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Moment In Time: April 14, 1971 4 Day Riot At Kingston Penitentiary 2 Convicts Killed By Other Convicts Many Beaten And Tortured.
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Greg Carr
Apr 14, 2023, 9:53:37 PM4/14/23
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The Globe and Mail
April 14, 2016
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Moment in time: April 14, 1971 - Riot breaks out at Kingston Penitentiary:
All Canada held its breath as the riot at Kingston Penitentiary ground through its desperate hours. For four tense days, inmates held six guards hostage while they vandalized the maximum-security prison's cellblocks. On the final night, 14 prisoners deemed "undesirables" were tied to chairs in the hall connecting the four wings. After a jury of their inmate peers read out mock charges, the accused were beaten and tortured, resulting in the death of two men. (All six guards were released unharmed.) Eventually, the Canadian military was deployed to quell the insurrection, and the prisoners surrendered the facility. An inquiry chaired by Justice J.W. Swackhamer to determine the causes of the riot led to the creation of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, which still exists to field grievances from federal prisoners. Kingston Penitentiary closed its doors in September, 2013.
By: Andrew Ryan
On April 14, 1971, a riot lasted four days and resulted in the death of two inmates and destruction of much of the prison. Security was substantially increased and prison reforms were instituted. Six guards were held hostage, but all were eventually released unharmed.[6] The prisoners issued formal grievances to the media including lack of recreational time, lack of work, and concerns about their future conditions in the newly built Millhaven Prison.[6] A 1971 inquiry into the riot, chaired by Justice J.W. Swackhamer, reported that they had "already noted a number of causes for Kingston's failure: the aged physical facilities, overcrowding, the shortage of professional staff, a program that had been substantially curtailed, the confinement in the institution of a number of people who did not require maximum security confinement, too much time spent in cells, a lack of adequate channels to deal with complaints and the lack of an adequate staff which resulted in the breakdowns of established procedures to deal with inmate requests. The polarization between inmates and custodial staff, between custodial staff and professional staff, led inevitably to the destruction of the program and deterioration in the life of the institution."[6] This riot, together with successors in 1975, led to an official Sub-Committee on the Penitentiary System in Canada, chaired by Justice Mark MacGuigan.[7] The 1977 MacGuigan Report recommended the creation of an Independent Chairperson (ICP) to investigate prisoner complaints.[8]
1971–1981
From 1971–1981, the penitentiary served as Corrections Canada's Ontario Region Reception Centre. Before it closed, the facility housed between 350 and 500 inmates plus another 120 at the Regional Treatment Centre contained within the prison. Every inmate was given an individual cell.
In its later years, Kingston Penitentiary became known as a "dumping ground for bad guards", and after an investigation by the RCMP, eight guards were terminated.[9]
In 1990, Kingston Penitentiary was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.[10][11]
On April 19, 2012, the Government of Canada announced plans to close the Kingston Penitentiary, along with the Leclerc Institution in Laval, Quebec and the Regional Treatment Centre in Kingston, Ontario.[12] Kingston Penitentiary officially closed on September 30, 2013.[13] The penitentiary was opened during October/November 2013 for public tours hosted by the United Way of KFL&A and Habitat for Humanity Canada.[14][15]
Escapes
On September 10, 1923, inmate Norman "Red" Ryan planned and carried out an escape with several other inmates. After setting fire to a shed as a distraction, the gang used a ladder and went over the wall. They stole a car from a nearby property and fled the city.[16]
On August 17, 1947, inmates Nicholas Minelli, Ulysses Lauzon, and Donald "Mickey" Macdonald climbed over the wall behind the east cell block, after cutting through the bars on their cell. Both Nick and Ulysses were recaptured, but Macdonald was never found.[17]
In 1999, inmate Ty Conn escaped from the facility. Although there had been at least 26 escape attempts since 1836, Conn was the first to evade capture for weeks since 1958. Two weeks later, surrounded by police in Toronto, Conn suffered a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound while speaking on the telephone to CBC producer Theresa Burke.[18][19]
HISTORY
SOCIETY
Looking back on the shocking Kingston Pen riot of 1971
It wasn’t as deadly as Attica, which also happened 50 years ago. But the bloody Ontario prison riot took its share of lives
Written by Steve Paikin
Apr 14, 2021
Share
soldiers marching with guns
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces enter Kingston Penitentiary on April 15, 1971. (Peter Bregg/CP)
Historians will note that the most god-awful prison riot that took place 50 years ago this year happened at the correctional facility in Attica, New York, when 1,200 inmates gained control of the prison and took 42 staff members hostage.
Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered that the prison be retaken by force: the result was 43 dead, 10 of whom were correctional officers. It was an utter disaster.
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But five months before Attica — on April 14, 1971 — the province of Ontario saw its own dramatic prison riot, replete with mayhem and murder. However, thanks to the contributions of some citizen volunteers and even some prisoners, our own drama ended with a lot less bloodshed. But it was plenty bloody enough.
black and white photo of men crouched in windows
Inmates at the Kingston Penitentiary look through the bars of the dome at the highest point of the complex. (Peter Bregg/CP)
The story of those events has been told in all its horrific detail in a new book by Catherine Fogarty called Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary. As she is the executive producer of the program Love It or List It (a reality TV show that offers contestants the option of renovating and then either keeping or selling their homes), you might wonder whether Fogarty is the right person to tell this story — that is, until you learn she studied social work, and with it, deviance and criminology. The book is frighteningly and frightfully good.
When Ontario isn’t locked down due to COVID-19, the Kingston Penitentiary is a historic site, open for tours, where visitors can go to learn about the events of murder and torture that happened at that site 50 years ago.
