HUGE PRISON RIOT

Hokitika Guardian, 7 November 1932, Page 5

HUGE PRISON RIOT

BUILDINGS FIRED

PRISONERS STAB GUARDS.

(United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) •

MONTREAL, Ncv. 5,

Three guards were injured when a rebellion, accompanied by a broke out at St. Vincent de Paul ;Reniten-. tiary on Lie Jesus in the St. Lawrence River, nine miles from here,., to-day. A negro named Crossley led four others in an attack on the three guards in the tailors’ shop. Knives and clubs,, obtained in a mysterious fashion, were used.

The ■ guards,. Aube, Forest and) Jaques, were injured when they wore rushed, and they also ‘ suffered severe burns when, after attacking the guards, the prisoners set the warehouse afire. It was destroyed. A concerted effort to escape from the gaol was quelled when the guards eventually succeeded in getting all the prisoners in the cells. Moils, than IOGO are in the prison. .Several prisoners suffered burns, and one cblivict Wat rescued in an Unconscious state hy ift fireman, from a cell on the tapper floor of the burning Workshop. A sweeping inquiry will be made immediately into the riot, which left nine of the guards stabbe I or burned.

Four of the convicts were injured, and a large workshop, valued at half a million dolllaTs, was totally destroyed by fire. No lives were lost. The condition of Crossley, who stabbed himself when the outbreak failed, is critical. The indications are that the affair was a carefully premeditated prisonbreak, which would have let loose hundreds pf convicts to pour into the city of Montreal, fifteen miles away*. The failure ,of eighty men outside the prison to .see the negro Crossley,’s signal, and the quick .action of the prison guards are believed to have saved the situation.

The trouble flared up first in the tailoring shop,, whjem, it is wnjlerstood the negro, Crossley, threw gasoline on a pale of waste, .and fired it. The prison guards diasbed over pud they were set upon by thirty mei. who had armed themselves with knives and hammers.

Major Emil Jacques, the head of the tailoring department, was crowded into a corner, and was tossed into the flames, but lie was rescued when the guards poured! into the building.

Guard Aubfe was stabbed in the neck.

The flaiiies spread rapidly, and the convicts slashed the hose that was brought In by the guards.

The combatants milled about, hut tne guards, aided by the smoke, assumed! command, they ushering hundreds of the convicts out of the building to their cells in the main penitentiary.

Thirty of the convicts were trapped on the fourth floor. They were now thoroughly frightened, and they Were rescued by the firemen, who used a hack-saw to cut through the bars.

Crossley had fled to a cupboard where he stabbed himself and he was saved by the firemen training a hose on him until they cut through to his rescue.

The riot was then definitely over.