Fear Me

24

The riot.

It was quite a picture.

Cons roaming in gangs and posses with knives and pipes and razors, guns from the armory. The whites out in force along with the blacks and Hispanics. Everyone on a rampage. Three guards were dead within the first hour as long-simmering hatreds boiled over and the men found weapons in their hands. The offices were demolished. The prison industry buildings set on fire. The Ad-Seg and protective custody cells were opened and all the rats and weaklings and celebrity inmates were torn to pieces by roving mobs.

Romero made it out into the yard and it was chaos.

Utter chaos.

Helicopters were in the air and the state police were assembling outside the walls with SWAT units and tear gas and sharpshooters. The National Guard had been mobilized. The authorities were calling out over loudspeakers for the cons to surrender, for the hostages to be released. A bunch of outlaw bikers tossed the corpse of a guard over the wall in response.

But through it all, there was a loose sort of unity amongst the convicts themselves. The whites were led by Mafia soldiers and bolstered by the ABs, biker gangs, and hundreds of renegade criminals just itching for a fight. The blacks were led by a cocaine trafficker doing life who had managed to cement together all the street gangs and drug dealers and pimps. The Hispanics were led by a high-ranking member of the Mexican Mafia. Out in the yard, the whites assembled along one wall, the blacks another, and the Hispanics yet another.

But in the center, with the hostages, there were some of each.

By nightfall, these three leaders had calmed the mobs and began making demands over the loudspeakers. At first, they were ignored, but when they announced they’d kill one person for each hour this went on, they were flooded with responses.

The negotiating went on well into the night.

The prison was swept by searchlights, cordoned off by police and National Guard units. The news media was out in force, but the cops wouldn’t let them within a mile of Shaddock.

Around midnight, the authorities broke off negotiations.

Then they turned off the water.

Then the lights.