Kingston has been Ontario’s “Penitentiary City” for nearly two centuries. Its first prison was built in 1835. The celebrated author Charles Dickens actually visited it a few years later. It had become so notorious by 1849 that a commission investigating it described the activity within its walls as akin to barbaric dehumanization; more than a century later, it apparently wasn't much different.
Fogarty tells us that, by the 1960s, as the civil-rights movement bloomed and the prison population boomed thanks to the explosion of illegal drugs, Kingston Pen was ready to blow. Prisoners were terrified of their pending transfer to the new, fearsome, maximum-security Millhaven Institution. And, so, on April 14, 1971, as the first dozen prisoners were being moved, an inmate named Billy Knight sucker-punched a guard in the stomach. And with that, the riot began.
soldiers lining up outside a fence
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces line up outside the walls of Kingston Penitentiary on April 15, 1971. (Peter Bregg/CP)
Eventually, Knight shouted to his fellow inmates: "Brothers! Our time has come to shake off the shackles. We’ve taken control of the dome, and we’ve got six hostages. You will all be released from your cells.”
The six guards being held hostage felt sure they’d soon be killed, and why not? Their captors included a prisoner who’d bludgeoned his mother to death with a baseball bat at age 16.
While some prisoners wanted to throw the guards over the railings to their deaths, it was Knight who kept reminding them that, if the riot were to have any meaning, the guards could not be harmed, and the focus had to be on prison reform. Before long, negotiations with the warden had commenced.
We also learn from Fogarty that prisoners had their own hierarchy; as much as some prisoners wanted to kill the guards, many were more interested in killing other prisoners they considered inferior, such as sexual deviants or pedophiles. The author does not spare us the gruesome details of some prisoners torturing and beating others to death. One apparently slit his own wrists in hopes of killing himself and avoiding yet another pipe beating to the face.
Meantime, the hundreds of prisoners who’d rioted had destroyed much of the penitentiary. If it had been unlivable before, it was exponentially more so now. Food, drink, and medication were nowhere to be found. In the midst of this inhumanity, Knight got a reporter inside, held a press conference, and got the word out that he wanted a citizens’ committee struck so as to negotiate a peaceful settlement that would include prison reform and access to the above necessities.
Outsiders were allowed into the prison. Two, both journalists, would become household names in years to come: Henry Champ and Ron Haggart. University of Toronto professor Desmond Morton and famed lawyer Aubrey Golden became part of the citizens’ committee, bringing the prisoners’ demands to the outside world.
“We want the world to know what they’re doing to us in this festering hellhole,” Knight told them.
Things seemed to be moving in the right direction when suddenly, 130 troops from nearby military bases showed up, bayonets fixed to the ends of their automatic rifles, and surrounded the prison. The inmates became hysterical. As one prison guard (not a hostage) left to go home for some shut-eye, he told the soldiers: “Make just one mistake, and you’ll be bringing six stiffs out of there.”
a man in uniform surveys a scene of destruction
Cell blocks after the riot at the Kingston Penitentiary. (John Scott /The Globe and Mail)
The citizens’ committee did manage to get a deal with both sides, but then, according to Fogarty, the federal solicitor general of the day, Jean-Pierre Goyer, nearly blew the whole thing up by going on the radio and insisting that the government had made no concessions to the prisoners. The inmates were listening, and that bit of bombast led to yet more moments of hysteria and violence. Goyer was the government’s point man on the file, in part because Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was on his honeymoon in Tobago with his new bride, Margaret Sinclair, and thus unreachable.
Sixteen “deviant” prisoners were taken hostage, and the ensuing acts of carnage and sadism were just beyond words. I won’t repeat the details of them here. It was almost too much to read about them in Fogarty’s book.
Two prisoners died, and dozens were injured. But, in the end, Attica-style mayhem was avoided. All six prison guards survived the ordeal, and Golden gave enormous credit to an inmate named Barrie MacKenzie, who demonstrated calm leadership in the face of incredibly chaotic circumstances. MacKenzie eventually walked each of those guards out of the penitentiary to safety. That’s more than Morton could say for the solicitor general: “Goyer blew it!” he said.
The prisoners, in fact, had good reason to fear the transfer to Millhaven, which had precipitated the riot in the first place. When that transfer did take place, several guards whacked dozens of prisoners with their nightsticks, sending them to the hospital. Eleven guards were eventually charged with assault.
Having said that, the federal government did create the first-ever national commission of inquiry into a penitentiary riot. Ian Scott, a future Ontario attorney general, was commission counsel.
Eventually, many prisoners had to answer for their conduct at subsequent trials. One described the circumstances as “not a riot,” adding, “I’ve been in a riot. This was a torture chamber.”
“Kingston was a living, breathing hellhole,” Knight said. “I chose to destroy it before it could destroy me.”
Knight eventually died in another prison in Saskatchewan. He was 35.
The main questions I kept asking myself while reading Fogarty’s book: Are conditions dramatically better today? Could another penitentiary “blow its top”?
I sure hope the answers are yes and no. But the sad truth is, I fear the answers are no and yes.
'IT WAS A TERRIBLE MESS': Recalling the deadly Kingston Pen riot, 50 years later
For 96 suspense-filled hours, some 500 convicts held in their hands the lives of six prison guards
Author of the article:Postmedia News
Postmedia News
Steph Crosier
Published Apr 14, 2021 • 9 minute read
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Kingston Police investigators, from left, Det. Mike Finn, Det. Cranston de St. Remy, Det. Earl McCullough, Det. Bill Hackett and Det. Wilf Kealey within the Kingston Penitentiary dome following the 1971 riot. The image was found in Hackett's archives.
