Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney General, has asked a state judge to release sealed documents about the five day riot that took place in September 1971 where "inmates took control of the maximum security prison... until state troopers and guards stormed the facility and fatally shot 29 prisoners and 10 hostages."
Schneiderman said hopes to uncover more details of the riot in order to answer remaining questions for families of those who lost their lives, The Associated Press reported.
"It is important, both for families directly affect and for future generations, that these historical documents be made available so the public can have a better understanding of what happened and we can prevent future tragedies," Schneiderman said in a statement.
The sealed documents initially had been part of the Meyer Commission Report written in 1975, which examined the riot and its ensuing aftermath.
"For families that lost their father, son, brother because they were killed in D Yard, they yearn to know the truth of how their loved one died and why they died. Some of that has come out, but certainly there's a lot more that hasn't come out," added attorney Gary Morton. He represents the Forgotten Victims of Attica.
32 inmates and 11 staff members were killed during the riot, mostly from shots fired by troopers and correction officers, as reported by The AP.
The first volume of the Meyer Commission concluded that 62 inmates were indicted for different offenses. A trooper was later indicted on a reckless endangerment charge in 1975. The commission report, however, "found no intentional cover-up by prosecutors but faulted police for bad planning and failing to account for the rifles, shotguns and pistols used and bullets, slugs and buckshot fired by individual officers," The AP also reported.
"After 29 years of deceit, cover-up and injustice, the State of New York agreed this year to pay $8 million in damages to inmates who were beaten and abused in reprisals during the recapture of the Attica Correctional Facility in 1971," wrote The New York Times columnist Tom Wicker in a 2000 op-ed.
Audiotapes published in 2011 revealed that President Richard Nixon sided with law enforcement at the time when he phoned Governor Nelson Rockefeller.
"You did the right thing. It's a tragedy that these poor fellows were shot but I just want you to know that's my view and I've told the troops around here that I back that right to the hilt," Nixon said in the audiotape.
The events at Attica State have been memorably captured in film and music. In Sidney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon," for instance, Al Pacino's refrain of 'Attica, Attica' in 'Dog Day Afternoon,' implores authorities outside "to put their guns down."
John Lennon also wrote 'Attica State" as an empathetic ode to the prisoners who were forced to endure tumultuous conditions at the prison.
"They all live in suffocation/Let's not watch them die in sorrow/Now's the time for revolution/Give them all a chance to grow," sang Lennon.
