeks following, the former and current inmates accepted $8
million.
73 - K.O., n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
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