Biography
Eric Thompson was one of the Attica Brothers — the prisoners the state of New York prosecuted after the September 1971 uprising at Attica Correctional Facility, which was crushed when state forces retook the prison and killed 29 inmates and 10 hostages. He was one of five men the state originally charged with murder in connection with the rebellion. As The Black Panther reported (February 1, 1975), the Attica Brothers' defense, led by William Kunstler and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, won a string of pretrial rulings exposing the weakness of the state's cases; most of the 42 indictments against 62 men were ultimately dismissed, and Governor Hugh Carey closed out the prosecutions and granted clemencies in 1976.
Attica Brother charged in connection with the 1971 Attica Prison uprising and the death of a guard. His prosecution as part of the Attica Brothers case was a focal point of post-Attica political prisoner defense work, including in PFOC Breakthrough magazine. Documented in PFOC Breakthrough magazine.
