Rick Harcrow - Inside the Attica Prison Riot: What Really Happened | Part 1
About this episode
Rick Harcrow shares insights from his 37 years as a correctional officer, focusing on the Attica Prison Riot and its aftermath.
Rick Harcrow spent 37 years as a correctional officer in the New York State prison system — 30 of them at Attica Correctional Facility. He wasn't there on September 9, 1971, when the riot began. But he worked with the men who were. He heard their stories, sat with their families, and spent three decades living in the shadow of the deadliest prison riot in American history. This is what he knows. The Attica Prison Riot lasted four days. When it ended, 43 people were dead — seven of them correctional officers. What's less understood is that 39 of those 43 died not during the riot itself, but during the state's retaking of the facility four days later. Approximately 1,500 rounds were fired into a 100-by-100-yard yard packed with hundreds of people, hostages included. A judge later ruled it excessive force. Rick walks through the conditions that made it inevitable: 2,200 inmates crammed into a prison built for 1,200, one roll of toilet paper a month, and a bureaucracy that refused to hear its own officers. He covers the warning signs — multiple supervisors went to the superintendent weeks before the riot and told him it was coming. He refused to act. On the morning of September 9th…
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