Blood in the Water

by Thompson, Heather Ann

  After taking care of the ambulatory patients, Dr. Hanson began making rounds, accompanied by a security detail of four or five prisoners. As they walked through the now dark yard, one of the men worked a bullhorn: “Anybody want a doctor? Anybody want a doctor?”15 Hanson grew somewhat fearful, especially when he noticed that the leaders were no longer keeping tabs on him. “It was dark, and people were guiding me around with flashlights, and all these menacing people were carrying clubs and weapons of all kinds.” But eventually he realized he had nothing to worry about.16 After also taking a trip through two tiers of D Block, where some of the elderly or infirm prisoners who might need care had chosen to sleep, Hanson was escorted out of the yard by the same man who had brought him in four hours earlier. He shook the doctor’s hand and thanked him “on behalf of his brothers.”17

  Around the same time that Dr. Hanson was leaving the prison, two top aides to Governor Rockefeller were coming in: General Buzz O’Hara, who earlier that day had facilitated getting water to the men in D Yard, and T. Norman Hurd, New York’s state budget director.18 Oswald briefed the governor’s men and took them on a tour of A Block, then invited them to a meeting with Dunbar, Mancusi, and Major John Monahan and Chief Inspector John C. Miller from the NYSP. Everyone at the meeting was gratified to learn that Oswald, while still insisting on seeing negotiations through, was at least willing to discuss what would be required to retake the prison.19 Major Monahan felt that with five to six hundred troopers assembled outside, ready to move in as soon as they received the go-ahead, they now had everything they needed. General Buzz O’Hara disagreed; in his view, CS gas (a kind of tear gas) was essential for success in such an operation, and they had neither the gas nor the plane with which to disperse it over the prison yard. So O’Hara reached out to his contacts in the National Guard, who worked through the night to secure a CH-34 helicopter with an M-5 chemical dispenser and enough gas to incapacitate everyone in D Yard.20

  Back in D Yard, prisoners and hostages alike were still counting on successful talks. Both groups were grateful to have seen Hanson, but some felt fearful when he left. This was particularly true of the men over in the hostage circle. These men had been glad of the security afforded them so far, yet were worried about whether “the Muslims could really protect us.”21 On this score, hostage Don Almeter felt “more scared than I ever was in Vietnam,” and hostage John Stockholm was so scared that he could not even go to the bathroom when his captors gave him the chance to do so.22 As he recalled, his “body just shut down.”23 As the hours passed, though, these men began to feel much better about their prospects. In the middle of the night, a number of prisoners went into D Block’s cells and dragged out mattresses for the hostages to sleep on as well blankets to keep them covered.24

  The prisoners knew that the hostages were all that stood between them and what they believed would be a bloody assault on the prison. Despite the bravado they had displayed in their discussions with prison officials throughout the day, the men in D Yard were also terrified. They were not at all sure they could trust Schwartz to get them an injunction against reprisals and they worried mightily about the sharpshooters that the NYSP had been placing on the cell block roofs above them. For this reason, as one prisoner explained, “most of us slept right out there in the yard.”25 At least out in the open they’d know if an attack was starting.

  Despite the sense of foreboding, there were moments of levity and, for some, even a feeling of unexpected joy as men who hadn’t felt the fresh air of night for years reveled in this strange freedom. Out in the dark, music could be heard—“drums, a guitar, vibes, flute, sax, [that] the brothers were playing.” This was the lightest many of the men had felt since being processed into the maximum security facility.26 That night was in fact a deeply emotional time for all of them. Richard Clark watched in amazement as men embraced each other, and he saw one man break down into tears because it had been so long since he had been “allowed to get close to someone.”27 Carlos Roche watched as tears of elation ran down the withered face of his friend “Owl,” an old man who had been locked up for decades. “You know,” Owl said in wonderment, “I haven’t seen the stars in twenty-two years.”28 As Clark later described this first night of the rebellion, while there was much trepidation about what might occur next, the men in D Yard also felt wonderful, because “no matter what happened later on, they couldn’t take this night away from us.”29

