September 13, 9:46 AM: Helicopters dropped chlorobenzylidene malononitrile (CS) gas into D-Yard -- the state's reaction  to the uprising. State troopers opened fire for nine minutes on unarmed prisoners. Nearly 3,000 rounds tore through the yard.
The Bloodshed
9:46 AM
"If we cannot live as people, then we will at least try to die like men."
Crowley (Brother Flip)
CBS News.
"Nelson: The helicopter kept broadcasting over and over again, "Surrender with your hands up. You will not be harmed. Surrender and you will not be harmed." (Davies, NPR)
"Retaking of the Prison" The Marshall Project.
"We thought they were coming in with rubber bullets."
​​​​​​​Akil Shakur, survivor
"I'm a combat veteran. I've seen death and destruction. However, in all my military experiences I've never heard such deafening, sustained gunfire as the troopers poured into the defenseless men. What a fantastic assortment of man-killing weaponry!"
Combat veteran witness, 1972
"Harrison: It was something I never experienced before — burning of your lungs, your eyes and everything like that because it was raining at the same time, you couldn't breathe and you couldn't see. ... It was like a wild Fourth of July. You hear firecrackers continuously, continuously, continuously. That's what the gunshots were like."
(Davies, NPR)
Journalist John O'Brien reported that troopers used unjacketed bullets, while prisoners, armed only with makeshift weapons, stood no chance against rifles.
CBS News
CBS News
The Body Count
"128 men were shot. When the shooting stopped, 10 hostages and 29 prisoners were dead or dying."
Thompson, 187.
"With the exception of Indian massacres, the State Police assault was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War."
McKay Commission Report
Attica Revisited
When the shooting finally stopped, the price prisoners paid was shocking:
"Ultimately, the human cost of the retaking was staggeringly high: 128 men were shot—some of them multiple times. Less than half an hour after the retaking had commenced, nine hostages were dead and at least one additional hostage was close to death. Twenty-nine prisoners had been fatally shot. Many of the deaths in D Yard—both hostages and prisoners—were caused by the scatter of buckshot, and still others resulted from the devastating impact of unjacketed bullets."
Thompson, 187.
Santi Visalli Inc.
39 men lay dead: 29 inmates and 10 hostages—all shot by police. 89 wounded. (NY State Archives)
The Torture Continues
Guards forced surviving inmates to strip and run through gauntlets. This reaction  showed official brutality (Wicker 280).
"I never saw human beings treated like this. Why all the hatred?"
Guardsman witness
Attica Revisited
Thompson, Blood in the Water, 487.
Frank "Big Black" Smith gave detailed testimony:
"I was put on a table, nude. My body have cigar burns, cigarette burns. My testicles bother me now from cigarette butts, sticks, rifles. They had a football under my throat. If the football fall, I would be killed. I was looking up at a shotgun. I was beaten in my testicles with a rifle butt. 'Nigger, Black power, huh?' State troopers said, 'Nigger, you going to die in the morning.'"
F. Smith, Attica Defense Committee, 1972
The racial hatred was vicious. Guards shouted racial slurs constantly.
"One trooper bragging of shooting a black inmate with a .357 and then gave a 'White Power salute.'"
Callahan testimony
 .357 Magnum revolver. Courtesy of Sportsman's Warehouse.
"[Haynes] was then placed in a cell (with no mattress or water) and when he attempted to urinate, he discharged pure blood (with extreme pain). He informed a guard of his need for medical attention but received none for seven days."
Court summary,
Akil Al-jundi v. Mancusi, 177.
Another inmate testified:
"(I) remained in the cell in pain with no food. The guards yelled, '[w]e are going to kill all you niggers before it's over.' It was not until a National Guardsman came on the fourth day that (I) was taken to the infirmary where (my) shoulder was relocated without anesthetic."
Court summary, Akil Al-jundi v. Mancusi, 102.
Administration denied medical care for the wounded inmates for days. Autopsies proved all 10 hostages were shot by police (NY State Archives).
CBS News.
CBS News.
The Big Lie
Right after the assault, state officials falsely told the public that prisoners killed hostages by slitting their throats, claiming inmates were murderers (Britannica). In reality, all 10 hostages were killed by police bullets, not prisoners (NY State Archives).
Roche, personal interview, 2026.
Uprising vs. Riot
Uprising: “an act or instance of rising up; especially: a usually localized act of popular violence in defiance usually of an established government.”
Riot: “a violent public disorder; specifically, a violent disturbance of the public peace by three or more persons assembled together that presents a danger of injury to a person or property.”
(Merriam-Webster)
"...the uprising ended in a bloody assault by law enforcement." (Davies, NPR)
Years later, Deanne Quinn Miller, daughter of the only guard killed by prisoners, reflected:
"I had personally learned how the simple narrative was often wrong, an empty vessel for the storyteller to shape with his or her own preconceptions. I knew because I had relied on the narrative that the Attica riot—the initial chaotic uprising that killed my father, and the violent retaking by police days later in which thirty-nine people were fatally shot—was the fault of inmates and inmates alone" (Miller).
Deanne Quinn Miller.
Livingston County News, 2022.