Marin County courthouse incident
Encyclopedia
The Marin County courthouse incident was an event which occurred on August 7, 1970, when African American radical Jonathan Jackson attempted to negotiate the freedom of the Soledad Brothers
(which included his older brother George
) by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley
from the Marin County Civic Center
in San Rafael
, California
. The resulting shootout left four men dead, including both Jackson and Judge Haley. Two others were wounded.
The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis
, an ousted assistant professor from UCLA who owned some of the weapons used in the breakout.
who had been convicted in 1963 for robbery, began circulating a petition to file a lawsuit against the prison's superintendent, Cletus J. Fitzharris, charging that guards and officials at the facility knew of "existing social and racial conflicts" and that they had been seeking to excite them through "direct harassment and in ways not actionable in court," including the filing of false disciplinary reports and intentionally leaving black inmates cells unlocked to put them in danger of assault.
He stated further that officials were "willfully creating and maintaining situations that creates and poses dangers [sic] to the plaintiff [himself]" and that he "feared for his life."
According to Ellsworth Ferguson, an administrative assistant to Fitzharris at the time, a fight began during a scheduled exercise period for fifteen inmates from the maximum security wing of the prison. During the conflict, two white inmates among the group were beaten to the ground and Miller was reportedly "fearful that several might be seriously hurt or killed." Officials later stated that it was "surmised" that the fight was racial in nature.
Officer Miller, an expert marksman
, shouted and blew a whistle but gave no warning shot before firing on Nolen, Edwards and Alvin Miller. White inmate Billy D. Harris, then twenty-three, who was serving time for assault and perjury, was injured and lost a testicle, but did not die.
According to statements made by inmates, there had been an intentional mixing of white prisoners who were known racists and black prisoners in the yard and that some manner of fight had been anticipated. The congregation of the fifteen men in the prison yard had been the first integrated exercise period in several months. The death of a black inmate, Clarence Causey, who had been stabbed to death in 1968 had left racial tensions running high, and for several months prior to January 13, inmates had only been allowed exercise in the yard one at a time.
Furthermore, inmates claimed that the guards had intentionally barred them from taking the wounded prisoners to the hospital, allowing the three shooting victims to bleed out for nearly twenty minutes before they were finally taken to receive medical aid. Thomas Meneweather, a black inmate who was present for the shootings and reportedly attempted to carry Alvin Miller inside, stated, "I started to walk toward the door through which we had entered the yard but the tower guard pointed the gun at me and shook his head. Then I started forward with tears in my eyes, expecting to be shot down every minute, but the tower guard told me, 'That's far enough.'"
The next day, thirteen African American inmates housed in the prison began a hunger strike, demanding a federal investigation of Officer Miller's actions, in addition to requesting segregated facilities and "psychiatric examinations by a black psychiatrist for all gun tower guards."
Opie Miller was acquitted of the deaths of prisoners a few days later by an all white Monterey County grand jury
. None of the black inmates present for the shootings were asked to testify.
Three African American
inmates were charged with this retaliatory murder and were transferred to San Quentin to await trial.
The three defendants: Fleeta Drumgo, John Clutchette and George Jackson
, eventually came to be known as the "Soledad Brothers."
Jackson was known at the time to be a political activist and writer, and he and Nolen had worked together in 1966 to found the prison gang the Black Guerrilla Family
, a revolutionary African-American Marxist group targeting what it believed to be the white racist infrastructure of the prison system.
On March 16, 1970, white guards William Monagan and Wallace Coffman were held hostage for approximately forty five minutes by five inmates before tear gas was deployed to free them. The incident was reported
On July 23, 1970, another white guard, William H. Shull, age forty, was found stabbed to death in a shed for exercise equipment. Forty different wounds were found on his body. Six days later, the body of a white convicted robber, Roy William Turner, aged twenty two, was found shoved under his prison cell cot.
Angela Davis
into the Marin County
Hall of Justice, where Judge Haley was presiding over the trial of San Quentin inmate James McClain, who was accused of stabbing a prison guard while serving a sentence for burglary.
