OKLAHOMA GAOL RIOT Prisoners murder fellow inmates

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33290, 30 July 1973, Page 13

OKLAHOMA GAOL RIOT Prisoners murder fellow inmates

CV.Z. Press Association—Copyright; McALESTER (Oklahoma), July 29. One thousand rebellious convicts, some drunk on moonshine whisky and others under the influence of drugs, yesterday released the 11 hostages they had held for 22 hours, but have now begun another rampage through the Oklahoma State Prison, starting three more fires and vowing to kill any inmates who do not join them in the rioting. “ I hey’ve got control of the prison, and the only thing we’ve got control of is the ground we stand on—and the wall,” a prison guard said today.

Two prisoners were <1 killed: one, who did not d take part in the riot, had f his throat slashed in n front of a guard who v was escorting him back £ to his cell: the other was slashed again and again, £ apparently by fellow- “

inmates during the first hours of the rebellion. Sixty-six other persons have been injured. The convicts have taken their knives, meat cleavers, and axes back into the cellblocks, where they have threatened to kill 200 of the 1750 prison population who did not take part in the riot. “They’re going to kill those goddamned snitches — the guys that have been getting them in trouble,” a guard said. The rebellion was quelled for about eight hours yester-

day, between noon and dusk, during which time the prisoners’ hostages were released and the governor met nine of the ringleaders, who presented a long list of grievances. But some hours later, the prisoners again went on a rampage in the cell-blocks,

180 per cent of the locks of which had been destroyed. “They took that little hospital over there, and got whatever little bit of dope they could,” a guard said. “They get that moonshine into their systems, and pop those pills, and their minds get sharp. “When the administration quits babying those bastards, we’ll take ’em, but they’re running high, wide and handsome right now.” The militant convicts hurled Molotov cocktails in the four cell-blocks left standing in the state’s largest prison. One fire broke out on the roof of one of the cell-blocks, and two others on the top floor of the four-storey building. Guards refused to enter the cell-blocks to fight the fires, or to search for weapons.

“They’re not sending me in there,” a guard said. “I may be an ignorant son of a bitch, but I’m not stupid.” Sixtv-six people have been injured in the rebellion, among them five members of the prison staff. The two hundred nonmilitant convicts are now huddled in a small, fenced-in compound in the north-east corner of the prison, and they say that they will never return to their cells.

“I am never going back in there,” declared Larry Fink, the editor of the prison news, paper, the “Eye-Opener.” “I don’t want to be killed ” The 200 pacifist inmates are protected by a double row of chain-link and barbed-wire fences, and by National Guard troops standing 12 feet apart. The red-brick penitentiary has been left a smoking shell by the rioting, which has caused damage estimated at SUSIOm.

The State Governor (Mr David Hall) flew by helicopter from Oklahoma City to McAlester to talk with the leaders of the revolt about their demands for amnesty and prison reform, but he has refused to meet them until they have all surrendered.