Blood in the Water

by Thompson, Heather Ann

  While the state tried to make Attica all about what the prisoners had done wrong, Wright himself was suffering post-traumatic trauma from his own experiences in D Yard. “Just out of the clear blue sky I’d get the shakes….I still get nervous, I get withdrawn….And it bothers me, because I don’t know why I do these things.”9 Despite feeling terrible, Wright had no choice but to go back into the prison to work. When he went back to being a CO, though, “we talked about a lot of things, but the riot was never one of them, and our feelings were never one of them, and our problems were never one of them,” and thus his own problems just festered.10 As the years wore on, Wright felt more and more bitter. He was still furious at the prisoners and he hated the state. “We were wronged by the inmates. They are the ones that caused the riot, we didn’t. We were wronged by the state. We were lied to by the state.”11 Wright’s son Scott came to the microphone to testify, after seeing his father go through this for years. Scott Wright had one message for the task force: “All of these people should be commended for what they have endured. I feel that the State of New York owes these people an apology.”12

  Before the first day of hearings ended, the task force heard not only from surviving hostages, widows, and children of hostages, but also from the lawyers, William Cunningham and Gene Tenney, who had spent decades trying to seek justice for them in court. Cunningham explained in detail his thirteen-year journey to get some restitution from the state for the widow of Herbert Jones. He made clear how much energy the state had expended on trying to stop this woman from getting any money, going so far as to comb through its many thousands of canceled checks to see if they could prove that Jones had cashed hers. Indeed, Cunningham said disgustedly, “the Attorney General asked for a recess…so that the controller could make a further search for the check. They knew Lynda Jones didn’t take any funeral expenses. They knew she didn’t take a nickel. The judge rightly so, granted a recess. They couldn’t find it. To this day, they can’t find it. It’s because she didn’t sign the check.”13 Smiling, he added, “I happen to know where the check is. To this day, I have it.”14

  Even though Jones hadn’t taken workman’s compensation, as she then testified, five Appellate Division judges had told her that she still couldn’t sue. Indeed it wasn’t until the Court of Appeals stepped in that she had any chance of being heard in court.15 And Lynda Jones had been one of the lucky ones, as testimony from attorney Gene Tenney made clear.

  As Tenney explained, he had worked on hostage survivor and widow cases for thirty years and he still found it shocking just how manipulative the state had been with his clients for the first twenty of those years. “It was very difficult for me to, as a lawyer, to have judges, esteemed judges who I respected previously, find that these people, these people elected a remedy, as their husbands [lay] in hospitals, as they [lay] in morgues, they [the surviving hostages and widows of the slain hostages] had elected a remedy, an intentional decision to take Workers Compensation.”16 Seeing the look on their faces broke Tenney’s heart—particularly since he could still remember so vividly when he first met with them down at Jim Hardie’s insurance office in the town of Attica in December of 1971. He had promised them then, “I will do everything in the world I can for you,” not knowing how badly the state had already swindled them. Although they hadn’t retained Tenney until December 1971, as he noted bitterly, “you can bet your sweet life the State Insurance Fund had all of their lawyers working on this case. And they were working it from the first date. I’m not talking September 13th, I’m talking about September 9th”—something he had found out in a series of hearings in which he later participated.17 Tenney himself had spent over $100,000 on the survivor and widow cases but, he made clear to the task force, he wasn’t requesting compensation for himself. “Whatever you give them is theirs.”18

  Some of the most heart-wrenching testimony came in subsequent days from the widow of John D’Arcangelo and then from hostage Carl Valone’s widow and children. D’Arcangelo’s widow, Ann Driscoll, recounted that her husband was only twenty-three when he died and their daughter was barely three months old. What is more, her husband had just graduated from college, “majoring in psychology and history. He was my husband, a new father, the bread winner of the family. And most importantly, he was my best friend.”19 And yet, on September 13, 1971, there she was in the basement of some church identifying his bloody body. “My memory of this place,” she said quietly, “was that it smelled of blood and dirt.”20