Kingston Police investigators, from left, Det. Mike Finn, Det. Cranston de St. Remy, Det. Earl McCullough, Det. Bill Hackett and Det. Wilf Kealey within the Kingston Penitentiary dome following the 1971 riot. The image was found in Hackett's archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER /Postmedia
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Investigating the murders of Brian Ensor and Bertrand Robert forced Kingston Police investigators to conduct 512 interviews with Kingston Penitentiary inmates, examine the gruesome scene of the 1971 riot, and essentially moving their office to Millhaven Institution for months.
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Earl McCullough was watching the National Hockey League playoffs when he got the call to report to the infamous prison, he told the Whig-Standard late last week.
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“My partner (Det. Cranston de St. Remy) and I, and Bill Hackett and his, and we examined the scene in the penitentiary,” McCullough said. “It was a mess. They smashed everything that was smashable. The debris was all over the place.
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“There were some bodies in the one range … I don’t know another way to describe it. They literally destroyed whatever could be destroyed in a place like that.”
McCullough and the other investigators, led by Hackett, were brought into the prison after all 641 prisoners were moved to the brand new Millhaven Institution. Their job was to investigate the murders of Ensor and Robert. They were two of the 14 men convicted of sexual crimes against children that other inmates tied in a circle around the radiator in the dome and beat with multiple weapons.
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Ensor was found dead in the prison, while Robert died a month later in hospital. According to their autopsy reports, both had severe head injuries that led to their deaths. One of Ensor’s more notable injuries included a large, 25-centimetre-long gash in his leg that had salt poured into it continuously.
“It was a vicious, terrible, long number of hours of brutal attacks on these people,” McCullough said. “They were beaten and they suffered badly, the people who were injured.”
After arriving at the penitentiary, investigators and photographers did their best to absorb the crime scene.
“It’s hard to imagine because it was nothing like we’d never come up against before,” McCullough said. “It was a terrible mess. Just terrible.”
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Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
From there, the four investigators would interview the more than 500 prisoners at Millhaven.
“We were there every day. My office was in Millhaven, not at city police headquarters. I went to work there,” McCullough said. “The (512) were the ones with potential information — that they were prepared to share, of course.
“It was like any other interview. You’re seeking information from them, so you talk to them. Depending on the circumstances, what they may or may not have known, or may or may not be willing to share with you, some of them are not eager to share their story, and so on. Each one was a little different.”
McCullough could not recall any special characters but said many wanted to share their story and how they got there. The interviews took months.
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“I don’t recall doing any other case until the (Kingston Pen) trial was over,” McCullough said. “There’s more to putting a case together than just talking to people, too. You have reports and statements to write and so on.”
Hackett, who died earlier this year, kept many of the notes from his major investigations. The Kingston Penitentiary murders were no exception. In his archives were meaningful statements from prisoners.
Weapons, photos and notes of the Kingston Penitentiary murder investigation from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Weapons, photos and notes of the Kingston Penitentiary murder investigation from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
James Franklin Brawley of Cocoa Beach, Fla., occupied cell 6-2-H at Kingston Pen after being convicted of possession of burglar tools in 1970 in Toronto. He was sentenced to three and a half years for the crime.
Brawley told Hackett and fellow investigator Michael Breen how when the riot started, the six guards who were taken hostage were taken to the upper ranges and there was a meeting with most of the inmates in the dome. From there, the inmates seemed to cause as much damage as they could.
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“Then they suggested getting the guys from D Block,” Brawley said in his statement. “They put chairs around the radiator in the dome, then they brought the men from 1-D and tied them to the chairs in the dome. They tore up sheets to tie them to the chairs. They tied the inmates’ hands behind their back. Their feet were tied together and to the chairs.”
Brawley’s statement and the statement of others chronicle the violent, roughly three-hour attack that included first breaking all of the men’s noses, verbally accosting them, beating them with pipes and bars and slamming their heads on the floor.
A sketch drawn by an inmate to assist Kingston Police investigators as they probed the 1971 murders and assaults at Kingston Penitentiary during the riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
A sketch drawn by an inmate to assist Kingston Police investigators as they probed the 1971 murders and assaults at Kingston Penitentiary during the riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
“I saw the blood flowing out of Ensor’s leg,” Brawley said. “There was blood all over the place. It was the worst sight I ever saw in my life. After the beatings ended, they dragged them over to 1-D and stacked them on top of each other … I believed they were all dead.”
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The investigators charged 13 inmates with the non-capital murders of Ensor and Robert. The late Judge William J. Henderson presided over the trial, which went to court in late 1971.
“It was a large trial; it was an amazing trial,” McCullough said. “(Henderson) did one amazing job with 13 defendants in one room with a bunch of lawyers. The Crown attorneys did a good job, too. It was a big job that they did.”
In the end, all 13 were either convicted or pleaded guilty to charges ranging up to manslaughter.
McCullough retired from the Kingston Police in 1992 after nearly 40 years on the force. He said the Kingston Pen riot investigation is a career standout, though it wasn’t the first riot at the pen he had attended. As a rookie, he worked to secure the scene perimeter in 1954 when the dome was burned.
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But the 1971 investigation was unique and the biggest McCullough was ever a part of.
“It had never happened before, in quite that way. I certainly was never involved in anything like it again,” McCullough said. “I investigated other murders over the years, but still. And each one of them stands out in your mind, but this one was certainly different from anything I ever experienced.”
TIMELINE OF THE RIOT
The following is an edited version of a timeline of the Kingston Penitentiary riot as covered by The Kingston Whig-Standard. This was originally published on April 19, 1971.