  14

  A New Day Dawns

  Early in the morning on Friday, September 10, the second day of the Attica rebellion, Herman Schwartz arrived back at Attica prison from Vermont. He was proud of himself; he’d managed to drag Judge John T. Curtin out of his cozy bed at the Equinox Hotel at 3:30 a.m. to sign a document that read simply, “Upon consent of defendants, it is hereby ORDERED that: Defendants, their agents and employers, are enjoined from taking any physical or other administrative reprisals against any inmates participating in the disturbance at the Attica Correctional Facility on September 9, 1971.”1 By getting Commissioner Russell Oswald’s signature at the bottom, Schwartz felt that he had secured the “consent of the defendants” and that this was what the men in D Yard really needed to be protected.2

  At around 8:00 a.m., Schwartz was able to hand the now rather crumpled legal document over to the prisoners at the gate that separated A Tunnel from A Block. Since Oswald had promised them the night before that he would be back by 7:00 a.m. and he hadn’t yet shown up, many were clearly tense but Schwartz hoped that this injunction would improve moods. Much to his astonishment, soon after he handed over a copy of the document, he and Arthur Eve were summoned back to the A Block gate where, looking at him with hard eyes, Richard Clark proclaimed it “worthless.”3 “Why?” Schwartz asked incredulously. “Because it has no seal on it,” Clark replied.4 Schwartz explained to Clark that the judge could not have had his seal with him in Vermont at 3:30 in the morning but that, if the men demanded one, he would now try to get one affixed at Curtin’s office in Buffalo.5 Schwartz beat a hasty retreat to get the original of the document driven to Buffalo to affix the judge’s seal to it. He personally felt that Curtin’s signature on the original document was wholly sufficient, but very much wanted to ease the minds of the men in D Yard that this injunction was indeed binding.

  At 8:45, with still no sign of Oswald, Clark sent word to the administration building that the commissioner needed to come to meet with the men immediately. Clark also indicated that Black Panther Bobby Seale should be added to their list of people who might come to Attica to be an observer to the negotiations. Originally the men had hoped Black Panther Huey Newton would come to Attica, but if Seale came instead they wanted to be sure he was admitted. Having now waited more than two hours to resume negotiations with the commissioner, the men feared that an assault on them could come soon and believed it crucial to have as many outside eyes on this situation as they could get.

  Oswald had been delayed precisely because he was hard at work trying to get the observers whom the prisoners had asked to appear. He also was making sure that there were men in that group whom the state would also be happy with—men on this committee who saw the state’s side of things. To that end, he enlisted the aid of Norman Hurd and Buzz O’Hara from the governor’s office, who in turn contacted Rockefeller attorney Michael Whiteman, to see who might be interested in coming to Attica.

  After some deliberation, Whiteman and others in the governor’s office came up with a list of possible observers they thought would temper the influence of the more liberal, and in some cases radical, observers requested by the prisoners. The key, as they saw it, was to choose men who were sympathetic to the state, but not so obviously that the prisoners would reject their participation. On their list were two African Americans who had worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—the Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, senior pastor of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ in Harlem, and Clarence Jones, the editor of the black paper the Amsterdam News. They also suggested approaching Puerto R
ican congressman Democrat Herman Badillo, as well as moderate Republican state senator John Dunne, since both had had experience in resolving the prison crises in the New York City jail system the previous summer. They insisted, however, on a conservative presence as well, and chose former police officer, district attorney, and now Republican state senator Thomas F. McGowan, as well as Republican New York state assemblymen Frank Walkley and Clark Wemple.

  Meanwhile, state assemblyman Arthur Eve was also feverishly trying to reach the men and women the prisoners wanted for the observers committee. His staff successfully reached not only Jim Ingram, the black reporter from Detroit, and Tom Wicker from The New York Times, whom the men had requested, but also contacted men from the prisoner reform organization, the Fortune Society, as well as two men from the Young Lords. Eve reached out personally to leaders of the Black Panthers, who agreed to send someone after they consulted further. By that afternoon, Eve was glad to learn that Lewis Steel, the attorney who had represented the Auburn 6 with Herman Schwartz, was already outside Attica prepared to offer his services to the group. Eve still wanted to reach famed leftist lawyer William Kunstler, as the prisoners had asked for him particularly.