  Ann barely had time to grieve, though, because “a few weeks after the funeral, a group of well-dressed men arrived at my mom’s house in Auburn, New York. Commissioner Oswald was one of these men….He handed me John’s final pay check and told me that I had to sign these papers that he brought with him. He told me that these were documents that assured us that the State would take care of Julie and me for the rest of our lives. I didn’t have a clue that by signing these papers, I would never be able to sue the State….We were ‘awarded’ $36 a week. And those benefits ended when Julie was 16.”21

  Widow Ann Valone was so angry at Commissioner Goord by the time she was called to the mic that she lashed out at him on the record. Having watched Goord throughout the day it had seemed to her that he looked bored “as people bared their souls.”22 Looking over at him Ann said, “I think [you] people are just listening to us, trying to appease us, show that you are all good guys.”23 With her voice breaking, Ann Valone told how her family “was so traumatized” and that her then ten-year-old son, Carl, her husband’s namesake, was particularly scarred by his father’s death.24 “Now if anybody needed counseling in this whole wide world it was my son Carl,” she said sadly, but they had no money for such a luxury.25 Ultimately Carl, her child, had hanged himself.

  Carl’s sister, Mary Ann Valone, had also been irreparably harmed by the death of her father and, as important, by the state’s abandonment of his family. She had been fifteen back in September of 1971. “The kids in my family got so messed up and so bitter and so hostile and so angry, so miserable. And we took it out on my Mom, every single day of the rest of her life….We could not cope with it. We—we could not cope with what happened.”26 After her father’s death, Mary Ann was so filled with rage and fear that she could barely function. She found herself hating the state troopers more than anything for wanting “to kill as many black people as they could,” but she was also terrified of these troopers so she “ended up leaving New York State as a young girl because I thought the New York State Troopers were going to kill me and throw the gun next to my body.”27

  By the time Mary Ann was an adult she had taken turns hating everyone in her life. “I hated the hostages that lived, I hated the civil rights movement, I hated blacks, I hated God, I hated Correction Officers. I hated my mother, [and] I hated my father because he went to work.”28 Mostly, though, Mary Ann hated herself. “I tried to destroy myself for years because I turned all this anger inside too. I could not figure out who to blame, who is responsible for all this?” She ultimately decided that the prisoners were actually not the ones to blame. As she explained, “I forgave them first. I forgave them a long time ago. They were victims too….After I got a little bit of education, they were the first ones I forgave…[but] it took me a long time to forgive God.”29 It was especially hard to forgive God when she learned that her brother, Carl, had killed himself. “My brother was in pain,” she said in tears herself. “My brother killed himself, hung himself off the deck of his one hundred twenty five thousand dollar house when he was thirty three years old.”30

  The July and August hearings brought even more trauma to the stand. During the July hearings in Albany, three sons of slain hostage Edward Cunningham testified that their worlds had been turned inside out by his senseless death and the way that state officials handled it. Mark Cunningham spoke of a nagging uncertainty that his dad was even in the grave marked with his name because the state had messed things up so badly that it had to dig up his dad’s body to reautops
y it.31 Mark also tried to express how hard this had been on Edward Cunningham’s widow—a mother of many kids who never really recovered. She never stopped calling state officials and trying to be heard, he noted, and because she was never heard, “every day of her life was pretty much anxiety, and depression just filled her life for the whole 28 years before her death.”32

  Mark’s brother John, who had only been eight when his father was killed, chose to read a letter written by his mom before her death. “The frustration I and the widows of Attica have felt since the death of our husbands, at Attica, has been extreme….It is difficult to accept the way things were handled, and the outcome for our men and families….The deception and treatment by the state, rumors and misinformation made many years of torture for us….I would like the records to be opened. We should at least be able to know the truth of what happened there at Attica.”33