For 96 suspense-filled hours, Kingston Penitentiary was in the international spotlight as news agencies around the world unfolded the story of how some 500 convicts held in their hands the lives of six prison guards.
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Here is how the 138-year-old prison gained what will likely be its last black moment in history:
• Wednesday, April 14, at about 10:30 p.m. a prison guard was escorting some 60 prisoners out of the recreation hall when he noticed the hat of a fellow officer lying on the floor. The guard wheeled around, ordered the inmates back into the recreation hall and, in a matter of seconds, the riot was on.
An armed guard sitting in the recreation area gun-cage, knowing something was amiss when the convicts returned to his area, called Warden Arthur Jarvis to report his suspicions.
No sooner had the report been called in than the convicts rushed six other guards in the prison dome, overpowered them and took command of that section also.
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The convicts now had a total of nine hostages.
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
• Between 10:35 p.m. and 1 a.m. (Thursday) the convicts ran amuck. The original 60 inmates smashed a local mechanism, which let loose 440 fellow prisoners. Together, the mob demolished cells, furniture and equipment in the wings, broke practically every pane of glass in sight and, in general, went wild.
• At 1 a.m., Thursday, April 15, three guards being held hostage in the recreation hall were freed. It was believed they were let loose because of the presence of the armed gun-cage officer.
Shortly after the three guards were released, the prisoners apparently calmed down to the point of organizing their numbers into the effective committees.
Realizing their weak position without an adequate food supply, a group of prisoners stormed the kitchen but were repelled when guards in the kitchen fired one shot into the floor.
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• A few moments later, the press was informed that if further shots were fired, the prisoners said they would cut off a finger of a hostage for each round fired “and toss the finger over the wall.” No further gun fire was heard or reported.
The convicts issued a list of interim demands to officials, the main points being that they wanted at least five or 10 prominent citizens they named to come to the prison to hear their “beefs”; and a certain number of press personnel be allowed to sit in on a press conference with the inmates and prison officials.
The Whig-Standard’s Sheldon MacNeil and photographer Bill Baird entered the prison at 10:15 a.m. Thursday along with other press members to hear what the inmates had to say.
Reporter MacNeil emerged 70 minutes later. He said the inmates were in control of about 50 per cent of the prison … holding most key areas.
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MacNeil said the convicts in rebellion numbered about 500. They claimed to have taken their six hostages into a secluded section of the prison where they were being protected from the more radical inmates, who would, it was felt, attack the guards. Also segregated were about 30 so-called “stoolies,” those inmates believed to have acted as informers against other inmates.
• Thursday afternoon, Henry Champ, 31, a CTV Toronto newsman, toured the area of KP being held by the 500 rebel prisoners. He talked with the inmates, guard Edward Barrett and some of the 30 “stoolies” held captive. Mr. Champ said the prisoners were well organized and obviously meant business.
• Just before midnight Thursday, 130 troops from Canadian Forces Base Kingston, entered KP, armed with automatic rifles … bayonets attached. They were, officials said, to “augment” the prison staff and not to confront prisoners.
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What did the inmates want? It has never been officially verified, but reports were that they did not want to be transferred to Millhaven prison because they feel security there would be much more strict than KP.
The inmates “beefed” about security inside KP; police brutality; prison reform and treatment some of them received from the RCMP during their arrest.
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
• Friday, April 16: Prominent Canadian criminal lawyer G. Arthur Martin and Toronto news columnist Ron Haggart, two of the 10 listed citizens requested by the inmates to talk with them, went to Ottawa to inform Solicitor General Jean Pierre Goyer of the convicts’ demands and grievances.
Also, Friday afternoon, Terrence Decker, 27, one of the six hostage guards, was released as a gesture of “good faith” by the inmates.
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• Saturday, April 17, at about 2 a.m., 100 riot-control troops from CFB Petawawa entered the prison. Barbed wire, barricades and riot shields also went in.
Talks between the citizens’ committee and the spokesman for the inmates continued. At 1:45 p.m., prison officials said they would make a joint statement (with the inmates’ position) later in the afternoon. The statement never came, and for the next 30 hours a news blackout prevailed.
• Saturday, April 18, the day it all began to unravel. At 2 a.m., 100 Royal Canadian Regiment armed troops entered the prison for what was thought to be a changing of the guard. However, the troops inside stayed there, bringing the soldier complement to an estimated 230.
• Sunday, April 19, 7:10 a.m. A bus, escorted by a military car and an OPP cruiser. Roared through the east gate of KP bearing 50 to 60 convicts. The “exodus” was on.
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During the day, as hundreds of spectators strolled on the prison lawn and King Street West and cars moved bumper to bumper past the prison, bus after bus transported prisoners out of KP to various other institutions: Collins Bay, Millhaven, Joyceville and Warkworth.
• Army troops came and went throughout the day, but the last official word was that 520 armed soldiers, plus a double shift of guards, were on duty inside the pen.
As the convicts emerged in buses, some appeared stunned by the large number of people on hand to see them outside. A small band of protesters carried placards reading, “We support the prisoners.” The protesters received no plaudits from the crowd.
• During the remainder of Sunday, the hostages were freed, some soldiers left and the RCMP, military and city police entered to begin investigating the incident.
One inmate (Brian Ensor) was found dead, his body stuff into an overhead air duct, apparently killed by fellow inmates during a rumoured “power struggle” between convicts early Sunday morning. A second prisoner (Bertrand Robert) died from inmate-inflicted injuries a month later at Kingston General Hospital.
Why only the death of 2 diddlers was investigated and not the other 2 is beyond me. 11 ppl were convicted on those killings. 60 informers were not seriously harmed.
