RAN4ER STOMPINGON S.viETNAMESE FARMER SLAPEcTED OF SUPPLYING INCORRECT INFORMATION To pov. TROOPS
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same thing has happened here ... Those who tried to talk about the brutality and the torture were eliminated. And the system --when yoU have a system that's operated by fear and oppression then you must back that up with brutality, and it's been the custom here in the past that men were beaten with a strap which was about five feet long and five inches wide; an inmate would be spread out_on the floor naked and another inmate or staff man use the strap on It was such a brutal thinphatthe body would convulse and he woul off the floor six or eight incheS. T have to have inmates sitting on the extremities, the arms and the legs, to keep him from coming up . meanI inherited a'system of inmate guards which is antithetical to what we're trying to do. You see, in the past the inmate guards, which are called trustees here, have been in complete control of They've made the job the prison . assignments, they've decided which detail a man worked on; they shook down the incoming prisoners to take radios and watches away from them; they charged — the yard men charged a dollar for a man.,.
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to get a bed the first night he came in. They assigned people to lucrative positions wheri they could make money. They decided who would become a trustee, who would carrAuns, who would be in charge of the commissary. This was the systeM as it was They know here at Cummins that it has to change. And when I came here there was no way to tell how many Prisoners there were — which is really another subject —"but there is an inv ntory of guns and.there issing off the official are some -re are some indicastate inv tions th •el' there were three . sir, one of the bar- • rifles an le still there. racks her We do not y at this time thew a re to shake t n knives no doubt k off people a there has been free oming -e vtRtis in. So, I don't know exactIfyvijat the right criteria or the time is but when I feel It's the proper moment and khave Support enough from the trustees• Iwill sh wn the other bdrracks' and get Iguns and weapons away ates. But then I have to
.devise a-method to shakekldwn the trustee barracks. Tifere's been no shake- , down for ten years. . COMMENTATOR: Everything is inc.- • ible in this prrsop without walls. Last year alone 69 escaped. Mr Murtojg says that is more thanescapedfrom arrother American gaols. Equally incredible have been the statepthorities. ln recent years • they haveopenly:boastedabout the unique v9ay i yvhch theymade a profit from a pri The explanation is 'Ultimate in slave e> 'Al edwith the Tucker telephone was a inlormation, to ure the inmates at c -rprison farm. It did not have a in.Americs similar dial it had a crank to the army field phone, you stank it and the battery generates power and rings across the line. This was used at Tucker as a torture.device and the general pr'ocedure wkthat the subject was brought into the,hospital, taken, into.the surgical room and strapped naked Et ceter to a bed, a surgical tale, and there was a positive arid negative control —anode