Atlanta Prison Riot Notes

Chapter 1: Introduction

In the 1980s, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary housed a diverse population, including:
- 1,800 Cubans fleeing Castro's regime.
- 400 hardened criminals.
- 200 individuals with mental illness.
In 1987, a bloody revolt occurred due to a treaty with Cuba to send detainees back.
1980: Fidel Castro allowed Cuban citizens to leave the country amid economic and political unrest.
Over $120,000$ undocumented refugees fled to Florida in five months.
Approximately $2,700$ were considered criminals or mentally ill under U.S. law.
The Attorney General directed the Bureau of Prisons to accommodate them.
$1,000$ Cuban refugees were sent to Oakdale, Louisiana, and nearly $1,400$ to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
For seven years, the U.S. and Cuban governments negotiated the return of these refugees.
November 20, 1987: A treaty with Cuba stipulated the return of over $2,700$ Cuban detainees.
Within 24 hours, detainees in Oakdale and Atlanta learned about the decision.
In Oakdale, $1,000$ detainees rioted, taking 28 guards hostage, while Atlanta remained initially quiet due to a trust between detainees and correctional officers.
Early Monday morning, prison employee Ted Meniere noticed an unusual silence.
Detainees in the Prison Industries Building overpowered guards and started fires.
Meniere and his supervisor were attacked in the furniture-making shop.
The riot spread rapidly, with rioters wearing makeshift masks.
Guards and factory workers were unarmed and outnumbered, facing homemade weapons.
Warden Petrovsky was alerted to the crisis.
The prison staff inside the walls did not carry weapons due to the inmates vastly outnumbering them.
Petrovsky alerted the FBI and the prison's regional director.
As fire spread, detainees forced guards and employees into a tool cage and locked it.
The riot spread throughout the penitentiary, with detainees capturing guards and releasing the regular prison population.
The detainees gained control of most central buildings.
The Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, built at the turn of the century, was the largest in the U.S., featuring a massive 40-foot wall, approximately three yards wide.
The penitentiary was built on 300 acres of land, with 28 acres inside the walls.
Warden Petrovsky attempted to determine the locations of his staff inside the complex, creating a list of possible hostages, using staff who logged employees they recognized in certain areas.

Chapter 2: Detainees Force Their Hostages

Ted Meniere and his colleagues were trapped in the Burning Industries Building within an equipment cage.
Rioters attempted to persuade Cuban detainees guarding the cage to release them, but the guards refused due to the raging fire.
The hostages were moved across the yard, in view of the towers, to escape the fire.
A tower guard shot and killed one of the hostage takers and wounded five others.
Guards and detainees ran for cover and were forced into a small room in the chapel.
FBI agents from the Atlanta field office arrived at the penitentiary less than an hour after the riots began, as the FBI has jurisdiction over criminal matters in all federal prisoners.
Warden Petrovsky briefed Weldon Kennedy, the special agent in charge, about the number of hostages and potential injuries.
Agent Leon Blakney led the Atlanta FBI SWAT team.
The lack of information about the areas controlled by inmates and the number of hostages created chaos.
Agents Kennedy and Blakney gathered intelligence from FBI agents outside the prison and prisoners inside who wanted no part of the riot.
Detainees compromised prison communications by taking the guards' radios, leading agents to switch to a secure frequency.
FBI negotiator, Special agent D. Rosario, opened a dialogue with the rioters.
The rioters made unreasonable demands and were emotionally charged due to the shooting death of a detainee.
The negotiator wanted to lower the rioters' emotional level.
Warden Petrosky received a call from 16 employees barricaded in Cell Block E. E Block housed the prison's most dangerous criminals.

Chapter 3: The Fbi Swat

If the detainees accessed Block E and freed the inmates, the lives of the 16 employees were at risk.
E Cell Block was also home to Thomas Silverstein, the prison system's most notorious inmate.
Silverstein was incarcerated in 1975 for bank robbery and later sentenced to multiple life terms for fatally stabbing an inmate and a prison guard.
Thomas Silverstein was cold and he was a killer.
Special agent Kennedy worked with the FBI SWAT team to rescue the guards in Cell Block E.
The SWAT team believed they could go over the wall, out of view of rioting detainees, and retrieve those people out of that building successfully.
The SWAT team needed ladders to scale the 40-foot-high wall.
Special agent Blakney called on the Atlanta fire department and a National Guard helicopter crew to assist.
Seven hours after the riot began, the FBI SWAT team launched a mission to rescue 16 prison employees.
FBI Special Agent Weldon Kennedy knew that if the rescue attempt was seen by rioting Cuban detainees, it could spell disaster.
After scaling the wall, the FBI SWAT team approached Cell Block E, home to the prison's most dangerous inmates.
SWAT rushed the prison employees out of the building.
Frustrated, they watched as their colleagues were escorted to safety.
The director of the Bureau of Prisons urged the FBI SWAT team to return for the hospital employees.
The SWAT personnel were informed that there was a 100% probability that they would be detected going over the wall to try to affect the rescue of the hospital people.
Prison employee Ted Meniere was being held inside a room in the prison's chapel.
On day two of the standoff, FBI tactical commander Danny Coulson arrived at the prison.
Coulson started the FBI's hostage rescue team, an elite counter-terrorism group in 1982.
The HRT is law enforcement's equivalent to the Navy SEALs of the Army's Delta Force.

