Feds Open Attica Investigation | The Marshall Project

Although I do not remember the actual 1971 riots that took place at Attica, I do remember the aftermath. Growing up in the Buffalo area, it was in the news quite a bit up through the 80s.  I remember on weekends, taking road trips just to drive past the prison; just to see it. 

So I was a bit taken back when this headline came through my feed, "'I do not know of any prior inquiry by federal law enforcement at the prison,' said Effman."

The federal law enforcement inquiry was revealed by defense attorneys for the former officers who were allowed to avoid jail time in exchange for their guilty pleas and agreeing to resign their jobs at the prison. The former officers still face a multi-million dollar civil suit filed by George Williams, the former inmate whose injuries from the Aug. 11, 2011 beating included a broken shoulder, cracked ribs and two broken legs, one of which required doctors to insert a plate and six pins.

In a motion filed in federal court in Buffalo where the civil case is pending, an attorney for one of the guards, former Attica sergeant Sean Warner, asked a judge to delay depositions and discovery because of what she said was a Justice Department investigation into a “possible violation of inmate civil rights at Attica State Correctional Facility.” The defense attorney, Cheryl Meyers Buth, stated that she had been told by federal authorities that an assistant United States Attorney “had been assigned to the case and a criminal investigation has been opened.” Ms. Buth added that she had been told that “the criminal investigation arises from the same facts that are in dispute in this case,” and that the investigation was not “limited to the alleged assault on plaintiff George Williams.”

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Norman Effman, a veteran lawyer who has represented both inmates and officers at the prison since the late 1960s and who represents one of the four guards charged in the civil case, said that a federal investigation of Attica would be the first at a prison that became notorious after a 1971 inmate rebellion that cost 43 lives. After a four-day stand-off with prisoners, the prison was retaken by state troopers and correction officers whose bullets killed 10 employees who had been held hostage along with 29 inmates. Four others, including a guard, were killed during the riot.

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The March 2 guilty pleas by the three officers came on the eve of their trial on gang assault charges that could have cost them as much as 25 years in prison. The case was the first time that New York State correction guards had faced criminal indictment for a nonsexual assault on an inmate.

Feds Open Attica Investigation | The Marshall Project