  As the men in D Yard waited anxiously—but peacefully—for some sight of the commissioner, rumors of prisoner atrocities ran rampant outside the prison. After having seen the prisoners bring mattresses out from cells and place them in the hostage circle (so that these men would have beds), rumors flew among the troopers that the hostages were being “surrounded by gasoline soaked mattresses.”6 Again insisting that it was imperative they get into the prison, state troopers began to ready themselves for a forcible retaking. By 12:45 p.m., all State Police personnel were on standby in front of the administration building, waiting for the green light.7 There remained, however, a tactical problem: the tear gas and the helicopters necessary for this undertaking had yet not arrived. A few hours later the helicopters were finally available, but the men whom the commander of the New York National Guard had tagged to fly this mission still needed “a period of ten hours or more…to prepare gas canisters and primer mechanisms.”8 A forcible retaking was again forestalled.

  An aerial view of D Yard (Courtesy of the Buffalo News)

  So focused was Oswald on assembling the observers committee and resuming negotiations that he seemed almost oblivious to the fact that law enforcement was still planning to storm the prison as soon as they had all of their ducks in a row. And yet, his ability to gather this group of impressive individuals in the prison was, unbeknownst to him, thwarting those same retaking plans. Observers and other outsiders had been arriving throughout the day and they were a diverse group. There were Republican senators, but also well-known black clergymen such as Marvin Chandler, Raymond Scott, and Franklin Florence who worked with the anti-poverty group FIGHT. These pastors wanted to be at Attica to gather information for the many prisoners’ families they knew in nearby Rochester. Once Oswald learned from Eve that they were there, he decided that they too should be official observers. As Marvin Chandler saw it, “I think they just wanted us to give it legitimacy.”9

  Oswald had spent so much time on getting observers to Attica that when he finally contacted the men in D Yard, they had been waiting to hear from him for four hours. There was a flurry of heated exchanges about where the meeting would take place, with Oswald proposing it be held in the A Block tunnel and the prisoners unyielding in their insistence that it be held in the yard. Oswald capitulated.10 As they had made clear to him, “This is a people issue, not a group, therefore you must bring your observers, etc., to the people.”11

  At 11:25 a.m.—now Friday, the second day of the uprising—Oswald, along with five observers, Arthur Eve, Herman Schwartz, Lewis Steel, Raymond Scott, and Marvin Chandler, as well as almost a dozen members of the media, trekked through A Tunnel and back into the yard for a fifth visit. Oswald, Schwartz, and Eve could immediately feel that the mood of the men had turned considerably grimmer since their last visit, as evidenced by how much more aggressively they were frisked. Schwartz, who was uncertain how the prisoners would react to the still unresolved issue of the injunction, was particularly nervous.12 Rightly so, as it turned out.

  As soon as their group arrived at the negotiating table, lawyer Herman Schwartz was startled by “the harangues and tirades and bitterness spewed out against Oswald.”13 And it wasn’t just the more high-profile men in the yard—L. D. Barkley, Champ, Herb Blyden, Richard Clark, Sam Melville—who were hurling invective at the commissioner. The anger in the yard was widespread. Oswald sat silently through the abuse, looking dazed and weary as epithets like “racist pig” and “vicious dog” rained down on him. And then it was Schwartz’s turn. Once the men’s attention returned to the injunction, Schwartz tried to explain that, even without the seal, the document gave them protection against both physical and administrative reprisals, but nevertheless someone was on his way to get a seal placed on the original injunction as they had demanded. Somehow his defense only intensified the group’s suspicion of the injunction.14