  Hostage G. B. Smith told the task force in July that he still couldn’t believe that the state hadn’t even paid them for the entire time they had sat in terror as hostages in D Yard because, other than for eight hours a day, they were, technically, off the clock.34 And former hostage Gary Walker tried to explain to the task force just how much he and his fellow survivors had suffered. For the “first couple of years,” he said, “I broke out in hives constantly because my nerves were shot, I…took pills—I did not go back to work for six months because I just could not, and then when I got back I got scared more but I said, well, it is—I got to take care of my family, I got to take care of my kids, I have to have a job.”35

  The cover-up concerning the deaths at Attica had also taken a real toll on many assembled—especially on Don Werner, the brother of slain hostage Ronald Werner. He told the task force about going to the funeral home to see his brother’s body. “When we were allowed in the funeral home, I asked Dick Marley, who was a family friend for years,” if Ron’s throat had been cut. “He looked right at me, says ‘Don I am not permitted to answer that’…this bothered me for a long time. I have never found out really what happened to my brother….I never found out how he was killed.”36 Lest the task force suspect men like Werner of hyperbole, the FVOA made sure that Malcolm Bell also testified, describing in calm and minute detail the state’s effort to dodge responsibility for the deaths and injuries at Attica.

  A guard in a gas mask speaks to an unidentified hostage lying on a stretcher. (From the Elizabeth Fink Papers)

  Ultimately, the task force was left with no doubt that state officials had swindled the surviving hostages and hostage widows via the workman’s compensation system. Morris Jacobs, the former employee of the State Insurance Fund, minced no words when he declared that the state of New York, including “top officials of the State Insurance Fund, as well as the Rockefeller Administration,” had “induced the acceptance of Worker’s Compensation in order to avoid liability for intentional tort.”37 These officials had “callously manipulated the system” to deny benefits to the widows, had “targeted the Attica widows, by violating an inflexible rule, which is not to approach widows prior to a hearing without the approval of their attorneys,” had “intruded on the vulnerable widows within days after the fatalities knowing that the widows were unrepresented by attorneys,” and “had been guilty of blatant hypocrisy in initiating and accelerating compensation payments prior to hearing under the bogus pretense that they are befriending and favoring the Attica widows by expediting payments.”38 Ultimately, he insisted, “insensitive bureaucrats” had “maneuvered to victimize the widows a second time by depriving them of seeking alternative, appropriate, legitimate and reasonable redress and indemnification.”39

  By the time the hearings closed in August 2002, there could be no question that the hostage and hostage family survivors of Attica had endured a great deal. Sharon Smith, surviving hostage Mike Smith’s wife, gave some of the most jarring testimony. If the state had not sent troopers and correction officers into Attica with guns blazing, Mike would never have received the horrific injuries he had. Worse, this same state then abandoned him in his moment of greatest need.

  Sharon explained in graphic detail how “there were four wounds of entry. The bullets…seem to have burst into hundreds of small fragments [which] were found all over the peritoneal cavity and quite a few of them were embedded in the pelvis and sacrum….The fragments of the bullets had played havoc in the abdomen. There were about twenty perforations of the ileum which were repaired. At two different places, the ileum was completely torn into small pieces. It was found there were four complete tears in the sigmoid colon….There was a large tear in the dome of the urinary bladder, measuring about five inches. The floor of the pelvis was badly injured….[Some wounds were so big] a fist could be introduced into [them].”40 Then, as Mike “was still in intensive care fighting for his life,” a letter dated September 30, 1971, came to their house indicating that the state hadn’t received records that it needed and that if the Smiths didn’t file this paperwork immediately, the state would not pay his medical bills. “I was in a panic,” Sharon recalled, “[so] I filled out the papers and sent them back without the benefit of legal representation.” Little did she know that these documents too related to workman’s compensation and thus she was electing a remedy that would prevent her from suing the state later on. Meanwhile, Mike’s injuries were so bad that he didn’t come home from the hospital for ninety-one days and, even then, “he was transported by ambulance, as he could not walk or sit up….Michael weighed one hundred twenty four pounds.”41 Sharon, who was also taking care of their six-month-old baby, was left in charge of Mike’s rehabilitation at home, which was a monumental task. Yet, again, Mike’s physical injuries almost paled in comparison to the added injuries he suffered from the state’s self-interest and manipulation. As Sharon pointed out, “There was no contact from the state as to his wellbeing until March 13, 1972,” and they only called then because a sergeant “wanted him to come by and ID inmates for the criminal prosecution.”42 Later, when Mike wanted to keep the bullets that had been removed from his body, he “had to sign a statement that he would not hold the state [responsible]…he would not use the evidence against them. And that was in 1986.”43

