By Russ Hamilton
As we enter the month of August, the fateful anniversary of Black August — perhaps the most infamous incident in American correctional history — is upon us. It is a time to remember and rededicate ourselves to safety, security and each other. For those of us who have walked the tiers and worked behind the walls, this anniversary carries special weight. It reminds us that complacency kills, that vigilance saves lives and that some paid the ultimate price for doing their job.
A personal connection to history
One event that deeply impacted me early in my career was the story of Black August — a deadly escape attempt at San Quentin on August 21, 1971, that exposed the fatal dangers of letting our guard down.
In June 1989, I was thrilled to be selected for the Richard A. McGee Correctional Training Facility in Galt, California, and chose San Quentin as my institution of choice. Around that time, I ran into two brothers, former coworkers from a construction company where I had worked. When I shared my excitement about my new career, their faces changed dramatically — certainly not the reaction I had expected. They revealed their father, a San Quentin sergeant, had been killed in the line of duty during the Black August escape attempt. That encounter drove home the seriousness of my chosen path and planted the first seed of understanding about what any correctional officer might face on any given shift.
Years later, after retiring and providing content for Tier Talk, a corrections training platform, I had the opportunity to interview Richard (Dick) Nelson, a former San Quentin associate warden whom I had indirectly worked for during my career. Dick was writing his book, “Into Harm’s Way: My Life in Corrections — and the Historic Riot That Nearly Ended It,” about the Black August incident.
The interview was powerful but somber, marked by remembrance of Sergeant Jere Graham, Correctional Officer Paul Krasenes and Correctional Officer Frank DeLeon, who gave their lives that day. Dick was a hero for retaking the Adjustment Center and preventing further bloodshed. As a young officer in 1989, when I first saw the doors with bullet holes in the Adjustment Center, I could never have envisioned that years later I would sit face to face with Associate Warden Dick Nelson, camera rolling, as he told me how he had put those very bullet holes there to bring an end to the escape attempt and further bloodshed.
The critical detail that changed everything
During our interview, Dick didn’t mention one particular critical detail — perhaps he was saving it for his book, or maybe he was focused on other aspects of that terrible day. What he didn’t share was that on August 1, 1971 — exactly 20 days before Black August — a child visiting an inmate was discovered with a fake gun strapped to his ankle during security screening.
This was clearly a dry run, a test of security procedures. The visitors were refused entry, but here’s the fatal flaw: this incident was never reported up the chain of command. It was handled as a routine security violation rather than recognized as intelligence about a larger plot.
Had this been properly reported and analyzed, heightened security measures might have prevented an inmate’s attorney from successfully smuggling a real gun into the facility 20 days later, potentially preventing the entire tragedy that would unfold on August 21, 1971.
Indeed, the revelation of this dry run in Dick’s book, would later inspire me to write my own book on complacency and its deadly consequences in corrections.
This is the essence of how complacency kills — not through dramatic failures, but through small procedural lapses that seem insignificant until they enable catastrophe.
The timeline of violence
To understand Black August, we must understand the context — a series of incidents that began the year before and demonstrated an organized pattern of violence against correctional staff.
January 16, 1970: Correctional Officer John Mills
The violence began at Soledad Prison. On January 13, 1970, a yard fight between inmates resulted in Correctional Officer Opie G. Miller shooting and killing three Black inmates: W.L. Nolen, Cleveland Edwards and Alvin Miller. A Monterey County grand jury ruled the shootings “justifiable homicide.”
Thirty minutes after inmates heard this ruling on the prison radio, Correctional Officer John V. Mills was found dying in Y-Wing, having been beaten and thrown from a third-floor tier to the television room below. Mills — known as “Jack” to friends and family — was well-liked by both inmates and staff. He became the first guard in Soledad’s history to die in the line of duty.
George Jackson, Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette were charged with Mills’ murder, becoming known as the “Soledad Brothers.”
July 23, 1970: Correctional Officer William Shull
Six months later, the violence continued. Correctional Officer William H. Shull was stabbed to death with a shank fashioned from a sharpened steel file on Soledad’s North Facility recreation yard. The 40-year-old officer was discovered in an equipment shack, stabbed more than 40 times. Like Correctional Officer Mills, Shull was targeted not for anything he had done personally, but because he represented the correctional system.
August 7, 1970: The Marin County Courthouse
The violence expanded beyond prison walls when George Jackson’s 17-year-old brother Jonathan attempted to free the Soledad Brothers by taking hostages at the Marin County Courthouse. Armed with weapons registered to UCLA professor Angela Davis, Jonathan Jackson took Judge Harold Haley, Deputy District Attorney Gary Thomas and three jurors hostage.
