A penitentiary inmate returned to Pendleton in January 1971 to testify against a fellow prison escapee slashed his wrist and touched off a three-hour riot at the Umatilla County Jail. While damages ran to four figures, no other inmates or jail personnel were injured.
The trouble began Jan. 3, 1971, at about 9 p.m. when Danny Wayne Wilcox Clark, 20, broke out of his cell. Clark somehow obtained a razor blade and used it to slash his wrist. He then barricaded himself inside his cell, armed with a sharp piece of steel torn from a ceiling light fixture to keep help away. By the time deputies subdued Clark with tear gas, his cell was spattered on the floor, walls and ceiling with blood. The man was taken to the hospital to have his cut dressed, then was returned to the jail where he lay, gray-faced and quiet, in another cell.
Clark had been returned from the Oregon State Penitentiary to Pendleton to testify against Albert Leo Palmer, who with Clark escaped from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Clark was convicted of grand larceny after stealing a car in Stanfield during the escape attempt. Both men were arrested in Umatilla County, and Clark was sentenced to an eight-year term.
About 15 other prisoners were lodged at the jail when Clark was subdued, and six to 10 of them started an uproar. The "young riot," as it was called by Umatilla County Sheriff Roy Johnson, raged for almost three hours. Toilets were torn from the floor and broken into pieces. The chunks were hurled through barred windows on the south side of the jail.
Prisoners rolled up magazines, tipped with aluminum foil, and shorted out ceiling light fixtures, breaking bulbs and sending the cells into darkness. Some fixtures were torn from the ceiling, and piles of magazines, books and other items were set afire, filling the jail with smoke. Some of the burning material was thrown through the broken windows, deputies said, in an attempt to set the roof of the courthouse on fire.
"They slammed doors, banged on the bars, shouted," a gray-haired prisoner said. "Then they started the fires." He and two trustees covered their heads with wet towels and retreated to a corner bunk to wait out the trouble. Chief Deputy Bill McPherson took charge of putting down the disturbance, and fellow deputies praised his "cool judgment" for the fact that no one was injured or killed.
By 12:30 a.m., the rioters had worn out and the trouble fizzled, but it wasn't until almost 6 a.m. before total control was finally reestablished. More than seven garbage cans full of broken glass, charred paper and other debris were removed from the jail, with deputies standing guard with shotguns during the cleanup.
Sheriff Johnson pointed to the need for a jail redesign to handle troublesome prisoners. Corners were cut to save money when the jail was built in 1956, he said. "We get men here as tough as any in the penitentiary."
But the Jan. 3 unrest was not the first of the year for the jail. Just two days prior, on New Year's Day 1971, troublemakers in the juvenile section of the jail shredded a blanket and flushed it down a toilet, plugging up the plumbing.
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