Police breaking up the bloody 1971 Attica prison riot fired indiscriminately into crowds of prisoners, a lawyer representing former inmates said.
Elizabeth Fink, a lawyer for 1,281 ex-inmates suing four former state officials for $2.8 billion, said in opening statements at the trial Monday that bullets were fired by police after the National Guard dropped a gas bomb."Because of the gas and the masks they were wearing, they were unable to see," Fink said. "There was indiscriminate shooting and undisciplined shooting."
But lawyers for the officials said the jury should not second-guess decisions that were made under the pressure of a full-scale prison riot in which dozens of prison employees were held hostage.
John Stenger, lawyer for the estate of former Corrections Commissioner Russell Oswald, told the jury they were "not here as Monday morning quarterbacks."
The inmates claim Oswald and former state police Maj. John Monahan, both now dead, poorly planned and oversaw the assault.