Attica Prison Riot Documents, FBI Files, Court & Hearings Transcripts, Photographs, Audio & Film

Attica Prison Riot (September 9-13, 1971) Documents, FBI Files, Court Transcripts, Photographs, Audio & Film

 11,708 pages of Attica Prison Riot Documents, FBI Files, Court Transcripts, Photographs. 16 hours and 37 minutes of audio recordings and 10 minutes of video of Attica taken at the beginning of the end of the riot.

The Attica prison riot (also known as the Attica Prison uprising and the Attica Prison rebellion) began on September 9, 1971, when about 1,000 of the approximately 2,200 inmates in the Attica Correctional Facility, in Attica NY rebelled and seized control of the prison. The riot was based in part upon prisoners' demands for better living conditions, Attica was severely overcrowded at the time, but may also have been triggered in part by a recent incident at San Quentin Prison in California, where George Jackson, a black radical activist prisoner, was shot to death by corrections officers on August 21.

 Forty-three Attica staff members were taken hostage during the riot. During the following four days, authorities agreed to many of the prisoners' demands, but there were two points on which they would not concede: amnesty from criminal prosecution for the prisoners involved in the takeover, and the removal of Attica's superintendent. As negotiations broke down New York State Police, on the order of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, stormed the prison and regained control of Attica.

 When the uprising was over, 43 people were dead, including ten correctional officers and civilian employees. The final death toll from the uprising includes one officer fatally injured at the start of the uprising and four inmates who were subject to vigilante killings by other prisoners. Nine hostages died from gunfire by state troopers. The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, "With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War."

In December 1976, New York Governor Carey announced he was “closing the book on Attica,” and pardoned all inmates who had previously pleaded guilty to obtain reduced sentences and commuted the sentences of the two inmates convicted in court.  He additionally dismissed pending disciplinary actions against 20 law enforcement officers related to the uprising.  He characterized the Attica prosecution as “the darkest day in the history of New York State’s jurisprudence.”

FBI Files

1,327 pages of FBI files covering the Attica Riot.

Contains initial reports of the riot. Reports on demonstrations, arson and vandalism taking place around the cluntry in protest of the actions against the inmates of Attica. Interviews with members of the Goldman panel, present and former Attica inmates, members of medical personnel, state troopers and guards. 

 
New York State Special Commission on Attica (McKay Commission) Hearings Transcripts and Audio Recordings

3,222 pages of transcripts of McKay Commission hearings and 16 hours and 7 minutes of audio recordings of the Rochester hearings. In October 1971 the New York State Special Commission on Attica was formed with Robert B. McKay, Dean of the New York University School of Law, as Chairman of the Commission. The Commission held hearings in Rochester and New York City, NY from April 12, 1972 to April 27, 1972.
 
After dozens of hearings, McKay and his fellow commissioners’ findings included criticisms of the New York State prison authorities and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. They cited poor planning by prison officials and their quick embrace of lethal methods to subdue rebelling prisoners. They also criticized Governor Rockefeller for not visiting the prison before ordering the counterassault on the prison.

 
Photographs Taken During and After the Raid to Retake Attica

190 photos taken during and after the assault team ended the riot. Photographs collected in the years following by attorney Elizabeth Fink (1945-2015) for use in lawsuits in which she represented Attica prisoners. Fink, a civil rights and defense attorney, was often described as a radical lawyer. Best known for representing prisoners incarcerated at Attica in 1971.

A class action suit Fink brought in 1974 on behalf of prisoners alleging abuse by guards was settled by the State of New York in 2000 for $12 million. The photographs are very graphic and uncensored documenting the deaths of hostages and prisoners, and activities in the prison after the putting down of the uprising, they include autopsy and morgue photographs used as photographic evidence. The captions and titles of the photographs were chosen by Fink, for example “Attica Brothers” refers to Attica inmates.

 
The Forgotten Survivors Hearings Testimony Transcriptions

990 pages of transcripts. This series consists of transcribed testimony of former hostages taken in the uprising at Attica Correctional Facility in September 1971. The testimony was given between May and August 2002 before a task force appointed by Governor George Pataki, which was charged with investigating issues raised by The Forgotten Victims of Attica (FVOA), an organization composed of former hostages and their survivors; and to make recommendations based on the task force's findings. The hearing lead to the families of the 10 guards who were killed to receive 12 million dollars in 2004.

 
New York State Special Commission on Attica Official Report (McKay Report)

A 574-page copy of “Attica: The Official Report of the New York State Special Commission on Attica.” The McKay Commission, which provided the official report on the events at Attica, commented that “with the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the state police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.”

 
Final Report of the Special Attica Investigation Volumes 1 (released in full), 2,3 (Partial Releases) (1975)

A 1975 report by Judge Bernard Meyer better known as the Meyer Report.

On December 6, 1974, Malcolm Bell, who had served the Attica investigation since September 1973, as a Special Assistant Attorney General, was suspended by Anthony G. Simonetti, the Special Assistant Attorney General then in charge of the investigation. The reason for the suspension was Bell's refusal to give Simonetti the name of a confidential informant. On December 11, 1974, Bell resigned, explaining in a four-page letter addressed to Attorney General Lefkowitz that in his opinion the investigation as conducted by Simonetti "lacks integrity."

