I drove down Dunbar Road, a quiet two-laner, through swaths of bright sunlight broken by puddles of deep shadow beneath maples and oaks. On the right side of a straight stretch of asphalt stood a short wooden post with a plastic off-white mailbox shaped like a football helmet fastened on top; on its side a blue bison leaped toward the road, his front hooves curled under his chest. In upstate New York, where dense green summers are often followed by months of snow measured in feet rather than inches, the Buffalo Bills, despite years of futility, are clearly the team of choice.
A few more blocks to the west, however, oaks and maples gave way to an expanse of freshly mowed grass bathed in stark sunlight. Beyond the grass and parallel to the road stood a massive gray wall — thirty feet tall, two feet thick, one-third mile long, and topped with four evenly spaced towers reminiscent of the bastions of medieval castles. One of the “big houses” built in the 1930’s, Attica is among the most notorious of the state’s fifty-four correctional facilities. Here in western New York, where earlier I’d driven past four other prisons in Elmira, Sonyea, and Wyoming County, Attica seemed a glaring symbol of the region’s industry of choice: mass incarceration.
Marker near front entrance, commemorating employees killed at Attica Correctional Facility
I turned right on Exchange Street and right again into the front entrance. I parked in one of the few remaining spaces in the lot nearest the street, shut off the Jeep, swung the door open, and put my wallet, keys, and phone in my pockets. After locking up, I walked across the hot asphalt to a circle of concrete between the street and the door leading into the base of the central tower. In front of the prison on a thick pedestal stands a tall gray stone marker with the state seal engraved near the top and an inscription beneath it that reads, “In memory of the employees who gave their lives in the riot of September 9-13, 1971.” I stood there rereading and glancing past the marker toward the open front door. In the darkness of the small entrance a man leaned over a table, his palms flat on the surface and his arms bracing him up. I looked back at the marker and read the inscription again. It seemed typical and on its surface sympathetic, a way to commemorate the sacrifice of the eleven men named on the marker. However, the phrasing, especially “the employees who gave their lives in the riot,” is intentionally deceptive and a blatant effort to conceal what actually happened.
None of those employees “gave their lives” willingly. No one boldly sacrificed himself in defense of his coworkers or some principle about law and order. They didn’t die fighting back; they were in no position to resist since they were unarmed and being held hostage. Instead, the lives of all eleven men were violently and unnecessarily taken from them. But by whom? The inscription says, “in the riot.” Since most people probably assume that corrections officers and law enforcement officials when discharging their duties do not “riot,” that only convicted criminals would resort to anarchy and violence, it implies that inmates killed these men. However, of the eleven men whose names are listed on the marker, ten were killed by gunfire during the retaking of the prison. Inmates did not have firearms. Only state troopers and corrections officers did. Only they indiscriminately fired rifles, shotguns, and handguns into the yard and across the catwalks. Only they took those ten employees’ lives.
Below this inscription and above the list of names is an unattributed quote appropriated from the poet Robert Burns: “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.” This, too, sniffs of misdirected blame, especially in the context of what precedes it, as does what follows — the list of eleven names. Yes, all eleven men died as a result of what happened during those four days in September 1971, but they weren’t the only ones. Thirty-two inmates were also killed, many specifically targeted by officers firing from the catwalk above D yard, some struck by bullets and buckshot rained down during the chaos, and others executed at point-blank range when officers moved into the yard. But it’s no surprise that the marker conceals so much, denies so much, excludes so much and that after nearly fifty years the state of New York and the Department of Corrections still refuses to take responsibility for the massacre that occurred inside those walls.
Corner tower and part of wall facing Exchange Street, Attica Correctional Facility
I looked at the front door again and then up at the empty tower facing the parking lots and Exchange Street. I walked through the other lot and then across the long expanse of grass below the wall to two sprawling maples near Dunbar Street. I stood in the shade and faced the corner tower — also empty — and peered down the length of imposing gray concrete and three more evenly spaced towers. Above the walls of the fifty-five-acre prison, only the red roofs of cell blocks, the administration building, and maybe the mess hall were visible from where I stood. Leaves quivered in a passing breeze. Then, it was still again, and the air swelled with heat. I planned to walk past the front entrance and the marker all the way to the far corner tower, so I stepped back into the sunshine and started toward the parking lots.
Midway across the grass I looked up. In the central tower above the front entrance stood a broad-shouldered man wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and sunglasses. He watched me as I walked into the parking lot and hesitated near the marker. Then, an officer in a blue uniform walked out of the front door, across the narrow asphalt drive connecting the two parking lots, and directly toward me. “Can I help you?” he said as he stepped over the curb. “Can I help you?” he said again when I took a few steps toward him.
I explained that I was just looking around, had read some history of what happened here, and simply wanted to see the place for myself.
He pointed across the street at a white building with four arched windows. “The museum’s over there. They’ve got all kinds of stuff in there.” He looked at me. “You’re making him kinda nervous.” He tipped his head back in the direction of the man in the tower, who continued to look at me.
“Is the museum open? It looks pretty quiet,” I said. The small paved lot across the street was empty. Nothing moved around the building.
“The schedule’s in the window.” He clearly wanted me to leave.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll check.”
He turned and strode back to the door in the base of the tower. The man in the white shirt and sunglasses continued to look down at me.
I walked across the street and tried the museum’s front door. It was locked, and no schedule was posted in the windows. I stood in front of the building and looked back at the prison. I wore a red Nike t-shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers. The man in the tower hadn’t moved. His black sunglasses were still fixed on me, and I wondered what possible threat I could pose, what suspicions my attire and sixty-one-year-old face raised in his mind, what possible paranoia about the public’s knowledge of Attica and its history caused him to focus all of his attention on me and my every movement.
I walked back to the Jeep, got in, and drove to the exit. When I turned onto Exchange Street, I looked back at the tower one last time. The dark glasses above the white shirt followed me even as I drove away.
Ronald D. Werner (34 or 35), CO guard & US Air Force veteran
Before I left town, I pulled into Forest Hill Cemetery, less than a mile from the prison. I parked in the shade of a large tree and walked among the stones. Eventually I found the headstone marking the grave of Herbert W. Jones, Jr., a Vietnam vet and industrial account clerk at Attica; below his name is inscribed, “Taken from us by the incident of 1971.” In another part of the cemetery the stone marking the grave of Ronald D. Werner, a U.S. Air Force vet, said, “Lost his life in the incident of 1971.” Even the stone for William E. Quinn, the only employee who died as a result of injuries inflicted by inmates during the initial takeover, says, “Incident of 1971.” The families who chose the inscriptions understood that these men did not willingly give their lives in a riot. They, the eight other employees, and thirty-two inmates all died violent deaths because in Attica the vindictive, inhumane treatment inflicted on those incarcerated did not advance or accomplish the institution’s supposed goal — corrections.
William E. Quinn, 28, died of head injuries on Sat., 9-11-71
Instead, as so often happened and continues to happen, “corrections” and its current companion term “detention” are euphemisms meant to reassure us, the un-incarcerated, that these U.S. institutions — whether in New York, Arizona, Florida, or Texas — serve the public interest, that what the authorities do behind those walls and concertina wire is moral, ethical, humane, and necessary.
Just don’t get too close or look too hard or ask too many questions.