The rescue attempt ended in tragedy. Judge Haley died from wounds inflicted by a sawed-off shotgun that had been taped to his neck. Jonathan Jackson, along with inmates James McClain and William Christmas, were killed in the ensuing gunfight. Deputy District Attorney Thomas was paralyzed for life.
March 3-4, 1971: Correctional Officer Robert McCarthy
The violence was not confined to San Quentin. Back at Soledad Prison, Correctional Officer Robert J. McCarthy was conducting his duties in X-Wing when he was called to Cell 104 by inmate Hugo Pinell. Pinell, serving a life sentence for rape and awaiting trial for assaulting a guard, pretended he had outgoing mail. When McCarthy opened the food port to collect what he believed was outgoing mail, Pinell stabbed him in the neck with a shank. The incident occurred on March 3, 1971; however, Officer McCarthy succumbed to his injuries the following morning at a hospital located at Fort Ord in Seaside, California.
This murder would later connect directly to Black August — Hugo Pinell would become one of the San Quentin Six, charged in the August 21, 1971, violence where he slashed the throats of two officers with razor blades embedded in a toothbrush handle. The prison gang known as the Black Guerrilla Family was expanding its campaign of violence across California’s prison system.
July 21, 1971: Correctional Officer Leo Davis
One month before Black August, the pattern of calculated violence continued at San Quentin. Correctional Officer Leo Davis was stabbed to death while guarding a prisoner who was a witness to Correctional Officer Shull’s murder. When Davis saw the attackers approaching, he immediately recognized their intent and threw his keys through the food port of an adjacent locked room, protecting the witness even as he was being murdered.
Correctional Officer Davis, who had served for five years and was survived by his wife and four children, died a hero — killed because inmates were willing to murder a correctional officer to eliminate a witness.
Black August: August 21, 1971
By summer 1971, George Jackson had been transferred to San Quentin’s maximum-security Adjustment Center. The failed dry run on August 1 should have triggered heightened security protocols, but the information never made it up the command structure.
On August 21, 1971, Jackson met with attorney Stephen Bingham at San Quentin Prison to discuss a civil lawsuit Jackson had filed against the California Department of Corrections. Bingham was later alleged to have smuggled a Spanish Astra 9mm pistol and a wig to Jackson, hidden inside a cassette recorder, during this visit. After the meeting, Jackson was being escorted by Correctional Officer Urbano Rubiaco back to his cell when Rubiaco noticed a metallic object in Jackson’s hair, later revealed to be the wig, and ordered him to remove it. Jackson then pulled the pistol from beneath the wig and said: “This is it, gentlemen, the dragon has come.”
Though Bingham was charged with smuggling the weapons to Jackson, he fled the country immediately after the incident and lived as a fugitive for 13 years before returning to the United States to face trial in 1986, where he was acquitted of all charges.
Jackson ordered Rubiaco to open all the cells and, with assistance from several other inmates, overpowered the remaining correctional officers and took them hostage along with two inmates.
Dick Nelson’s account as related to me
Lieutenant Dick Nelson was off duty that Saturday, painting his dining room in his on-grounds housing when he heard what sounded like a muffled gunshot. His neighbor, Associate Warden Jim Park, came running out shouting that George Jackson was loose in the prison with a gun.
Nelson grabbed a Thompson .45-caliber submachine gun from the armory — a weapon he was expert with — and initially headed toward the chapel where Jackson was reported to be. But as he reached the plaza, he was redirected to the Adjustment Center where inmates had taken hostages.
“All the inmates were on the south side at the back end of the tier in the quiet cell area,” Nelson recalled. “We could hear them hollering, cussing, making threats about killing the hostages.”
When rifle and shotgun rounds fired down the tier had no effect, Nelson dropped to one knee and fired five rounds from the submachine gun into the steel door of the quiet cell area. This scattered the inmates and allowed two officers — Urbano Rubiaco and Charles Breckenridge — to escape.
But the damage was done. Sergeant Jere Graham had been shot in the head and killed, Officer Krasenes and Officer DeLeon had been killed, and Officers Rubiaco, Breckenridge and McCray had been grievously wounded.
Nelson and his team methodically forced the surrender of 23 inmates, stripping them and backing them up the tier one by one. In the final cell, they found one of the dead inmates with his throat cut and head nearly severed.
The final toll: Sergeant Jere Graham, Correctional Officer Paul Krasenes and Correctional Officer Frank DeLeon had paid the ultimate price. George Jackson was shot and killed by a tower guard as he attempted to escape across the yard. But Jackson’s violence wasn’t limited to correctional staff — two other inmates, John Lynn, 29, and Ronald L. Kane, 28, were also murdered by Jackson and his fellow conspirators during the escape attempt. These inmates were killed simply because they were in the wrong place when the violence erupted.
