Alcatraz Island facility for Alcatraz. Alcatraz Island was occupied by Native American activists for the first time on March 8, 1964. The event was reported by, among others, the "San Francisco Chronicle" and the "San Francisco Examiner". Beginning on November 20, 1969, a group of Native Americans called United Indians of All Tribes, mostly college students from San Francisco, occupied the island to protest federal policies related to American Indians. Some of them were children of Native Americans who had relocated in the city as part of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA) Indian termination policy, which was a series of laws
Battle of Alcatraz cellblock. Joe Cretzer was a west coast gangster and member of the Cretzer-Kyle Gang. In 1940 he was sentenced to 25 years for murder. After two escape attempts in the first months of his incarceration, one of which resulted in another murder charge, he was transferred to Alcatraz. In May 1941, Cretzer, Shockley and two other convicts made an escape attempt from one of the prison's workshops. Carnes was the youngest prisoner to reside at Alcatraz, having been convicted of murder in 1943 at the age of 16. He made a number of escape attempts and by 1946, when he