From: WikiPedia:  (causes of riot)
The causes of the New Mexico Penitentiary riot are well documented, as author R. Morris wrote that the riot was predictable...based on the assement of prison conditions; prison overcrowding; inferior prison services;...all common problems in many correctional facilities across the nation, were major causes of the riot.  On the night of the disturbance, there were 1,136 inmates in a prison made to house 900, and many of them were not separated.  Many were housed in comunal dormitories, that were unsanitary and served poor quality food.  Another major reason for the riot was the cancellation of education and recreational and other rehabilitation programs that had run from 1970 to 1975.

I had not thought about that riot, which took many lives and injured hundreds, until recently, when an article on the topic came out in the Albuquerque Journal on December 13, 2010.  I was written by one of the staff writers named Joline Gutierrez-Krueger, and the piece is entitled,

"Government Fails Guard Rescuers Traumatized by Macabre Scene"

Sub-title reads;
"30 Years After Riot, Still Living in Hell"

The article reads;

"She remembers all of it...especially the worst parts of it...which was most of it.  She remembers the strangely syrupy smell of the burning flesh, the dank of wet wool prison blankets, the screams...the blood...the men in suits...polititicians, she thought...gawking at the remains of an inmate decapitated and mutilated as part of the grotesque sexual torture that went on for 36 hours at the Pentitentiary of New Mexico 30 years ago. 

'We thought we were going out for breakfast, 'Mary Racicot recalls.  'Instead...we went to hell.'  Part of her is still there.

(The photo accompanying the article, is a photo of the woman (about 60 years of age) who was a nurse in the National Guard at the time of the prison riot)

Recicot was one of the 13 members of the 744th Medical Detachment of the New Mexico Army National Guard who were called up by the then Governor Bruce King on February 2, 1980, to deal with the dead and wounded from one of the bloodiest and certainly the most macabre prison riots in U.S. history. 

Thirty-three prisoners were killed, most in ghastly ways, by fellow inmates.  Hundreds more were tortured, sodomized or maimed, including 12 corrections officers held hostage during the savage siege.  When Raciot and others saw in those hours was the worst of mankind...gruesome, evil...more than enough to shatter souls...and lives...'It ruined mine,' she says. 

Thirty years later (2010), the government has yet to compensate her for the post-traumatic stress disorder she struggles with still.  The rules regarding state and federal jurisdiction failed her and the others. 

Experts warn the same thing could happen to other National Guard members should they find themselves in a similar stateside situation.  'There is such a thing as a war in our own backyard,' says Rosario Vega Lynn, an Albuquerque attorney who has represented the rights of soldiers returning from service saddled with PTSD.

'It is inconceivable that it would take 30 years before we are moved enough to do something.  Meanwhile, our veterans suffer.' 

Racicot, then 28, was charged that morning with supervising five younger members stationed on the lawn in front of the prison where the dead and the wounded were taken.  One of their jobs was to transfer the bloodied and blow-torched remains from the stretchers to body-bags.  The dead, she says, had terror frozen on their faces. 

'The most diffecult one for me was an inmate that had had a blowtorch to his face and groin,' she says.  'When I went to move him from the stretcher, his tissue was still melting.  It went through my fingers and onto the ground.'

After it was over, the only debriefing her unit received was a handful of narcotics.  'That was the only way our commanding officer could think of to help,' she says.  'We never talked about it again.  We couldn't even look at each other in the face.'

For years after the riots, Racicot says, she tried to suppress the growing and gradually debilitating anxities that paralyzed her.  'It would just come up on me, and I would think, what the hell is happening to me, she says.  'I ignored it, but finally I hit rock bottom.  I started drinking.  When I slept, I felt like screaming, but I couldn't.' 

At least six of her similarly afflicted fellow Guardsmen received military benefits as a result of their PTSD.  But in 2002, those benefits were recinded after the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department discovered  a discrepancy in federal guidelines governing the approval of those benefits.  Months later, Racicot says she learned that one of those six committed suicide. 

Facicot had applied for benefits, too, but not until 18 years later and not until therapy, which she paid for out of pocket, uncovered the PTSD and the riots as the cause of her mental state.  'We always assumed we were military and the VA would take care of us,' says Racicot, now 59.  'It wasn't true .'

At issue is on whose dime Racicot and her fellow Guardsmen were on during riot duty.  'The National Guard have a very curious hybrid status of being state for some purposes and federal for others, and it goes from one status to the other almost seamlessly,'  says retired Navy Captain Samuel Wright, director of the Reserve Officers Association's Service Members Law Center in Washington, D.C.

