Stockade incident evokes action
KU students to discuss 'mutiny'
By MIKE FREDERICK Kansan Staff Writer
Students and other concerned persons will meet at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Wesley Foundation to determine possible action in response to the "mutiny" at San Francisco's Presidio Stockade and subsequent events, announced the Rev. Tom Rehorn, director of the Wesley Foundation.
Committees have been been throughout the nation to inform persons about the events leading up to and following the shooting of Pvt. Richard Bunch, an inmate at the Army's Presidio Stockade in San Francisco.
The National Committee tor the 27, directed by Phil Farnham and Brian Drolet, has collected considerable information about the incident:
October 11, 1968, Bunch, 19,
awaited duty assignment in the yard of the Presidio Stockade.
Turning to a prison guard he asked the consequence of running away. The guard responded that he (Bunch) would find out if he tried anything. Bunch asked the shotgun-carrying guard to aim for his head and then attempted to run away. He got no further than 20 feet before he was
struck and killed by the shotgun blast.
Witnesses at the scene said the guard did not yell halt, and that other guards in the area easily could have apprehended Bunch without firing.
Shortly after the incident, designated justifiable homicide by the Army, numerous hand-written messages were found in Bunch's cell which indicated his suicidal tendencies. A month earlier, his mother had tried to have him admitted to a hospital for psychiatric care. He was put in the Stockade instead, for being AWOL.
Capt. Robert S. Lamont, 25, officer in charge of the Stockade, arrived on the scene and began reading article 94 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the section covering mutiny. He could not be heard
During morning roll eall,
October 14, 27 of Bunch's
fellow prisoners linked arms and
began singing "We Shall
Overcome." They were
protesting the Army's verdict in
Bunch's death, substandard,
overcrowded conditions in the
Stockade, and shotgun-carrying
by undertrained guards.
above the singing so he went to a parked military police car and used the loudspeaker to read the article. He admitted he read it for its "shock effect."
The 27 participants were extensively interviewed by Capt. Richard Millard, the investigative officer appointed by the Army. He suggested that the inmates be tried by a special court martial, which could only impose a maximum sentence of six months, rather than by a general court martial, because he believed "the elements of mutiny did not exist."
It was stated at the beginning of their mass trial, by a seven-man court martial board, that the prisoners' action constituted "nonviolent mutiny." The maximum penalty being life in prison. To simplify defense procedures, the board decided, the men would be split into smaller groups for trying.
The first group, tried Jan. 28, consisted of six men. Five of these men had been previously recommended for discharge by Army psychiatrists.
The first to be sentenced, Pvt. Nesrey D. Sood was sentenced to 15 years hard labor at Fort
State Senate to hear measure for control of drug violations
TOPEKA — The Kansas Senate Judiciary Committee has drawn up Senate Bill No. 315, which provides for the classification of the possession or sale of certain "hard narcotics," especially LSD, as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. The bill is scheduled for introduction on the Senate floor this week.
The bill is designed to control
Brown appointed at Med Center
Robert W. Brown, associate professor and staff physician at the University of Kansas Medical Center, has been named co-ordinator of the Kansas Regional Medical Program, George A. Wolf Jr., provost and dean of the Medical Center, announced today.
The Medical Center was designated the official agency for the state of Kansas in planning and applying for grants provided under the Regional Medical Program.
Dr. Charles E. Lewis, co-ordinator of the Program since 1966, will become professor of social medicine and assistant director of the Harvard Center for Community Health and Medical Care in Boston in June, Harvard announced Thursday.
The Kansas region was one of the first four in the nation to receive funds under federal legislation in a nation-wide effort to improve diagnosis and treatment of heart disease, cancer, strokes and related diseases, said Mary Ann Blakeney, Office of Informational Services at the Medical Center.
Brown graduated and completed both his internship and residency in internal medicine at the Medical Center.
Educational programs are now being offered in numerous cities throughout Kansas.
Mar. 19
1969 KANSAN 5
and punish the convicted pusher of hard narcotics, providing for a life sentence upon third conviction. It was drawn up as a companion bill to the one passed by the House last week which re-classified possession 'of marijuana as a misdemeanor.
The Kansas legislation compared favorably to a bill presently under consideration in the federal legislature, but it is seen as nonconforming on certain sections.
Sen. Robert F. Bennett, R-Prairie Village, explained that as federal bills are entered in the statute books, state legislation normally conforms to the federal stipulations.
Bennett added that these hard narcotics had "longer lasting and more intense effects" and it was "ridiculous that their possession was still classified as merely a misdemeanor."
Bennett said the Judiciary Committee concluded that such legislation was needed due to the "far more dangerous effects of LSD and hallucinogenic drugs as opposed to marijuana."
The Judiciary Committee's consideration was prompted by a report from Evan Wright, Kansas State Food and Drug Division director.
Wright told the legislature that LSD can produce acuate psychosis in a previously normal person. It can produce a sub-acute or chronic psychosis in a person who has some personality abnormalities, such as a neurosis or compensated psychosis.
Leavenworth, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and a dishonorable discharge.
Wright's report further stated that it was not yet known whether a supposedly normal person, after ingesting LSD on one occasion, could have long-standing, even permanent mental derangement. He added, however, that the whole LSD hallucinatory experience can recur weeks or months later, even if a person never touched it in the interim.
Wright also said recent research has shown that LSD may damage the chromosomes. Present studies are under way on the possibility of its causing deformed or retarded babies.
Initially, Sood was in the Stockade for being AWOL (as were many of the other participants). He had been picked up, one week before his discharge, while in Oakland visiting his children. Yesterday, however, Sood's sentence was reduced to two years.
Paul Halvonik, American Civil Liberties Union attorney, defended Sood. He argued that Sood had not committed an act of mutiny, but was simply trying to call attention to his legitimate grievances.
The defense presented an acoustics expert who testified
Feb. 27, Reidel, Oscxpinski and Sood were taken to Fort Leavenworth to begin serving their sentences.
It was hoped that the following sentences would be more lenient. They were not. Pvt. Larry Reidel, 21, of Crescent City, Calif., was given a 14-year prison term, and Pvt. Louis S. Oscxpinski, 22, Florida, N.Y., got 16.
that the men in the Stockade at the time of Lamont'sreading of article 94 could not have heard what he was saying. The noise of the prisoners and the static of the loudspeaker combined to drown out the warning.
The remaining prisoners are awaiting sentences.