April 14, 2016
·
Moment in time: April 14, 1971 - Riot breaks out at Kingston Penitentiary:
All Canada held its breath as the riot at Kingston Penitentiary ground through its desperate hours. For four tense days, inmates held six guards hostage while they vandalized the maximum-security prison's cellblocks. On the final night, 14 prisoners deemed "undesirables" were tied to chairs in the hall connecting the four wings. After a jury of their inmate peers read out mock charges, the accused were beaten and tortured, resulting in the death of two men. (All six guards were released unharmed.) Eventually, the Canadian military was deployed to quell the insurrection, and the prisoners surrendered the facility. An inquiry chaired by Justice J.W. Swackhamer to determine the causes of the riot led to the creation of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, which still exists to field grievances from federal prisoners. Kingston Penitentiary closed its doors in September, 2013.
By: Andrew Ryan
On April 14, 1971, a riot lasted four days and resulted in the death of two inmates and destruction of much of the prison. Security was substantially increased and prison reforms were instituted. Six guards were held hostage, but all were eventually released unharmed.[6] The prisoners issued formal grievances to the media including lack of recreational time, lack of work, and concerns about their future conditions in the newly built Millhaven Prison.[6] A 1971 inquiry into the riot, chaired by Justice J.W. Swackhamer, reported that they had "already noted a number of causes for Kingston's failure: the aged physical facilities, overcrowding, the shortage of professional staff, a program that had been substantially curtailed, the confinement in the institution of a number of people who did not require maximum security confinement, too much time spent in cells, a lack of adequate channels to deal with complaints and the lack of an adequate staff which resulted in the breakdowns of established procedures to deal with inmate requests. The polarization between inmates and custodial staff, between custodial staff and professional staff, led inevitably to the destruction of the program and deterioration in the life of the institution."[6] This riot, together with successors in 1975, led to an official Sub-Committee on the Penitentiary System in Canada, chaired by Justice Mark MacGuigan.[7] The 1977 MacGuigan Report recommended the creation of an Independent Chairperson (ICP) to investigate prisoner complaints.[8]
1971–1981
From 1971–1981, the penitentiary served as Corrections Canada's Ontario Region Reception Centre. Before it closed, the facility housed between 350 and 500 inmates plus another 120 at the Regional Treatment Centre contained within the prison. Every inmate was given an individual cell.
In its later years, Kingston Penitentiary became known as a "dumping ground for bad guards", and after an investigation by the RCMP, eight guards were terminated.[9]
In 1990, Kingston Penitentiary was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.[10][11]
On April 19, 2012, the Government of Canada announced plans to close the Kingston Penitentiary, along with the Leclerc Institution in Laval, Quebec and the Regional Treatment Centre in Kingston, Ontario.[12] Kingston Penitentiary officially closed on September 30, 2013.[13] The penitentiary was opened during October/November 2013 for public tours hosted by the United Way of KFL&A and Habitat for Humanity Canada.[14][15]
Escapes
On September 10, 1923, inmate Norman "Red" Ryan planned and carried out an escape with several other inmates. After setting fire to a shed as a distraction, the gang used a ladder and went over the wall. They stole a car from a nearby property and fled the city.[16]
On August 17, 1947, inmates Nicholas Minelli, Ulysses Lauzon, and Donald "Mickey" Macdonald climbed over the wall behind the east cell block, after cutting through the bars on their cell. Both Nick and Ulysses were recaptured, but Macdonald was never found.[17]
In 1999, inmate Ty Conn escaped from the facility. Although there had been at least 26 escape attempts since 1836, Conn was the first to evade capture for weeks since 1958. Two weeks later, surrounded by police in Toronto, Conn suffered a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound while speaking on the telephone to CBC producer Theresa Burke.[18][19]
HISTORY
SOCIETY
Looking back on the shocking Kingston Pen riot of 1971
It wasn’t as deadly as Attica, which also happened 50 years ago. But the bloody Ontario prison riot took its share of lives
Written by Steve Paikin
Apr 14, 2021
Share
soldiers marching with guns
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces enter Kingston Penitentiary on April 15, 1971. (Peter Bregg/CP)
Historians will note that the most god-awful prison riot that took place 50 years ago this year happened at the correctional facility in Attica, New York, when 1,200 inmates gained control of the prison and took 42 staff members hostage.
Governor Nelson Rockefeller ordered that the prison be retaken by force: the result was 43 dead, 10 of whom were correctional officers. It was an utter disaster.
Article continues below
Renew your support for TVO!
Donations provide powerful moments of learning for all Ontarians. From digital learning resources to TVOkids to documentaries and current affairs. Donate today!
Belted Kingfisher female
But five months before Attica — on April 14, 1971 — the province of Ontario saw its own dramatic prison riot, replete with mayhem and murder. However, thanks to the contributions of some citizen volunteers and even some prisoners, our own drama ended with a lot less bloodshed. But it was plenty bloody enough.
black and white photo of men crouched in windows
Inmates at the Kingston Penitentiary look through the bars of the dome at the highest point of the complex. (Peter Bregg/CP)
The story of those events has been told in all its horrific detail in a new book by Catherine Fogarty called Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary. As she is the executive producer of the program Love It or List It (a reality TV show that offers contestants the option of renovating and then either keeping or selling their homes), you might wonder whether Fogarty is the right person to tell this story — that is, until you learn she studied social work, and with it, deviance and criminology. The book is frighteningly and frightfully good.
When Ontario isn’t locked down due to COVID-19, the Kingston Penitentiary is a historic site, open for tours, where visitors can go to learn about the events of murder and torture that happened at that site 50 years ago.
