OFFICER JIM HARTFORD HAS HIS HAND BLOWN APART

Correctional officer Jim Hartford was assigned to the Walla Walla County Courthouse on Tuesday, April 5, 1977 during the trial of two inmates charged with assault. While on break, Hartford picked up a cigarette lighter from under the table in the law library next to the courtroom. When he tested it, it exploded. It had been packed with match heads, waiting for some unsuspecting person to pick it up to see if it worked. Hartford lost most of the fingers on his right hand that day.

Over the next four days there was documented retaliation by correctional officers in the segregation unit. On Sunday, April 10, 1977, inmates set fire to the chapel and ransacked the inmate store. Because it happened on Easter Sunday, it became known at the Easter Riot. The resulting lockdown lasted 46 days and resulted in dramatic changes at the penitentiary.

Hartford was in the hospital for 11 days and off work for three months. When he returned to work at the penitentiary, inmates would hold up their hand in grotesque contortion and catcall him “claw.” The picture below is from a newspaper article from the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.

Hartford in ambulance

2 thoughts on “OFFICER JIM HARTFORD HAS HIS HAND BLOWN APART

  1. I met Hartford decades ago. I know all the players in this true story. I’m sitting on a bus in Seattle right now and there is an abandoned Bic lighter on the seat near me. I am not touching it …. 😉

  2. My father worked as a correctional officer from 1977-1979 at Walla Walla. My dad had a seasoned law enforcement career, with city, county and state. I know what he saw there scared, and hardened him in many ways. He was also one of the 35 correctional officers who walked off the job for unsafe working conditions (if that is/was even possible during that time), and filed a claim against the state of Washington.Which dragged through the Washington court system for many, many years before the 35 officers involved were shoved under the proverbial rug.
    My dad told stories of what he saw there during many an extended family conversations, I think mostly to clear his mind on the events he witnessed.
    Thank you for your personal accounts and your years of research on your book.

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