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Marin County Civic Center attacks
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Marin County Civic Center attacks
The Marin County Civic Center attacks were two related attacks in 1970 at the Marin County Superior Court, located in the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, United States, tied to escalating racial tensions in the state's criminal justice system.
On August 7, 17-year-old Jonathan P. Jackson attempted to coerce the release of the Soledad Brothers (including Jackson's older brother George) by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley from the Marin County Civic Center. As the kidnappers attempted to leave with five hostages by car, court officers shot at Jackson's retreating van. Four people were killed in the ensuing gunfight, including Jonathan Jackson and Haley, and three others were wounded.
The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis, an ousted professor from UCLA with connections to George and Jonathan Jackson, and the Black Panthers. Davis owned the weapons used in the incident but stated that she had no knowledge of its happening.
The second attack took place on October 8 of that year, when the Weathermen detonated explosives at the Civic Center in support of the earlier incident.
In the summer of 1969, W.L. Nolen, a 25-year-old inmate at Soledad prison in California who had been convicted in 1963 for robbery, began circulating a petition to file a lawsuit against the prison's superintendent, Cletus J. Fitzharris. Nolen's petition charged 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 claimed officials were "willfully creating and maintaining situations that creates and poses dangers to the plaintiff [himself]" and that he "feared for his life."
On January 13, 1970, three black prisoners were shot and killed at Soledad by corrections officer Opie G. Miller. The three prisoners were:
According to Ellsworth Ferguson, an administrative assistant to Fitzharris at the time, a fight began during a scheduled exercise period for 15 inmates from the maximum security wing of the prison. During the conflict, two white inmates among the group were beaten to the ground and officer 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 23, who was serving time for assault and perjury, was injured.
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Marin County Civic Center attacks
The Marin County Civic Center attacks were two related attacks in 1970 at the Marin County Superior Court, located in the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, California, United States, tied to escalating racial tensions in the state's criminal justice system.
On August 7, 17-year-old Jonathan P. Jackson attempted to coerce the release of the Soledad Brothers (including Jackson's older brother George) by kidnapping Superior Court judge Harold Haley from the Marin County Civic Center. As the kidnappers attempted to leave with five hostages by car, court officers shot at Jackson's retreating van. Four people were killed in the ensuing gunfight, including Jonathan Jackson and Haley, and three others were wounded.
The event received intense media coverage, as did the subsequent manhunt and trial of Angela Davis, an ousted professor from UCLA with connections to George and Jonathan Jackson, and the Black Panthers. Davis owned the weapons used in the incident but stated that she had no knowledge of its happening.
The second attack took place on October 8 of that year, when the Weathermen detonated explosives at the Civic Center in support of the earlier incident.
In the summer of 1969, W.L. Nolen, a 25-year-old inmate at Soledad prison in California who had been convicted in 1963 for robbery, began circulating a petition to file a lawsuit against the prison's superintendent, Cletus J. Fitzharris. Nolen's petition charged 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 claimed officials were "willfully creating and maintaining situations that creates and poses dangers to the plaintiff [himself]" and that he "feared for his life."
On January 13, 1970, three black prisoners were shot and killed at Soledad by corrections officer Opie G. Miller. The three prisoners were:
According to Ellsworth Ferguson, an administrative assistant to Fitzharris at the time, a fight began during a scheduled exercise period for 15 inmates from the maximum security wing of the prison. During the conflict, two white inmates among the group were beaten to the ground and officer 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 23, who was serving time for assault and perjury, was injured.
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