PRISON REVOLT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 26 November 1927, Page 10

PRISON REVOLT

ATTEMPT TO RELEASE MEN A TERRIFIC STRUGGLE. 7 DEAD; 22 WOUNDED. New York, Nov. 24. A message from Sacramento eaya that an army of several hundreq men is mobilising outside the Folsom State prison for an organised assault on a barricaded position. Several leaders attempted to release 1200 prisoners, but their escape was frustrated within the walls, in a battle in which the assistant turnkey was killed and three guards seriously wounded. The leaders, armed with gyns aud knives, barricaded the doors of the main cell block and took a position of vantage in the hospital, directly after the entrance to the block where the 1200 prisoners are at large. A body of 250 National Guards and 100 police have left the city for the firison, where they will attack with ight field artillery, machine guns and grenades if the leaders refuse to surrender. Liter.—Sacramento reports state that seven men are now dead and 22 wounded in the Folsom State prison uprising, which to-night settled down iijto a bitter siege of the revolting convicts by over 500 militiamen, deputy sheriffs and other officers. Two guards and five convicts were killed, and 17 convicts, a police officer and a warden’s secretary wounded. , Warden Smith, who for a time was isolated in his office, which to leave he had to run the gauntlet of the marauding convicts, directed operations against the rioters over the telephones and finally succeeded in quitting the prison without being seen by the prisoners.—(A. :i>! N.Z.)