Jackson sat among the spectators for a few minutes before opening his satchel, drawing a pistol and throwing it to McClain. He then produced a carbine
from his raincoat as McClain held the pistol against Judge Haley's head. Jackson was reported as saying "Freeze. Just Freeze. We don't intend to hurt anybody." He then told court officials, attorneys and jurors to lie on the floor while another San Quentin inmate, Ruchell Magee, who was to have witnessed at McClain's trial, went to free three other testifying prisoners from their holding cell. A couple with a baby was also ordered into Judge Haley's chambers.
After being freed by McGee, a fourth man, William A. Christmas joined the other three kidnappers. Haley was forced at gunpoint to call the sheriff Louis P. Montarnos, in the hopes of convincing the police to refrain from intervening. Road flares, which were used to simulate sticks of dynamite, were held against his neck before being replaced with a sawed-off shotgun
which was fastened under his chin with adhesive tape. The kidnappers, after some debate, then secured four other hostages whom they bound with piano wire: Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas and jurors Maria Elena Graham, Doris Whitmer, and Joyce Rodoni.
The four kidnappers and five hostages then moved into the corridor of the courthouse, which at this point had become crowded with responding police who had been summoned by bailiff. No action was taken against them at this point.
Around this time, Jim Kean, a photographer for the San Rafael Independent Journal
arrived at the building after he had heard news of the incident from police radio in his car. He stepped off an elevator directly adjacent to the hostages and kidnappers, and was reportedly told by one of them "You take all the pictures you want. We are the revolutionaries." Kean and his colleague Roger Bockrath took a series of photographs of the group, apparently after some brief discussion as to whether the two journalists should be added to the ranks of the hostages.
The group then entered the elevator, informing the police that "[they wanted] the Soledad brothers freed by 12:30 today." Upon exiting the building there was a brief burst of gunfire, which one of the female hostages claimed was initiated by the police with the kidnappers returning fire. The kidnappers then forced the hostages into a rented Ford panel truck which they began to drive towards an exit leading to the U.S. 101 freeway. According to Black Panther party member, Kiilu Nyasha, "The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers."
The police had set up a road block outside of the civic center in anticipation of the group, and according to the majority of eyewitnesses, began to open fire on the van. A shootout resulted, in which Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed and McGee was seriously injured. Haley was also slain from the discharge of the shotgun. Thomas was seriously wounded in his back, leaving him wheelchair bound, and Graham suffered a wound to her arm.
to conspiracy
, kidnapping
, and homicide
. In 1972, she was tried and found not guilty on all counts.
Ruchell Magee pled guilty to the charge of aggravated kidnapping for his part in the assault. He later attempted unsuccessfully to withdraw his plea, and was sentenced in 1975 to life in prison. He is currently imprisoned in Corcoran State Prison and has lost numerous bids for parole.
On October 8, 1970, the Marin County Courthouse was bombed. A group known as the Weatherman (organization)
later claimed responsibility for the action, which was carried out in retaliation for the killing of Jackson and the other abductors.
In 1971, three days before he was to go on trial for the Mills' murder, George Jackson was shot in the prison yard of San Quentin during a riotous escape attempt
. Officials claim that Jackson had smuggled a 9 mm pistol into the prison and he and nearly two dozen other prisoners were attempting to escape. During the conflict, three corrections officers and two other inmates were killed. Six of the inmates (known as the San Quentin Six) were later tried for their participation.
Susie Edwards, Perry and Sadie Miller and O. C. and Addie Nolen; the parents of Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W. L. Nolen, respectively, eventually filed a $1.2 million dollar damage suit against Opie G. Miller for the deaths of their children.
Soledad Brothers
The Soledad Brothers were an American garage rock trio from Maumee, Ohio. Taking strong influence from blues rock, the band consisted of Ben Swank on drums, Johnny Walker on guitar and vocals, and Oliver Henry on sax and guitar...
(which included his older brother George
George Jackson (Black Panther)
George Lester Jackson was an American convict who became a left-wing activist, Marxist, author, a member of the Black Panther Party, and co-founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang...