Bell later reported to governor-elect Carey that he had built grand jury cases toward indicting a half-dozen state troopers for murder or manslaughter, 60 or 70 for reckless endangerment, and several ranking officers for what he believed was a cover-up. He claimed that Louis Lefkowitz, the attorney general at the time, was engaging in a cover-up to protect Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had ordered the prison retaken.

Judge Meyer concluded there was no intentional cover-up, only serious errors in judgment and omissions in evidence gathered by troopers. In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sought release of all three volumes of the Meyer 570-page report on the Attica prison riot. In 2015, 46 pages of Volumes 2 and 3 were released. The rest of the report’s Volume 2 and 3, including 350 pages of grand jury testimony is still sealed.

Within the more recently 46 pages released Meyer wrote, “A National Guardsman who treated wounded inmates only to have bandages ripped off, saw stretchers deliberately tilted, saw guards beat inmates on medical carts with clubs, saw a prison doctor pull an inmate off a cart and kick him in the stomach, saw inmates beaten while running a gauntlet,” Meyer wrote. This portion of volumes 2 and 3 reveal information given by National Guardsman James Watson and physician Robert Jenks.

Watson said he saw inmates beaten on stretchers, “poked in the groin and rectum with nightsticks, [and] beaten while running through gauntlets”. Watson said on one occasion he saw an inmate beaten by seven prison officers.

Jenks, a staff physician at a nearby hospital, reported seeing “an inmate with large wounds around his rectum which were not from gunshot and which, he later heard, had been caused by a broken bottle.”  Jenks said he was refused permission to evacuate “an inmate who had suffered severe brain damage” and saw people with untreated fractures and some who had not received needed blood transfusions.


Al Jundi v. Mancusi Trial Transcripts

1,961 pages of trial transcripts and judge’s decisions and orders in the case of AKIL AL-JUNDI, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. VINCENT MANCUSI, et al, Defendants. (Transcript for May 24, 2000 to August 28, 2000).

Filed in 1974. A class action by inmates in D-Yard at the Attica Correctional Facility on September 13, 1971. They brought this action seeking damages for civil rights violations, claiming that they were injured by law enforcement officers during and after the retaking of Attica on September 13, 1971, which ended a four-day riot. Almost 26 years later the State of New Yok agreed to a settlement without admitting liability. The State agreed to pay $8 million to the plaintiffs and $4 million to the plaintiff’s lawyers.

 
New York State Police Surveillance Video of Attica

10:06 of video from multiple cameras recorded by the New York State Police. The NYSP set up video cameras to peer into Attica to aid in its planning for re-taking the prison. This video documents the Attica prison riot right before the state police stormed the prison and at the very beginning of the assault. The narrator describes the activity in the various sectors of the prison. The video provides a glimpse into the ways the prisoners organized their activities. Shows the area where the hostages were being held. Also shows at a distance a meeting taking place among the prisoners. The 1971 video tape is of low quality but audio of the State Police real time narration of the events on the video is clear.

 
Richard Nixon Secret White House Recordings Mentioning the Attica Riot

Four segments of Nixon White House Tapes totaling 16 minutes and 31 seconds, recorded on September 13, 1971, the day New State Police and members of the New York National Guard regained control of Attica from rebelling prisoners.

H. R. “Bob” Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, tells Nixon of the assault on the prison. Nixon asks Haldeman, “Is this a black business?” Haldeman “Yes sir,” “We have got to be tough on this,” Nixon says. “You know what this is? This is the Angela Davis crowd,” soon after Nixon further remarks, “these are the negroes.” “Which concerns me,” Haldeman interjects, “The word is around now that this is the signal for the black uprising…  It’s clear this is what they’re doing,” continued Haldeman. “The revolution thing is moving to the prisons now, versus the campuses where they couldn’t get enough action on.”

Later, Nixon calls Governor Rockefeller, who calls the raid “a beautiful operation.”  “Tell me, is this—are these primarily blacks that you’re dealing with?” asks Nixon. “Oh yes,” responds Rockefeller, “the whole thing was led by the blacks.”

Later Nixon speaking to Haldeman compares Attica to the Kent State Incident which occurred on May 4, 1970. Nixon: “This might have one hell of a salutary effect. They can talk all they want about the radicals. You know what stops them? Kill a few.” “Remember Kent State?” Nixon continues. “Didn’t it have one hell of an effect, the Kent State thing?” “Sure did,” replies Haldeman. “Gave them second thoughts.”

Nixon and Haldeman further discuss Attica. Haldeman asks, “Were they all black?” “Everyone,” responds Nixon. Haldeman concedes, “They’ve probably got some legitimate grievances—I’m sure they do,” He then reverses course, “My guess is, looking at it, that it has nothing to do with anything legitimate; it has to do with the revolution.” Nixon weighs in, “We’ve got to be tough.” “This whole business of permissiveness on campus,” concludes Nixon, “why not permissiveness in prison, permissiveness to the blacks? It’s not—we’re not going to turn around here in this town. If they hit this town again (Washington D.C.), we’ve got to be tough.”

 
The Hidden Society - Annual Report - Senate Committee on Crime and Correction, 1970 

A January 15, 1971 State of New York Senate Committee on Crime and Correction report on problems in the correctional facilities in New York including Attica.