The newspaper articles below were published on the day following the 11 April 1997 Prison Riot at Collins Bay Institution. This is the Riot that I wrote about in part 24 of West Yard. This is the riot where the deputy warden reported to the papers that the staff “didn’t have to use force” to end the violence, yet in the following statement she said “Shots were fired by a guard in the gym area early in the disturbance”. “They did work because the inmates were trying to get out of the area…and they backed off”. And that the “rioting inmates were contained to the building all times”. “They were never really loose in the yard.” All of the deputy wardens statements to the newspapers were completely false. This was how sensational events such as these were gaslighted. They presented a false narrative to another group or person which leads them to doubt their perceptions and become mislead. This dynamic is only possible when the audience is vulnerable, such as in unequal power relationships, or when the audience is fearful of the losses associated with challenging the false narrative. This was a common deception used in my time on the Inside.
