Crime Wire: Josh Melville Reflects on Attica and his Father, Sam Melville

Josh Melville is the son of Sam Melville, who known in 1960s history as “the mad bomber.” Sam Melville is considered by some historians to be the architect of modern political radicalism in the United States. In 1969 he executed bombings of 8 government institutions. His motivations were stated as corporate imperialism, specifically the US involvement in the Vietnam War, social and racial inequality. 

Melville was subsequently incarcerated in New York’s Attica maximum security prison, where he waged a one-man war against prison administration. He was there in September 1971, when inmates took control of the prison for four days in what became the bloodiest prison uprising in US history. He was killed by police when they stormed the prison, shot at close range while unarmed.