![]() This is not a riot, it’s a revolution.” The inmates then pulled the reporter inside and frisked him for weapons. One held a snubnosed revolved to the guard’s head.” Īddressing Claiborne through the peephole, one of the inmates said, “We want you to understand one thing very clearly. There we faced another steel door with a small peephole, through which we could see a number of inmates. We then entered a small alcove and the steel door shut behind us. As he described in the next day’s Post, “We walked to a steel door off the visitors’ rotunda that rises to the full four-story height of the jail. They freed 50 other inmates and took control of the cellblock, capturing several other guards as hostages in the process.Ĭlaiborne agreed to go inside the jail with Hardy. When two correctional officers came to check on him, the cellmate produced a loaded. Between 1 and 2 am, an inmate in Cellblock 1 pretended to have a seizure. When he got there, Hardy shared the details about what had transpired. He hopped inside and the car took off for the jail, lights flashing and sirens blaring. Within 10 minutes, a police squad car pulled up in front of his home in Northwest. Not that he had much time to consider the role reversal. Hand-picked by inmates to negotiate the standoff with corrections officials, Claiborne wasn’t reporting the news – he was at the center of it. However, this was something different altogether. He was accustomed to racing after the story. Can you come down here?" The captors, Hardy explained, wanted Claiborne to participate in the negotiation.Īs a reporter for The Washington Post, Claiborne’s normal beat included covering D.C.’s troubled correctional system, and related events including the bloody prison riot at Attica in 1971. Claiborne, they have taken Cellblock 1 and they are holding nine of my men as hostages. Jail were holding guards hostage and had requested his presence.Ī few minutes later, Corrections Director Kenneth L. A panicked voice on the other end of the line said that inmates at the D.C. When the phone rang at 4:15 am, he answered groggily. In the wee hours of the morning on OctoWilliam Claiborne was doing what most other Washingtonians were doing: sleeping. (Photo Credit: Unknown, Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post.) Jail window during the hostage standoff on October 11, 1972.
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