'If you join the New Mexico National Guard, you would be joining two legally distinct but overlapping organizations,' he says.  A state organization, the modern-day equivalent of the state militia, and a federal Reserve component.'

When her unit was called up by the governor that day in 1980, it was under state active duty, she says. 'Thus, we were not entitled to the VA benefits for injuries, including PTSD,' he says.  'They were essentially state employees.' 

Workers' compensation for such state employees should have kicked in, but New Mexico's Workers Compensation Administration was not established until 1986, six years after the prison riot. 

WCA officials have said in previous Journal articles that it is very unlikely the Guardsmen could receive state compensation now.  'Mary and others like her fell through the cracks becauswe of a legal loophole that existed 30 years ago and still does today,' Wright said.  Wright says, 'Congress and the state legislatures need to address these issues.' 

Wright says his organization will propose federal legislation to help close that loophole.  'It helps to have a horror story to push legislation,' he says.  'We now have a horror story, albeit 30 years old.'

So what about it, New Mexico?  The 1980 prison riot was a black eye for our state; for Racicot, and it was a black hole.  It's time to make amends for that."

END OF ARTICLE;

I had not read or heard about this terrible prison riot in many years.  When I saw the article in the newspaper, it concerned me, because it is sort of behind-the-scenes look at how the state and federal governments work...and that's pretty scary in itself.  The main reason for my concern, is because I am involved in a situation here in the neighborhood where I live concerning a chemical dump by the Air Force, which is located only about a mile from where I live, at the end of the runways of Kirtland Air Force Base. 

If I would have known what's going on in this neighborhood, I would have never moved here in 2009.  The 'fuel spill' as it is called (chemical dump) will cost the U.S. taxpayer's over 200 million to clean up and the state of New Mexico and the federal government (Air Force) have been fighting over this for over 10 years!  The chemical dump is threatening to poison the groundwater and poison the neighborhood.  If it happens, the state government and the federal government will be pointing fingers at each other...just as in the prison riot...it's always somebodyy else's fault.  But, what about the possibility of poisoning the drinking water...the cancer...the brain tumors...and the finger-pointing will continue by the federal and state governments...The reader can learn more by going to the following article;

Chemical Dump: It's Time To Close Kirtland A.F.B.
http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=59811

"Man's inhumanity to man crosses continents and decades."  Anthony Ventulolo

It was Rodney King, who was almost beaten to death by a few members of the Los Angeles Police Deparartment (with nightsticks), who said.  "Why can't we all just get along?" 

UPDATE:  EDITORIAL; About two days after I posted this piece, there was an editorial in the Albuquerque Journal dated December 15, 2010

Title of editorial;

"State Should Answer Guard's Call for Help'

"The motto of the National Guard is 'Always Ready...Always There.' 

New Mexico is 30 years late when it comes to emulating that sentiment for 13 brave men and women of the New Mexico's Army National Guard.  Those soldiers answered the call from then-Governor Bruce King on February 2, 1980, to help deal with the terrifying fallout of the 36 hour riot at the Pentitentiary of New Mexico.

Over the next three decades, New Mexico has been AWOL, when it comes to helping those guard members deal with the sensory overload answering the state's call for help provided...the screams; the blood; the burning flesh; the mutilations and decaptitations and sexual torture. 

So they have dealt with it alone.  Or chosen not to.  Mary Racicot was a 28 year old member of the 744th Medical Detachment of the New Mexico Army National Guard, called up to tend to the riot's dead and wounded.  On that day, she says, 'we went to hell.'

She says the mission left her with growing and debilitating anxieties, that she 'hit rock bottom.  I started drinking.  When I slept, I felt like screaming, but I couldn't.'  She knows of at least one fellow guardsman who committed suicide. 

In the decades since the riot New Mexico has yet to go the extra mile to help these soldiers deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder that followed handling maimed and melting inmates, tending to prison guards who had been beaten and brutalized.  Their commander gave them a handful of narcotics, and they never spoke of what they had seen, heard, smelled, felt. 

The feds say they were on a state mission so the VA won't pay for treatment; the state says there was no New Mexico's Workers' Compension Administration at the time so it's unlikely they would get any benefits.

Retired Navy Captain Samuel Wright, director of the Reserve Officers Association's Service Members Law Center in Washington D.C., says his group will propose federal legislation to help close that loophole.  In the interim the New Mexico Legislature should step up and ensure the state takes responsibility for the treatment of the surviving guard members.

They answered the state's call 30 years ago.  New Mexico needs to answer their call now." 

END OF EDITORIAL...

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