  When the hearings ended, everyone who had testified was exhausted and not at all sure what was supposed to happen next. Presumably their stories would move the Attica Task Force to address their list of demands, but as far as anyone could tell, there was no deadline placed upon this body to act. How long would they have to wait to hear from state officials whether their words had in fact mattered? A long time, it would turn out.

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  Waiting Game

  In the months following the Attica Task Force hearings the Forgotten Victims of Attica had very little sense of what was supposed to happen next. Dee Quinn Miller reached out to task force member Arthur Eve and, as they became close, learned some disturbing information about the entity that she and other FVOA members were hoping would help them. According to Arthur Eve, the Attica Task Force wasn’t particularly cohesive or democratic. In his view, only Dale Volker and Glenn Goord were making the decisions and even the governor seemed out of the loop. Eve shared with Dee Quinn Miller his concern that Commissioner Goord was trying to wrap up this whole inquiry as expeditiously as possible and, since he was maintaining such personal control over the process, it wasn’t certain how much justice would be had.

  Of course this greatly bothered the FVOA members, especially since they knew that the task force was not facing a deadline and, therefore, no real pressure to make any sort of recommendation to the governor. So Dee Quinn Miller took it upon herself to keep the pressure on by writing regularly to the governor and trying to lean on Goord himself. Every time she spoke with the commissioner, though, she found herself frustrated. In short, she recalled, “they wanted to do it all their way. They were nasty.”1 Growing increasingly concerned that momentum might soon be lost, the FVOA decided on a new tactic: it would try to go public, in hopes that state officials would, in turn, fee
l embarrassed not to settle with the FVOA.2

  However, reaching out to the public was expensive and required building powerful networks. Knowing this the FVOA decided to begin with correction officers’ unions around the country, asking them to spread word of the fight and, if possible, help the FVOA financially. Within a few months the FVOA had powerful unions such as the New York State Correctional Officers Association & Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA), the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), and other unions from Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida as important allies. From these organizations they received a great deal of publicity as well as monetary support. Bringing in CO unions, particularly NYSCOPBA, had a real cost too. Glenn Goord hated the union and especially disliked its militant president, Rick Harcrow.3 With the union on the FVOA’s side, the organization succeeded in drumming up much public attention and sympathy, but it also served to make negotiations with the task force much more tense.4

  The FVOA heard nothing from the Attica Task Force for so long that, on February 13, 2003, it decided to issue a report entitled “A Time for Truth,” which it hoped would shame Commissioner Goord into offering something. This document began by noting that the task force had not made headway on its study since the hearings had ended six months earlier, and chronicled the sporadic, and dismissive, correspondence that the FVOA had received from state officials.5 “In a letter of Nov. 18, 2002,” the DOCS had assured the FVOA that it planned “to present carefully-considered and well-reasoned recommendations on each of the five points that are as fair as possible to all involved,” and yet had also made clear that it wanted no further input from the FVOA.6 This was unacceptable, the FVOA made clear. Via this report the group was reiterating its “evidence and grievances—in the hope it will be of assistance in finally producing just results.”7 The report provided the public record with a clear “Summary of the Riot Events,” as well as a careful exposition of “The Riot’s Immediate Aftermath,” and made it clear that the FVOA wasn’t going to just fade away. “Attica is the ghost that has never stopped haunting its survivors—including both the inmates and the families of the deceased guards and prison personnel,” the report noted, and therefore the FVOA was going to insist on some remedy from the state.8