  To the men in D Yard this court order was absolutely crucial to their ability, as prisoner Flip Crowley explained, to get “out of the yard with some type of dignity [and] without getting hurt.”15 For this reason Schwartz was bombarded with questions about the injunction—its meaning, its power, etc. “Why was Oswald’s signature on it? What good would that do?…Why wasn’t [Rockefeller’s] signature on it, if a signature was necessary?”16 Then, suddenly, one of the elected leaders, jailhouse lawyer Jerry Rosenberg, grabbed the microphone and with a great flourish ripped a copy of the injunction all had been reviewing to shreds. Not only did the injunction have no seal, Rosenberg shouted, but it referred specifically to the events of September 9 and thus did them no good now. Furthermore, it did not prevent prison officials from exacting retribution on the prisoners by charging them with crimes after their rebellion ended. Without criminal amnesty, he argued, they really had no protection whatsoever. Schwartz was incredulous that the injunction he had worked so hard to obtain, and at the prisoners’ request, was now rejected outright by them. The roar of approval touched off by Rosenberg’s speech was enough to persuade him to remain silent, however.17

  The men at the table then turned their anger back to Oswald. Although they kept trying to go over their list of “practical proposals” with the commissioner, it only infuriated them more when he explained that he had not yet accomplished any of them. He needed more time. Worse, in their view, Oswald then kept trying to turn the discussion back to a freeing of the hostages. The way the prisoners saw it, they had already released many of their hostages—eleven men, COs as well as civilians. Some, like Gordon Kelsey and William Quinn, had been hurt and clearly needed care, but they had released others as well. But Oswald was unappeased. He had just learned that two other COs had been found hiding in a bathroom that morning, so he was not at all certain how many men were even being held in D Yard and this troubled him mightily.18 “How many hostages are there? Thirty-eight?” he asked. At which point someone yelled out, “Now thirty-nine!” and, turning to the men in the yard, said, “Why don’t we keep him here?”19 Now Schwartz was really scared. The yard had suddenly erupted into a cacophony of yelling, screaming, and arguing. Prisoner leaders Herb Blyden and Richard Clark also seemed overwhelmed by the situation, helpless to turn it around.20 But just when it looked like Oswald might be in serious danger, Big Black Smith “stepped up in front of Oswald, put his arm around him, and said, ‘Don’t worry, there’s nothing going to happen.’ ”21

  Commissioner Russell Oswald (seated, lower left corner) faces the prisoner leaders at the negotiation table, including Frank “Big Black” Smith (wearing sunglasses) and L. D. Barkley (second from right). (Courtesy of The New York Times)

  Although one leader, Dalou, had been in favor of taking Oswald hostage, the vast majority seemed committed to keeping the commissioner safe from harm. And when Herb Blyden tried to regain order by calling for a vote on th
e question, asking those in favor of taking the commissioner hostage to stand, almost no one did. That settled it.22

  It was nearly 1:00 p.m. on this second day of the uprising when Oswald and the others walked safely out of D Yard and back to the administration building. The prisoners said that no further discussions would happen until all the observers they requested had arrived, and Oswald was in no mood to continue talking either. He was so shaken that he decided he was going to leave all further interactions with the men in D Yard to the observers. To observer Marvin Chandler, one of the clergymen, the whole situation was not so much scary as heartbreaking. As he was leaving the yard, he heard someone call to him, “Reverend…”23 It was Big Black Smith. “Yes, sir,” Chandler replied, and then, to his surprise, Big Black said, “Reverend, they gonna whip ass, but thank you so much for comin’.”24 Black’s comment brought tears to Chandler’s eyes.25

  Chandler and the rest of his group vowed in that moment that they were not willing to let the ugliness they’d just witnessed in the yard jeopardize a peaceful resolution to the standoff. To that end, Arthur Eve and Lewis Steel were newly determined to get the commissioner to understand just how crucial the issue of legal amnesty had become to the prisoners. If their encounter in D Yard that morning had told them nothing else, it was now clear that, without criminal amnesty, the men would never feel secure enough to give up the hostages.