) by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley
Harold Haley
Harold Joseph Haley was a Superior Court judge in Marin County, California. He was taken hostage in his courtroom, along with several others, during the course of a trial, and killed during the attempted escape of his captors with their hostages.-Background:Harold Haley, the only son of Mr. and...
from the Marin County Civic Center
Marin County Civic Center
Marin County Civic Center, the last commission by Frank Lloyd Wright, is located in San Rafael, California. Groundbreaking for the Civic Center Administration Building took place in 1960, after Wright's death and under the watch of Wright's protégé, Aaron Green, and was completed in 1962. The...
in San Rafael
San Rafael, California
San Rafael is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The resulting shootout left four men dead, including both Jackson and Judge Haley. Two others were wounded.
The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
, an ousted assistant professor from UCLA who owned some of the weapons used in the breakout.
Petition by W. L. Nolen
In the summer of 1969, W. L. Nolen, a twenty year old inmate at Soledad prisonCorrectional Training Facility
Correctional Training Facility is a state prison located on U.S. Highway 101, north of Soledad, California. Randy Grounds is the current Warden of the prison.-Facilities:...
who had been convicted in 1963 for robbery, began circulating a petition to file a lawsuit against the prison's superintendent, Cletus J. Fitzharris, charging that guards and officials at the facility knew of "existing social and racial conflicts" and that they had been seeking to excite them through "direct harassment and in ways not actionable in court," including the filing of false disciplinary reports and intentionally leaving black inmates cells unlocked to put them in danger of assault.
He stated further that officials were "willfully creating and maintaining situations that creates and poses dangers [sic] to the plaintiff [himself]" and that he "feared for his life."
Shootings on January 13, 1970
On January 13, 1970, three African American prisoners were shot dead at Soledad by white corrections officer Opie G. Miller. Nolen was among the slain, along with Cleveland Edwards, then twenty one, who had been convicted in 1967 for assaulting a police offer; and Alvin Miller, then twenty three, who had been convicted of robbery.According to Ellsworth Ferguson, an administrative assistant to Fitzharris at the time, a fight began during a scheduled exercise period for fifteen inmates from the maximum security wing of the prison. During the conflict, two white inmates among the group were beaten to the ground and Miller was reportedly "fearful that several might be seriously hurt or killed." Officials later stated that it was "surmised" that the fight was racial in nature.
Officer Miller, an expert marksman
Marksman
A marksman is a person who is skilled in precision, or a sharpshooter shooting, using projectile weapons, such as with a rifle but most commonly with a sniper rifle, to shoot at long range targets...
, shouted and blew a whistle but gave no warning shot before firing on Nolen, Edwards and Alvin Miller. White inmate Billy D. Harris, then twenty-three, who was serving time for assault and perjury, was injured and lost a testicle, but did not die.
According to statements made by inmates, there had been an intentional mixing of white prisoners who were known racists and black prisoners in the yard and that some manner of fight had been anticipated. The congregation of the fifteen men in the prison yard had been the first integrated exercise period in several months. The death of a black inmate, Clarence Causey, who had been stabbed to death in 1968 had left racial tensions running high, and for several months prior to January 13, inmates had only been allowed exercise in the yard one at a time.
Furthermore, inmates claimed that the guards had intentionally barred them from taking the wounded prisoners to the hospital, allowing the three shooting victims to bleed out for nearly twenty minutes before they were finally taken to receive medical aid. Thomas Meneweather, a black inmate who was present for the shootings and reportedly attempted to carry Alvin Miller inside, stated, "I started to walk toward the door through which we had entered the yard but the tower guard pointed the gun at me and shook his head. Then I started forward with tears in my eyes, expecting to be shot down every minute, but the tower guard told me, 'That's far enough.'"
The next day, thirteen African American inmates housed in the prison began a hunger strike, demanding a federal investigation of Officer Miller's actions, in addition to requesting segregated facilities and "psychiatric examinations by a black psychiatrist for all gun tower guards."
