The inmates were the negotiators as it went along. Some of the observers, like Bill Kunstler and Congressman Badillo and Tom Wicker, were a little more sophisticated than people like myself who were new in this whole arena. And they were giving advice.
But what had happened is, in the takeover — you said earlier that one of the guards had been beaten up, and two of the inmates, in the takeover. And Officer Quinn — during the negotiations, the word came out that Officer Quinn had died. And that changed the whole tone of the negotiations, because amnesty was taken off the table.
The irony of that, for me — and I always say this: I brought nothing to what happened in the yard that day; I was an observer. What I came away with was life-changing, because what the state did is they went in and killed, as we learned, nine of the hostages. They wouldn’t continue the negotiations because one guard had died, but they then killed the hostages.
— source democracynow.org | Sep 13, 2021