Correctional Officers Urbano Rubiaco and Charles Breckenridge survived their injuries, though both had their throats slashed and barely escaped with their lives by feigning death.
The San Quentin Six trial
Six inmates were charged in connection with the Black August violence: Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo Pinell, Johnny Spain, Willie Tate and Luis Talamantez, who became known as the San Quentin Six. After a lengthy trial, the outcomes varied significantly.
Johnny Spain was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Guards Frank DeLeon and Jere Graham, though his conviction was later overturned on appeal due to procedural issues during trial. Hugo Pinell was convicted of two counts of felony assault for attacking Officers Breckenridge and Rubiaco. David Johnson was convicted of one count of assault.
Three of the defendants — Luis Talamantez, Fleeta Drumgo and Willie Tate — were acquitted of all charges related to the Black August incident.
Hugo Pinell remained in prison and was killed on August 12, 2015, during a riot at California State Prison-Sacramento. He had spent 45 years in administrative segregation before being moved to general population just two weeks before his death.
The violence continued
The pattern didn’t end with Black August. On June 8, 1985 — 14 years later — the prison gang Black Guerrilla Family struck again.
June 8, 1985: Sergeant Hal Burchfield
Sergeant Howell “Hal” Burchfield was working the night shift in San Quentin’s Carson section when Black Guerrilla Family members Andre Johnson, Lawrence Woodard and Jarvis Masters planned the killing, with Johnson actually carrying it out. Johnson, positioned in a darkened second-tier cell, used a makeshift spear to stab Burchfield in the heart when he came to take count.
The murder was part of a larger Black Guerrilla Family plan to “start a war by striking police.” Andre Johnson was found guilty, and the jury recommended the death penalty; however, the trial judge reduced the penalty to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, together with a consecutive sentence of 25 years to life for conspiracy to commit murder. The trial court imposed the same sentence on Lawrence Woodard after the jury was unable to agree on the penalty. Their co-defendant, Jarvis Masters, was also found guilty and was sentenced to death.
Burchfield, who had started his career in 1972 and worked his way up from correctional officer to sergeant, was survived by his wife Barbara and five children. His daughter Marjorie would later become a correctional officer herself, following in her father’s footsteps despite the tragedy.
Lessons in service and sacrifice
These eight correctional professionals — Mills, Shull, McCarthy, Davis, Graham, Krasenes, DeLeon and Burchfield — died in service to their communities and their calling. They represented the best of our profession: dedicated individuals who chose to work in one of society’s most challenging environments because someone had to maintain order and safety.
Each came to work knowing the inherent dangers of correctional work, yet they chose to serve anyway. They died because they wore the badge and stood between order and chaos. They died because they answered the call to serve in a profession that demands courage, vigilance and sacrifice.
Most importantly, their deaths remind us that small failures in communication and procedure — like not reporting the fake gun discovery — can have catastrophic consequences. Their sacrifice underscores the critical importance of following protocols, reporting security breaches and maintaining constant vigilance.
These weren’t abstract policy failures — they were breakdowns that cost real people their lives. People with families, hopes and futures cut short because those whose job it was to protect them weren’t given the intelligence they needed to do so safely.
The legacy we must remember
As we observe this August anniversary, we must recommit ourselves to the vigilance that these eight officers died defending. We must remember that:
- Complacency kills through small failures, not dramatic ones
- Every security breach, no matter how minor, must be reported and analyzed
- Routine must never become a substitute for awareness
- The price of letting our guard down is paid in blood
In 1989, those bullet holes in the Adjustment Center doors were just marks on steel to a young officer starting his career. But they came to represent something much more profound: the price of vigilance, the cost of freedom and the sacrifice of those who stood the line.
Dick Nelson, who passed away on January 26, 2021, was a hero who saved lives that day. But he would be the first to tell you that the real heroes are the eight officers who didn’t make it home:
- Correctional Officer John Mills – January 16, 1970
- Correctional Officer William Shull – July 23, 1970
- Correctional Officer Robert McCarthy – March 3-4, 1971
- Correctional Officer Leo Davis – July 21, 1971
- Sergeant Jere Graham – August 21, 1971
- Correctional Officer Paul Krasenes – August 21, 1971
- Correctional Officer Frank DeLeon – August 21, 1971
- Sergeant Hal Burchfield – June 8, 1985
Rest in peace, brothers. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten.
About the author
Russ Hamilton is a retired sergeant with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. He currently provides training content and historical research for correctional professionals through various platforms and publications.