Opie Miller was acquitted of the deaths of prisoners a few days later by an all white Monterey County grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...
. None of the black inmates present for the shootings were asked to testify.
Murder of John Vincent Mills
On January 17, 1970, three days after the shootings, prison guard John Vincent Mills, then twenty six, was beaten, dragged up three flights of stairs and tossed to his death. A note found beside his body read "One down, two to go."Three African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
inmates were charged with this retaliatory murder and were transferred to San Quentin to await trial.
The three defendants: Fleeta Drumgo, John Clutchette and George Jackson
George Jackson
- People :* George Jackson , American MLB player from 1911–1913* George Jackson , U.S. Black Panther, prisoner, and author* George Jackson , English botanist...
, eventually came to be known as the "Soledad Brothers."
Jackson was known at the time to be a political activist and writer, and he and Nolen had worked together in 1966 to found the prison gang the Black Guerrilla Family
Black Guerrilla Family
The Black Guerrilla Family is a prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson and W.L...
, a revolutionary African-American Marxist group targeting what it believed to be the white racist infrastructure of the prison system.
Escalating Racial Violence
Following the January 13th shootings and the death of John Mills, racial tensions grew increasingly violent at Soledad.On March 16, 1970, white guards William Monagan and Wallace Coffman were held hostage for approximately forty five minutes by five inmates before tear gas was deployed to free them. The incident was reported
On July 23, 1970, another white guard, William H. Shull, age forty, was found stabbed to death in a shed for exercise equipment. Forty different wounds were found on his body. Six days later, the body of a white convicted robber, Roy William Turner, aged twenty two, was found shoved under his prison cell cot.
Events of August 7th, 1970
On August 7, 1970, Jonathan Jackson brought three guns registered to political activist and former UCLA professorProfessor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
Angela Davis
Angela Davis
Angela Davis is an American political activist, scholar, and author. Davis was most politically active during the late 1960s through the 1970s and was associated with the Communist Party USA, the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Panther Party...
into the Marin County
Marin County, California
Marin County is a county located in the North San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. As of 2010, the population was 252,409. The county seat is San Rafael and the largest employer is the county government. Marin County is well...
Hall of Justice, where Judge Haley was presiding over the trial of San Quentin inmate James McClain, who was accused of stabbing a prison guard while serving a sentence for burglary.
Jackson sat among the spectators for a few minutes before opening his satchel, drawing a pistol and throwing it to McClain. He then produced a carbine
Carbine
A carbine , from French carabine, is a longarm similar to but shorter than a rifle or musket. Many carbines are shortened versions of full rifles, firing the same ammunition at a lower velocity due to a shorter barrel length....
from his raincoat as McClain held the pistol against Judge Haley's head. Jackson was reported as saying "Freeze. Just Freeze. We don't intend to hurt anybody." He then told court officials, attorneys and jurors to lie on the floor while another San Quentin inmate, Ruchell Magee, who was to have witnessed at McClain's trial, went to free three other testifying prisoners from their holding cell. A couple with a baby was also ordered into Judge Haley's chambers.
After being freed by McGee, a fourth man, William A. Christmas joined the other three kidnappers. Haley was forced at gunpoint to call the sheriff Louis P. Montarnos, in the hopes of convincing the police to refrain from intervening. Road flares, which were used to simulate sticks of dynamite, were held against his neck before being replaced with a sawed-off shotgun
Sawed-off shotgun
A sawed-off shotgun also called a sawn-off shotgun and a short-barreled shotgun , is a type of shotgun with a shorter gun barrel and often a shorter or absent stock....
which was fastened under his chin with adhesive tape. The kidnappers, after some debate, then secured four other hostages whom they bound with piano wire: Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas and jurors Maria Elena Graham, Doris Whitmer, and Joyce Rodoni.
The four kidnappers and five hostages then moved into the corridor of the courthouse, which at this point had become crowded with responding police who had been summoned by bailiff. No action was taken against them at this point.