Chapter 4: Prison Employees

The only unit in The United States that has a sophisticated explosive or thermal breaching capability is the FBI's hostage rescue team.
The posse comatatus law prevents the military from being Barring approval from the White House, the FBI must rely solely on civilian law enforcement.
Weldon Kennedy assembled over 400 SWAT members at the prison.
The negotiators needed a different approach.
Rosario asked prison employees which detainees command the on five or six men and called them by name.
They invited them to come over to their side and sit down at a table with them and talk with them.
The detainees agreed to talk with negotiators.
The number one demand that they had was that ultimately the immigration and naturalization service conduct individual hearings for each and every one of them to remain in The United States.
Rosario agreed to pass the request on to the Department of Justice.
Negotiations were progressing slowly.
In the prison hospital, 27 trapped employees were running out of time.
Detainees were trying to break down the door of the hospital with a battery.
The employees called Warden Petrovsky in the command center.
Warden Petrovsky relayed the information to Weldon Kennedy.
Weldon Kennedy asked HRT commander Danny Coulson for a second assessment.
Coulson's biggest concern was that the detainees were watching news coverage of the riots and that they would then start escaping the hostages if they thought they were going to retake the prison.
Kennedy decided the rescue was too risky.
For two days, a riot raged at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
Dozens of Cuban detainees now controlled the prison.
Kennedy decided not to launch a rescue mission.
Two hours after the decision, communication was lost with the employees in the prison hospital.
Anxiety mounted as the fate of the hospital employees remained uncertain, with Kennedy fearing he had signed their death warrant.
A group of detainees was dragging acetylene tanks into a basement where they could access the prison's utility tunnels.
Danny Colson was the FBI's tactical commander of the scene.
Colson and the FBI SWAT team prepared to go down into the tunnels.

Chapter 5: Control Of Prison

The tunnels were designed for utilities and ventilation.
Colson and SWAT team leader Leon Blakney had no idea what they would encounter once they were inside.
Once the SWAT team got into the tunnels, they discovered then that in fact the Cubans were in there.
The SWAT team was unable to find the acetylene tanks in the vast underground system.
But they were convinced the detainees were exploring the tunnels for a possible escape route.
They decided the tunnel system was a real threat to the successful resolution of the crisis.
On day three of the standoff, Danny Colson received intelligence from agents with high-powered binoculars positioned around the prison: The detainees have moved nearly all the hostages to a building known as the American Dorm.
Outside the prison, crowds gathered.
A single reporter and a simple error threatened to bring the standoff to a violent end.
The detainees saw the media report and took immediate action.
They brought several hostages out to the yard. And for benefit of the cameras so we could see them, they brought these hostages out and they poured gasoline over them.
The erroneous media report made special agent D. Rosario's job even tougher as he negotiated for the lives of the hostages.
After three tense hours, the rioters agreed to continue negotiations and spare the hostages.
At the end of day three, he obtained presidential approval to deploy Delta Force in a civilian crisis.
The special operations team arrived in Atlanta disguised as FBI agents.
There were three things that desperately needed do.
The second thing I wanted was their sniper capability.
The other thing is they have tremendous medical capability.
Delta Force set up surveillance cameras all over the complex to track the movement of the detainees.
Coulson and Blakney went back into the tunnels underneath prison.
One of the tunnels leads to the prison's electrical room. It's located right outside the American dorm where most of the hostages are held.

Chapter 6: Detainees Released Their Hostages

With the FBI SWAT teams and Delta Force in place, they will be in a better position to protect the hostages if negotiations break down.
On day eight of the crisis, prison guards stationed in the tunnel hear the sound of a drill.
One guard recognizes the voice of Thomas Silverstein, the most vicious inmate in the federal prison system.
Weldon Kennedy asked Danny Colson to go back into the tunnels to apprehend Silverstein.
Looking further into the tunnel, he can see water fills it to the ceiling.
Still, Coulson knows that Silverstein is as dangerous inside the prison as he is on the outside.
FBI negotiator, Dee Rosario, must convince the detainees to turn him over.
A short time later, a large group of detainees appeared at the Sally Port gate of the main cell block.
So they gained access to the pharmacy.
The FBI viewed Silverstein's capture as an act of good faith.
On December 1, a separate riot at Louisiana's Oakdale Penitentiary was resolved.
The Cuban detainees incarcerated at Oakdale agreed to release their hostages if the INS will review their cases.
It was a straightforward request for fairness and humane treatment.
D. Rosario offered the Atlanta Detainees the same deal.
Audio surveillance reveals the rioters think the FBI will not use deadly force to remove them from the prison.
The rioters agree to the terms of the surrender.
On day 12 of the stand standoff, the Cuban detainees released their hostages.

Chapter 7: Conclusion

After twelve intense days, the Atlanta prison riot is over.
After the riots, all detainees are granted an INS hearing.
Some are released.
Others with criminal records or mental illnesses are detained.