Lucasville Legacy

welcome to Ohio State I'm Karen Castler 30 years ago this week one of the longest prison riots in US history finally ended after 11 days. 400 inmates from three gangs at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville held that prison for nearly two weeks. and when The Siege ended with one guard and nine inmates dead, House correspondent Joe Engles takes a look at the riot and its lasting impact. No, I thought I was going to die, I mean it's that simple, there were quite a few times throughout. in RI that there were situations and developments that were happening and I thought I wouldn't understand it.

It really took a long time for Dawn to see us. I am all of us. I would say this is a large-scale R problem that began on Easter Sunday, when simmering tensions erupted over a new director with new rules. Tuberculosis tests containing alcohol, which led to severe overcrowding for Muslim inmates. You know, we probably had twice the capacity of a maximum security prison. The way it was built was more of a medium. security uh physical plant that a maximum security uh there was too much movement for people who were at that high risk Jimi was a reporter for the television station WHIO in Dayton because everything that came before the Lucasville riot was like a CAG of gunpowder with so much pressure and it only took a spark to activate it Mike Hensley hid in a staircase but was taken hostage by prisoners as was guard Daryl Clark there is no date that won't be met I don't think about this I mean there is no there is no way that a person might want to kill someone, but simply couldn't decide which one the rioter also took other prisoners hostage.

During the 11-day siege, nine inmates and one guard were killed. I can inform you that everyone is here. I can inform you that the body of a sixth inmate has been recovered. We haven't notified Ken. I'm going crazy. You know you have a brother down there and what's going on. And now those were some difficult days. Jackie Bower. Brother George Skates was one of the inmates inside. He had been sent to Lucasville for a murder in 1982. Skates was one of the so-called Lucasville 5. The leaders of the ring. Skates served as a spokesperson for the inmates in a broadcast that aired during the riot from a local radio station because we're not going to bow down, we're not going to give up, we're going to stay no matter what they put at us, if we die, we'll die while state leaders were handling unrest from Columbus' current governor, Mike Dwine.

He was then Governor George Voinovich as lieutenant governor and served as a point person during the ordeal. You know it's a unique situation because when you look at it from a communication standpoint, the prisoners you know were listening to the radio that the prisoners were receiving. TV and everything that was released, you know they got it and then you know very quickly this turns into a hostage negotiation and the goal, the main goal, really the goal was to save lives and, you know, able to protect lives. Of all those who were there as the riots raged on, members of the National Guard were brought in to join state troopers and other law enforcement.

Yes, they spent, you know, 16 hours a day, although as the mutiny became larger in terms of number of days the prisoners actually established a schedule um and so as at 6 o'clock they no longer negotiated, they ended up by the day um and it was kind of interesting to see them get into a pattern The FBI had some very sophisticated listening equipment that they had drilled into the floor of the room from where they were doing the negotiations so that we could hear what was being said when they weren't negotiating and even after the correctional officer. Bobby Valandingham was strangled by inmates and his body was dumped in the playground.

Storming the prison was not something that state leaders were willing to do, there was tremendous pressure, as you remember, to storm the prison and particularly after the Landingham officer died, you know, you can imagine people not only in the community, but across the state, they were demanding you know we came in and you know the governor, to his credit, resisted that and stayed focused on how to protect lives, how can we save the most lives? I think if you look at other examples where there is a prison break-in, those are very high-risk situations in terms of the death of hostage journalists from around the country.

The prison joined those who had been camped there from the beginning and under pressure from their media they were frantic looking for updates to report because not much information was coming from official sources, we tried, we tried and we tried, we tried to get everything we could we could see. from different angles John Remy, former wtvn radio reporter in Columbus, found an unusual angle. I climbed a tree one afternoon for the 3:00 news and people laugh at me oh Remy, what are you doing up there? And I got up and started. I could see the penitentiary grounds and I was starting to get a better view of things and suddenly I wasn't so crazy and there were people trying the same thing, people in the neighborhood, nearby. and away they started to come and tell us what they had heard through the grapevine of what was going on inside the prison through the Correctional Officers that were going to work um a lot of it wasn't true there were rumors a lot of rumors in the media The blackout helped fuel an inflated number of prisoner deaths.

Terrible stories of torture and other false reports. The attorney negotiating for the inmates said they believed the state had planted the stories in retrospect. Dwine suggested that the Department of Prisons should have given the media more careful information, so I think. You probably know that having the director out there, maybe even having the director out there, talking to the press every day, they still would have been extremely careful about what they said, but that probably would have put some of the rumors to bed after 11 longs. The days of negotiations bore fruit. The inmates surrendered in a 7-hour long live broadcast on a Cincinnati area television station.

A few days later, reporters began inspecting the damage inside. I was the reporter for the television group. Me and a photographer we can imagine anything. Everything that wasn't bolted down was thrown out of every cell and piled up in the common areas. Everything was destroyed. Radios and televisions. Those were broken. Everyone's personal belongings. His books and photos. Family albums were scattered everywhere. I remember walking down a street. hallway and seeing writing on it it could have been paint and it could have been blood in large letters convict unit and a chill ran through me the riot in some ways was a wake up call not only for the Department of Corrections but for the leaders of the state of Ohio .

Let's just say the lessons learned here three decades ago in Lucasville are still having an impact on Ohio's prison system. Probably the most important thing that happened after the riot was a reconstruction of the cell blocks, for example the correctional officers' station. was among the inmates before, we built new closed stations, you know, for them, with escape hatches, you know, following, they could climb through the roof to escape if there was a disturbance, we had new rules regarding movement and classification . of people Cynthia Davis is now the director of Lucasville, says there are no longer double bunks in the cells and says there is now a focus on programs that recognize that of the 21,000 incarcerated people who leave Ohio prisons each year, about two dozen of them leave Lucasville each year. month we have recovery service programs we have Sinclair College has been implemented here we do the GED programs we do decision points just cognitive behavioral programming you know to help individuals deal with some of their thinking inmates have painted murals in the corner of reading area where young children visit their relatives and, unlike 1993, when inmates could make a phone call to their relatives at Christmas, they can now make those calls more frequently.

In March alone, there were 300,000 calls from the facility and inmates painted a hallway. Honoring veterans who have served in various capacities in various conflicts this year, a brief ceremony was held in Lucasville to mark the 30th anniversary of the riots and a wreath was laid in honor of slain prison guard Robert Van Landingham , his friend Daryl Logan. he was one of the prison guards and was on the SWAT team during the riot. He is preparing to retire soon. He says the prison is safer now and believes inmates are being treated better. They are human beings. I mean, they just are.

Like us, they simply made a mistake and are behind bars and we are not, and inmates convicted of being involved in a riot are serving extra time or have been sent to death, including Skates, who was convicted of three murders related to Riot. his sister maintains that he is innocent and continues to fight for his freedom it hurts me to think that I will never be able to go anywhere with my brother again you know how we were when we were young or something and then he has to die for someone Otherwise, you know, The riot in some ways was a wake up call not only for the Department of Cor but for the state of Ohio and the guards hope that wake up call is put into practice that way we don't relive the tragedy.

In my opinion, death and destruction no more, um, no, it just doesn't affect the staff, it affects their families, it affects the community, it affects everyone. Joe Engles State House News Office.