Around this time, Jim Kean, a photographer for the San Rafael Independent Journal
Marin Independent Journal
The Marin Independent Journal is the main newspaper of Marin County, California. The paper is owned by California Newspapers Partnership which is in turn mostly owned by MediaNews Group.-History:...
arrived at the building after he had heard news of the incident from police radio in his car. He stepped off an elevator directly adjacent to the hostages and kidnappers, and was reportedly told by one of them "You take all the pictures you want. We are the revolutionaries." Kean and his colleague Roger Bockrath took a series of photographs of the group, apparently after some brief discussion as to whether the two journalists should be added to the ranks of the hostages.
The group then entered the elevator, informing the police that "[they wanted] the Soledad brothers freed by 12:30 today." Upon exiting the building there was a brief burst of gunfire, which one of the female hostages claimed was initiated by the police with the kidnappers returning fire. The kidnappers then forced the hostages into a rented Ford panel truck which they began to drive towards an exit leading to the U.S. 101 freeway. According to Black Panther party member, Kiilu Nyasha, "The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers."
The police had set up a road block outside of the civic center in anticipation of the group, and according to the majority of eyewitnesses, began to open fire on the van. A shootout resulted, in which Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed and McGee was seriously injured. Haley was also slain from the discharge of the shotgun. Thomas was seriously wounded in his back, leaving him wheelchair bound, and Graham suffered a wound to her arm.
Aftermath
Following the events of August 7, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Angela Davis, to whom the guns used in the incident were registered. After evading authorities for over two months, Davis was arrested in New York City. She was then charged as an accompliceAccomplice
At law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. For example, in a bank robbery, the person who points the gun at the teller and asks for the money is guilty of armed robbery...
to conspiracy
Conspiracy (crime)
In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
, kidnapping
Kidnapping
In criminal law, kidnapping is the taking away or transportation of a person against that person's will, usually to hold the person in false imprisonment, a confinement without legal authority...
, and homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
. In 1972, she was tried and found not guilty on all counts.
Ruchell Magee pled guilty to the charge of aggravated kidnapping for his part in the assault. He later attempted unsuccessfully to withdraw his plea, and was sentenced in 1975 to life in prison. He is currently imprisoned in Corcoran State Prison and has lost numerous bids for parole.
On October 8, 1970, the Marin County Courthouse was bombed. A group known as the Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman (organization)
Weatherman, known colloquially as the Weathermen and later the Weather Underground Organization , was an American radical left organization. It originated in 1969 as a faction of Students for a Democratic Society composed for the most part of the national office leadership of SDS and their...
later claimed responsibility for the action, which was carried out in retaliation for the killing of Jackson and the other abductors.
In 1971, three days before he was to go on trial for the Mills' murder, George Jackson was shot in the prison yard of San Quentin during a riotous escape attempt
San Quentin Six
The San Quentin Six were a group of six inmates at San Quentin State Prison in California who were accused of participating in an August 21, 1971 escape attempt that left six people dead, including George Jackson, founder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang...
. Officials claim that Jackson had smuggled a 9 mm pistol into the prison and he and nearly two dozen other prisoners were attempting to escape. During the conflict, three corrections officers and two other inmates were killed. Six of the inmates (known as the San Quentin Six) were later tried for their participation.
Susie Edwards, Perry and Sadie Miller and O. C. and Addie Nolen; the parents of Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W. L. Nolen, respectively, eventually filed a $1.2 million dollar damage suit against Opie G. Miller for the deaths of their children.
See also
- Black August (film)Black August (film)Black August is a 2007 drama film produced by Tcinque Sampson and directed by Samm Styles. The film centers around the story of George Jackson's life.-Plot:...
- Black Panther PartyBlack Panther PartyThe Black Panther Party wasan African-American revolutionary leftist organization. It was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982....
- Black Guerrilla FamilyBlack Guerrilla FamilyThe Black Guerrilla Family is a prison and street gang founded in 1966 by George Jackson and W.L...
- Prison reformPrison reformPrison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, aiming at a more effective penal system.-History:Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last couple of centuries...