Kingston has been Ontario’s “Penitentiary City” for nearly two centuries. Its first prison was built in 1835. The celebrated author Charles Dickens actually visited it a few years later. It had become so notorious by 1849 that a commission investigating it described the activity within its walls as akin to barbaric dehumanization; more than a century later, it apparently wasn't much different.
Fogarty tells us that, by the 1960s, as the civil-rights movement bloomed and the prison population boomed thanks to the explosion of illegal drugs, Kingston Pen was ready to blow. Prisoners were terrified of their pending transfer to the new, fearsome, maximum-security Millhaven Institution. And, so, on April 14, 1971, as the first dozen prisoners were being moved, an inmate named Billy Knight sucker-punched a guard in the stomach. And with that, the riot began.
soldiers lining up outside a fence
Members of the Canadian Armed Forces line up outside the walls of Kingston Penitentiary on April 15, 1971. (Peter Bregg/CP)
Eventually, Knight shouted to his fellow inmates: "Brothers! Our time has come to shake off the shackles. We’ve taken control of the dome, and we’ve got six hostages. You will all be released from your cells.”
The six guards being held hostage felt sure they’d soon be killed, and why not? Their captors included a prisoner who’d bludgeoned his mother to death with a baseball bat at age 16.
While some prisoners wanted to throw the guards over the railings to their deaths, it was Knight who kept reminding them that, if the riot were to have any meaning, the guards could not be harmed, and the focus had to be on prison reform. Before long, negotiations with the warden had commenced.
We also learn from Fogarty that prisoners had their own hierarchy; as much as some prisoners wanted to kill the guards, many were more interested in killing other prisoners they considered inferior, such as sexual deviants or pedophiles. The author does not spare us the gruesome details of some prisoners torturing and beating others to death. One apparently slit his own wrists in hopes of killing himself and avoiding yet another pipe beating to the face.
Meantime, the hundreds of prisoners who’d rioted had destroyed much of the penitentiary. If it had been unlivable before, it was exponentially more so now. Food, drink, and medication were nowhere to be found. In the midst of this inhumanity, Knight got a reporter inside, held a press conference, and got the word out that he wanted a citizens’ committee struck so as to negotiate a peaceful settlement that would include prison reform and access to the above necessities.
Outsiders were allowed into the prison. Two, both journalists, would become household names in years to come: Henry Champ and Ron Haggart. University of Toronto professor Desmond Morton and famed lawyer Aubrey Golden became part of the citizens’ committee, bringing the prisoners’ demands to the outside world.
“We want the world to know what they’re doing to us in this festering hellhole,” Knight told them.
Things seemed to be moving in the right direction when suddenly, 130 troops from nearby military bases showed up, bayonets fixed to the ends of their automatic rifles, and surrounded the prison. The inmates became hysterical. As one prison guard (not a hostage) left to go home for some shut-eye, he told the soldiers: “Make just one mistake, and you’ll be bringing six stiffs out of there.”
a man in uniform surveys a scene of destruction
Cell blocks after the riot at the Kingston Penitentiary. (John Scott /The Globe and Mail)
The citizens’ committee did manage to get a deal with both sides, but then, according to Fogarty, the federal solicitor general of the day, Jean-Pierre Goyer, nearly blew the whole thing up by going on the radio and insisting that the government had made no concessions to the prisoners. The inmates were listening, and that bit of bombast led to yet more moments of hysteria and violence. Goyer was the government’s point man on the file, in part because Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was on his honeymoon in Tobago with his new bride, Margaret Sinclair, and thus unreachable.
Sixteen “deviant” prisoners were taken hostage, and the ensuing acts of carnage and sadism were just beyond words. I won’t repeat the details of them here. It was almost too much to read about them in Fogarty’s book.
Two prisoners died, and dozens were injured. But, in the end, Attica-style mayhem was avoided. All six prison guards survived the ordeal, and Golden gave enormous credit to an inmate named Barrie MacKenzie, who demonstrated calm leadership in the face of incredibly chaotic circumstances. MacKenzie eventually walked each of those guards out of the penitentiary to safety. That’s more than Morton could say for the solicitor general: “Goyer blew it!” he said.
The prisoners, in fact, had good reason to fear the transfer to Millhaven, which had precipitated the riot in the first place. When that transfer did take place, several guards whacked dozens of prisoners with their nightsticks, sending them to the hospital. Eleven guards were eventually charged with assault.
Having said that, the federal government did create the first-ever national commission of inquiry into a penitentiary riot. Ian Scott, a future Ontario attorney general, was commission counsel.
Eventually, many prisoners had to answer for their conduct at subsequent trials. One described the circumstances as “not a riot,” adding, “I’ve been in a riot. This was a torture chamber.”
“Kingston was a living, breathing hellhole,” Knight said. “I chose to destroy it before it could destroy me.”
Knight eventually died in another prison in Saskatchewan. He was 35.
The main questions I kept asking myself while reading Fogarty’s book: Are conditions dramatically better today? Could another penitentiary “blow its top”?
I sure hope the answers are yes and no. But the sad truth is, I fear the answers are no and yes.
'IT WAS A TERRIBLE MESS': Recalling the deadly Kingston Pen riot, 50 years later
For 96 suspense-filled hours, some 500 convicts held in their hands the lives of six prison guards
Author of the article:Postmedia News
Postmedia News
Steph Crosier
Published Apr 14, 2021 • 9 minute read
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Kingston Police investigators, from left, Det. Mike Finn, Det. Cranston de St. Remy, Det. Earl McCullough, Det. Bill Hackett and Det. Wilf Kealey within the Kingston Penitentiary dome following the 1971 riot. The image was found in Hackett's archives.
