were transferred to San Quentin to await trial. The three defendants, Fleeta Drumgo, John Clutchette and George Jackson, eventually came to be known as the "Soledad Brothers". Jackson was known at the time to be a political activist and writer, and he and Nolen had worked together in 1966 to found the prison gang the Black Guerrilla Family, a black power group targeting what they saw as the white racist infrastructure of the prison system. Escalating racial violence at Soledad - two more deaths Following the January 13 shootings and the subsequent murder of John Mills, racial tensions grew increasingly violent at Soledad. On March 16, 1970, white guards William Monagan and Wallace Coffman were held hostage for approximately forty-five minutes by five inmates before tear gas was deployed to free them. The incident was reported in The Bulletin. On July 23, 1970, a white guard, William H. Shull, age 40, was found stabbed to death in a shed for exercise equipment. Forty different wounds were found on his body. Six days later, the body of a white convicted robber, Roy William Turner, aged twenty-two, was found shoved under his prison cell cot. August 7, 1970 Marin County Civic Center attack In August 1970, a group associated with the Soledad Brothers organized an armed assault on the Marin County courthouse. The assault took place during a trial for James McClain, who had been named accused in the stabbing of a prison guard, with Judge Haley presiding. The person in charge of the kidnapping was George Jackson's younger brother, Jonathan Peter Jackson, aged 17. Two days before the kidnapping, former UCLA instructor Angela Davis purchased a shotgun from a pawn shop in San Francisco. After Davis paid for the shotgun, its barrel was sawed off so as to be concealable. On the day before the kidnapping, Angela Davis and Jonathan Jackson were alleged to have been in a rented yellow utility van at the Marin Courthouse. Jonathan Jackson went into the courtroom where James McClain (aged 37) was on trial. Jackson was wearing a long buttoned-up raincoat, despite the heat and lack of rain. The van had troubles running, so Jackson and Davis drove to a gas station down the street from the courthouse to get the van repaired. On Friday, August 7, 1970, a heavily armed Jonathan Jackson returned to the courthouse in the yellow van. He entered the courtroom