CONVICT ARMY SURRENDERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 212, 26 November 1927, Page 1

CONVICT ARMY SURRENDERS

BATTLE IN CALIFORNIAN PRISON NINE MEN DEAD, TWENTY-TWO INJURED NINE men were killed, and 22 were injured, in a battle between 1,200 convicts and State servants at a Californian prison. Machine-guns had to be used to quell the riot, and the prisoners finally surrendered under a grim threat of siege. By Cable. — Press Association. —Copyright

Reed. 9.5 a.m. SACRAMENTO, Friday. THE 1.200 mutinous convicts in the -*■ Folsom Prison who, at large in the building, defied the National Guardsmen and prison officials for 20 hours, surrendered peacefully and returned to their- cells, and the normal routine was resumed. The uprising, caused nine deaths. Twenty-two are injured, of whom one guard was killed, another died of a heart attack, and seven prisoners were slain by machine-gun fire. Five prison officials were wounded, and 17 convicts were struck bj r machine-gun bullets. The seven ringleaders of the outbreak were placed in solitary confinement. The convicts sent a messenger to the warder under a flag of truce asking for immunity. This was refused, but' he promised the rioters protection from beating at the hands of the guards. BATTLE WITHIN WALLS An earlier message said that an army of several hundred men gathered outside the State prison at Folsom City, and conducted an organised assault on the buildings, which were barricaded, in an attempt to set free the 1,200 prisoners confined inside. Tn

a battle which ensued within the walls of the prison, the attempts at escape were frustrated. The leaders of the revolt were armed with guns and knives. They barricaded the doors in the main block of cells and took up a position of vantage in the hospital, directly above the entrance to the block, where the 1.200 prisoners were at large. THREAT OF SIEGE Two hundred and fifty members of the National Guard, and 100 policemen, left the city for the prison, with the intention of attacking the rioters with light field artillery, machineguns. and hand grenades if the leaders refused to surrender By night-time the rioting had settled down into a bitter siege between the revolting convicts and more than 500 militiamen, deputy sheriffs, and other officers. Warder Smith was for a time Isolated in his office. In order to leave his office he had to run the gauntlet of the marauding convicts. This he did. and then directed the operations of the guard over the telephone. Finally he succeeded in escaping from the prison precincts without being seen by the prisoners.—A. and N.Z.