Kingston Police investigators, from left, Det. Mike Finn, Det. Cranston de St. Remy, Det. Earl McCullough, Det. Bill Hackett and Det. Wilf Kealey within the Kingston Penitentiary dome following the 1971 riot. The image was found in Hackett's archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER /Postmedia
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Investigating the murders of Brian Ensor and Bertrand Robert forced Kingston Police investigators to conduct 512 interviews with Kingston Penitentiary inmates, examine the gruesome scene of the 1971 riot, and essentially moving their office to Millhaven Institution for months.
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Earl McCullough was watching the National Hockey League playoffs when he got the call to report to the infamous prison, he told the Whig-Standard late last week.
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“My partner (Det. Cranston de St. Remy) and I, and Bill Hackett and his, and we examined the scene in the penitentiary,” McCullough said. “It was a mess. They smashed everything that was smashable. The debris was all over the place.
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“There were some bodies in the one range … I don’t know another way to describe it. They literally destroyed whatever could be destroyed in a place like that.”
McCullough and the other investigators, led by Hackett, were brought into the prison after all 641 prisoners were moved to the brand new Millhaven Institution. Their job was to investigate the murders of Ensor and Robert. They were two of the 14 men convicted of sexual crimes against children that other inmates tied in a circle around the radiator in the dome and beat with multiple weapons.
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Ensor was found dead in the prison, while Robert died a month later in hospital. According to their autopsy reports, both had severe head injuries that led to their deaths. One of Ensor’s more notable injuries included a large, 25-centimetre-long gash in his leg that had salt poured into it continuously.
“It was a vicious, terrible, long number of hours of brutal attacks on these people,” McCullough said. “They were beaten and they suffered badly, the people who were injured.”
After arriving at the penitentiary, investigators and photographers did their best to absorb the crime scene.
“It’s hard to imagine because it was nothing like we’d never come up against before,” McCullough said. “It was a terrible mess. Just terrible.”
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Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
From there, the four investigators would interview the more than 500 prisoners at Millhaven.
“We were there every day. My office was in Millhaven, not at city police headquarters. I went to work there,” McCullough said. “The (512) were the ones with potential information — that they were prepared to share, of course.
“It was like any other interview. You’re seeking information from them, so you talk to them. Depending on the circumstances, what they may or may not have known, or may or may not be willing to share with you, some of them are not eager to share their story, and so on. Each one was a little different.”
McCullough could not recall any special characters but said many wanted to share their story and how they got there. The interviews took months.
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“I don’t recall doing any other case until the (Kingston Pen) trial was over,” McCullough said. “There’s more to putting a case together than just talking to people, too. You have reports and statements to write and so on.”
Hackett, who died earlier this year, kept many of the notes from his major investigations. The Kingston Penitentiary murders were no exception. In his archives were meaningful statements from prisoners.
Weapons, photos and notes of the Kingston Penitentiary murder investigation from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Weapons, photos and notes of the Kingston Penitentiary murder investigation from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
James Franklin Brawley of Cocoa Beach, Fla., occupied cell 6-2-H at Kingston Pen after being convicted of possession of burglar tools in 1970 in Toronto. He was sentenced to three and a half years for the crime.
Brawley told Hackett and fellow investigator Michael Breen how when the riot started, the six guards who were taken hostage were taken to the upper ranges and there was a meeting with most of the inmates in the dome. From there, the inmates seemed to cause as much damage as they could.
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“Then they suggested getting the guys from D Block,” Brawley said in his statement. “They put chairs around the radiator in the dome, then they brought the men from 1-D and tied them to the chairs in the dome. They tore up sheets to tie them to the chairs. They tied the inmates’ hands behind their back. Their feet were tied together and to the chairs.”
Brawley’s statement and the statement of others chronicle the violent, roughly three-hour attack that included first breaking all of the men’s noses, verbally accosting them, beating them with pipes and bars and slamming their heads on the floor.
A sketch drawn by an inmate to assist Kingston Police investigators as they probed the 1971 murders and assaults at Kingston Penitentiary during the riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
A sketch drawn by an inmate to assist Kingston Police investigators as they probed the 1971 murders and assaults at Kingston Penitentiary during the riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
“I saw the blood flowing out of Ensor’s leg,” Brawley said. “There was blood all over the place. It was the worst sight I ever saw in my life. After the beatings ended, they dragged them over to 1-D and stacked them on top of each other … I believed they were all dead.”
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The investigators charged 13 inmates with the non-capital murders of Ensor and Robert. The late Judge William J. Henderson presided over the trial, which went to court in late 1971.
“It was a large trial; it was an amazing trial,” McCullough said. “(Henderson) did one amazing job with 13 defendants in one room with a bunch of lawyers. The Crown attorneys did a good job, too. It was a big job that they did.”
In the end, all 13 were either convicted or pleaded guilty to charges ranging up to manslaughter.
McCullough retired from the Kingston Police in 1992 after nearly 40 years on the force. He said the Kingston Pen riot investigation is a career standout, though it wasn’t the first riot at the pen he had attended. As a rookie, he worked to secure the scene perimeter in 1954 when the dome was burned.
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But the 1971 investigation was unique and the biggest McCullough was ever a part of.
“It had never happened before, in quite that way. I certainly was never involved in anything like it again,” McCullough said. “I investigated other murders over the years, but still. And each one of them stands out in your mind, but this one was certainly different from anything I ever experienced.”
TIMELINE OF THE RIOT
The following is an edited version of a timeline of the Kingston Penitentiary riot as covered by The Kingston Whig-Standard. This was originally published on April 19, 1971.
For 96 suspense-filled hours, Kingston Penitentiary was in the international spotlight as news agencies around the world unfolded the story of how some 500 convicts held in their hands the lives of six prison guards.
