The 1974 Huntsville Prison siege was an eleven-day prison uprising that took place from July 24 to August 3, 1974, at the Huntsville Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, Texas. The standoff was one of the longest hostage-taking sieges in United States history. [1]
From July 24 to August 3, 1974, Federico "Fred" Gomez Carrasco and two other inmates laid siege to the education/library building of the Walls Unit. Fred Carrasco was a powerful heroin kingpin in South Texas who was serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of a police officer. [2] He was also suspected in the murder of dozens of people in Mexico and Texas. Having smuggled pistols and ammunition into the prison, he and two other convicts took eleven prison workers and four inmates hostage. [1] The pistols were smuggled by a bribed prison worker who put three .357 magnum pistols in a can of ham. More than 300 rounds of ammunition were also smuggled inside cans of peaches. [3]
When the one o'clock work bell sounded, Carrasco walked up a ramp to the third-story library and forced several prisoners out at gunpoint. When two guards tried to go up the ramp, Carrasco fired at them. His two accomplices, who were also armed, immediately joined him in the library. [1]
The prison warden and the director of the Texas Department of Corrections immediately began negotiations with the convicts. FBI agents and Texas Rangers arrived to assist them, as the media descended on Huntsville. Over the next several days the convicts made a number of demands, including tailored suits, dress shoes, toothpaste, cologne, walkie-talkies and bulletproof helmets, all of which were provided promptly. With the approval of Texas Governor Dolph Briscoe, an armored getaway car was provided and rolled into the prison courtyard. Carrasco claimed that they were planning to flee to Cuba and appeal to Fidel Castro. [1]
After a grueling eleven-day standoff, the convicts finally made their escape attempt just before 10 p.m. on Saturday, August 3, 1974. They moved out of the library toward the waiting vehicle in a makeshift shield consisting of legal books taped to mobile blackboards that were later dubbed by the press the "Trojan Taco". Inside the shield were the three convicts and four hostages, while eight other hostages ringed the exterior of the "taco". [1] [2]
Acting on a prearranged plan, prison guards and Texas Rangers blasted the group with fire hoses. However, a rupture in the hose gave the convicts time to fatally shoot the two women hostages who had volunteered to join the convicts in the armored car. When prison officials returned fire, Carrasco committed suicide and one of his two accomplices, Rodolpho Dominguez, was killed. [1] Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas, who was an onsite reporter for Houston's KPRC-TV at the time, later wrote, "It is a tragedy that two hostages died. It is a miracle all the rest lived." [4]
The two female hostages who were killed during the incident were Yvonne Beseda and Julia Standley. [5] In 1999 on the 25th anniversary of the siege, the Huntsville Unit Education Building where the siege occurred was renamed The Standley-Beseda Education Building with a renaming ceremony attended by members of the siege and families. The renaming was due to the efforts of the Huntsville Unit School principal, Dr. Gregory Gathright and the Unit Warden Jim Willett. The renaming process necessitated a resolution by the Texas Legislature required for any name change to a state-owned facility. The vote was unanimous for approval.
Ignacio Cuevas (July 31, 1931 – May 23, 1991), the surviving perpetrator, received the Texas Department of Corrections Death Row ID #526. Cuevas was received as a death row prisoner on May 30, 1975. Cuevas was held at the Ellis Unit, and he was executed on May 23, 1991. [5] Cuevas's last meal request consisted of chicken dumplings, steamed rice, sliced bread, black-eyed peas, and iced tea. [6] Cuevas's last words were "I'm going to a beautiful place. O.K., warden, roll 'em." [7]
Tex-Mex musician Joe "King" Carrasco (born Joe Teusch) adopted the drug king's surname.
"When I was playing with the Mexican bands, they couldn't say Teusch," he says. "That was when Fred Carrasco had tried to break out of Huntsville back in 1974 with a big shootout. Carrasco was killed, so that week the Mexican guys said, "We're going to call you Carrasco." [8]
Los Socios de San Antonio have a tribute song entitled "La Muerte de Fred Gomez Carrasco".
The Riot and the "Trojan Taco" was also mentioned in the episode "The Reverse Midas Touch" during the 5th season of Orange Is the New Black , in a news segment in which a historian unfolds several prison riots and the fatal consequence prisoners typically face afterwards. [9]
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas, United States. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate 45 and home to Sam Houston State University, Texas State Prison, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville State Park, and HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas.
A prison farm is a large correctional facility where penal labor convicts are forced to work — legally or illegally — on a farm, usually for manual labor, largely in the open air, such as in agriculture, logging, quarrying, and mining. In the United States, such forced labor is made legal by the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution; however, some other parts of the world have made penal labor illegal. The concepts of prison farm and labor camp overlap, with the idea that the prisoners are forced to work. The historical equivalent on a very large scale was called a penal colony.
Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18.
Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre (22.00 ha) facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The facility, the oldest Texas state prison, opened in 1849.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is a department of the government of the U.S. state of Texas. The TDCJ is responsible for statewide criminal justice for adult offenders, including managing offenders in state prisons, state jails, and private correctional facilities, funding and certain oversight of community supervision, and supervision of offenders released from prison on parole or mandatory supervision. The TDCJ operates the largest prison system in the United States.
Allan B. Polunsky Unit is a prison in West Livingston, unincorporated Polk County, Texas, United States, located approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Livingston along Farm to Market Road 350. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates the facility. The unit houses the State of Texas death row for men, and it has a maximum capacity of 2,900. Livingston Municipal Airport is located on the other side of FM 350. The unit, along the Big Thicket, is 60 miles (97 km) east of Huntsville.
O. B. Ellis Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison located in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntsville. The unit, with about 11,427 acres (4,624 ha) of space, now houses up to 2,400 male prisoners. Ellis is situated in a wooded area shared with the Estelle Unit, which is located 3 miles (4.8 km) away from Ellis. From 1965 to 1999 it was the location of the State of Texas men's death row.
Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F. Supp. 1265, filed in United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, eventually became the most far-reaching lawsuit on the conditions of prison incarceration in American history.
W. J. "Jim" Estelle Unit also known as the Estelle Supermax Penitentiary, is a prison located on Farm to Market Road 3478 in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, United States, 10 miles (16 km) north of central Huntsville. The prison, with about 5,459 acres (2,209 ha) of space, is operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The unit, which opened in June 1984, was named after Ward James "Jim" Estelle, a former prison director of Texas.
The John M. Wynne Unit (WY) is a men's prison of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, located in northern Huntsville, Texas, at the intersection of Farm to Market Road 2821 West and Texas State Highway 75 North. The Windham School District has its headquarters in the unit. Wynne, the second oldest prison in Texas, was named after John Magruder Wynne, who served as a prison employee and later as a board member of the prison system from 1878 to 1881. The unit, on a 1,412 acres (571 ha) plot of land, is co-located with the Holliday Unit.
The J. Dale Wainwright Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) prison for men, located in unincorporated Houston County, Texas. Formerly called the Eastham Unit or "The Ham," the prison was renamed the J. Dale Wainwright Unit after a former chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. The 12,789 acres (5,176 ha) prison is located on Farm to Market Road 230, near Lovelady and 13 miles (21 km) west of Trinity.
The Holliday Transfer Facility, is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice transfer facility for men located in Huntsville, Texas. Holliday is along Interstate 45 and .5 miles (0.80 km) north of Texas State Highway 30. The unit, on a 1,412-acre (571 ha) plot of land, is co-located with the Wynne Unit.
The Hilltop Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison for women located in Gatesville, Texas. Originally opened in September of 1981 as a Male first offender Unit, it is headed by Warden Jerry Gunnels. Hackberry School was the first opened then in October Sycamore was opened and housed SAT IV Construction inmates who were working on Gatesville Unit and Hilltop repairing and buildings and facilities. Until May 1982, when the Hilltop Unit proper was opened.
The James "Jay" H. Byrd Jr. Unit (DU) is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison for men located in Huntsville, Texas. The 93 acres (38 ha) diagnostic unit, established in May 1964, is 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Downtown Huntsville on Farm to Market Road 247. The prison was named after James H. Byrd, a former prison warden.
A prison cemetery is a graveyard reserved for the dead bodies of prisoners. Generally, the remains of inmates who are not claimed by family or friends are interred in prison cemeteries and include convicts executed for capital crimes.
The Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery is the main prison cemetery in Texas, located in Huntsville and operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). The colloquial name for the cemetery is Peckerwood Hill. The name originates from "Peckerwood", an insult towards poor white people, because many of those buried at the cemetery were poor.
FedericoGómez Carrasco was an American drug baron of Mexican descent. Based in Nuevo Laredo, Carrasco was the most powerful heroin kingpin in South Texas during his prime in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He has been cited as the "biggest and deadliest drug lord on the Texas-Mexico border, overseeing a cocaine and heroin empire that stretched from Guadalajara to San Diego, California, and Chicago, Illinois." He was described as a "slightly overweight Mexican man of average height, perhaps a little taller than most Mexican men", who never smiled, and although only 34, was already referred to as "El Viejo" due to his experience in drug dealing. In Gilb's Hecho en Tejas, he states that "more corridos have been written about Carrasco than Gregorio Cortez".
William G. McConnell Unit (ML) is a Texas state prison located in unincorporated Bee County, Texas, along Texas State Highway 181, 1 mile (1.6 km) east of the city limits of Beeville. It is a part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ).
James Garrett Freeman was an American man who was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed for murder in Texas.
The Linda Woodman State Jail is a state jail operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The prison is named after Linda Woodman who served as warden of the Gatesville Unit and a survivor of the 1974 Huntsville Prison siege.
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