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Here is how the 138-year-old prison gained what will likely be its last black moment in history:
• Wednesday, April 14, at about 10:30 p.m. a prison guard was escorting some 60 prisoners out of the recreation hall when he noticed the hat of a fellow officer lying on the floor. The guard wheeled around, ordered the inmates back into the recreation hall and, in a matter of seconds, the riot was on.
An armed guard sitting in the recreation area gun-cage, knowing something was amiss when the convicts returned to his area, called Warden Arthur Jarvis to report his suspicions.
No sooner had the report been called in than the convicts rushed six other guards in the prison dome, overpowered them and took command of that section also.
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The convicts now had a total of nine hostages.
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
• Between 10:35 p.m. and 1 a.m. (Thursday) the convicts ran amuck. The original 60 inmates smashed a local mechanism, which let loose 440 fellow prisoners. Together, the mob demolished cells, furniture and equipment in the wings, broke practically every pane of glass in sight and, in general, went wild.
• At 1 a.m., Thursday, April 15, three guards being held hostage in the recreation hall were freed. It was believed they were let loose because of the presence of the armed gun-cage officer.
Shortly after the three guards were released, the prisoners apparently calmed down to the point of organizing their numbers into the effective committees.
Realizing their weak position without an adequate food supply, a group of prisoners stormed the kitchen but were repelled when guards in the kitchen fired one shot into the floor.
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• A few moments later, the press was informed that if further shots were fired, the prisoners said they would cut off a finger of a hostage for each round fired “and toss the finger over the wall.” No further gun fire was heard or reported.
The convicts issued a list of interim demands to officials, the main points being that they wanted at least five or 10 prominent citizens they named to come to the prison to hear their “beefs”; and a certain number of press personnel be allowed to sit in on a press conference with the inmates and prison officials.
The Whig-Standard’s Sheldon MacNeil and photographer Bill Baird entered the prison at 10:15 a.m. Thursday along with other press members to hear what the inmates had to say.
Reporter MacNeil emerged 70 minutes later. He said the inmates were in control of about 50 per cent of the prison … holding most key areas.
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MacNeil said the convicts in rebellion numbered about 500. They claimed to have taken their six hostages into a secluded section of the prison where they were being protected from the more radical inmates, who would, it was felt, attack the guards. Also segregated were about 30 so-called “stoolies,” those inmates believed to have acted as informers against other inmates.
• Thursday afternoon, Henry Champ, 31, a CTV Toronto newsman, toured the area of KP being held by the 500 rebel prisoners. He talked with the inmates, guard Edward Barrett and some of the 30 “stoolies” held captive. Mr. Champ said the prisoners were well organized and obviously meant business.
• Just before midnight Thursday, 130 troops from Canadian Forces Base Kingston, entered KP, armed with automatic rifles … bayonets attached. They were, officials said, to “augment” the prison staff and not to confront prisoners.
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What did the inmates want? It has never been officially verified, but reports were that they did not want to be transferred to Millhaven prison because they feel security there would be much more strict than KP.
The inmates “beefed” about security inside KP; police brutality; prison reform and treatment some of them received from the RCMP during their arrest.
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
Kingston Penitentiary following the 1971 riot. The image is from the late Bill Hackett’s archives. PHOTO BY STEPH CROSIER
• Friday, April 16: Prominent Canadian criminal lawyer G. Arthur Martin and Toronto news columnist Ron Haggart, two of the 10 listed citizens requested by the inmates to talk with them, went to Ottawa to inform Solicitor General Jean Pierre Goyer of the convicts’ demands and grievances.
Also, Friday afternoon, Terrence Decker, 27, one of the six hostage guards, was released as a gesture of “good faith” by the inmates.
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• Saturday, April 17, at about 2 a.m., 100 riot-control troops from CFB Petawawa entered the prison. Barbed wire, barricades and riot shields also went in.
Talks between the citizens’ committee and the spokesman for the inmates continued. At 1:45 p.m., prison officials said they would make a joint statement (with the inmates’ position) later in the afternoon. The statement never came, and for the next 30 hours a news blackout prevailed.
• Saturday, April 18, the day it all began to unravel. At 2 a.m., 100 Royal Canadian Regiment armed troops entered the prison for what was thought to be a changing of the guard. However, the troops inside stayed there, bringing the soldier complement to an estimated 230.
• Sunday, April 19, 7:10 a.m. A bus, escorted by a military car and an OPP cruiser. Roared through the east gate of KP bearing 50 to 60 convicts. The “exodus” was on.
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During the day, as hundreds of spectators strolled on the prison lawn and King Street West and cars moved bumper to bumper past the prison, bus after bus transported prisoners out of KP to various other institutions: Collins Bay, Millhaven, Joyceville and Warkworth.
• Army troops came and went throughout the day, but the last official word was that 520 armed soldiers, plus a double shift of guards, were on duty inside the pen.
As the convicts emerged in buses, some appeared stunned by the large number of people on hand to see them outside. A small band of protesters carried placards reading, “We support the prisoners.” The protesters received no plaudits from the crowd.
• During the remainder of Sunday, the hostages were freed, some soldiers left and the RCMP, military and city police entered to begin investigating the incident.
One inmate (Brian Ensor) was found dead, his body stuff into an overhead air duct, apparently killed by fellow inmates during a rumoured “power struggle” between convicts early Sunday morning. A second prisoner (Bertrand Robert) died from inmate-inflicted injuries a month later at Kingston General Hospital.
Why only the death of 2 diddlers was investigated and not the other 2 is beyond me. 11 ppl were convicted on those killings. 60 informers were not seriously harmed.
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