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Coard and other extreme leftists ordered Bishop placed under house arrest on Oct. 13. With Bishop was his longtime friend, Education Minister Jacqueline Creft. The plotters underestimated Bishop's popularity. His supporters, several thousand strong, rushed the gates of his residence on Oct. 19, freed him and Creft, and carried them to a rally on Market Square in St. George's. Bishop spoke briefly before the crowd moved on to Fort Rupert, where the Grenadian army had its headquarters. There, according to eyewitnesses, troops opened fire on the crowd, killing a dozen people. Bishop, Creft, two other top officials and two union leaders were promptly executed.
General Hudson Austin, 45, a tough former prison guard, announced on Grenada's radio that he was the new leader of a 16-man military government. He ordered a 24-hour curfew,'warning that any violators would be shot on sight. Castro, a friend of Bishop's, publicly deplored the "savage" killings.
Late the next day, Reagan asked Vice President George Bush to convene a Special Situation Group meeting in the White House.''The first concern, according to Secretary of State George Shultz, was the safety of the 1,000 Americans in Grenada, including some 700 medical students. The group quickly decided to divert a naval task force, headed by the carrier Independence, that was on its way to Lebanon with 1,900 Marines scheduled for routine rotation with those there. The ships headed for Grenada as "a precautionary measure," Shultz said. According to Barbados Prime Minister Tom Adams, the U.S. had even thought of trying to rescue Bishop while he was under house arrest.
On the Friday after Bishop's murder, leaders of the six nations in the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (O.E.C.S.) met in Barbados. All are former or present British colonies: Antigua, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts-Nevis, Montserrat and St. Vincent. Each leader expressed the fear that the bloody leftist military takeover on Grenada could embolden Havana-leaning revolutionaries in their own nations. They voted unanimously to ask the U.S. to provide the muscle to do something about Grenada. Barbados and Jamaica, not members of the group, joined in the plea for U.S. help. The organization's chairman, Prime Minister Eugenia Charles of Dominica, said later that Governor General Scoon had managed to get word out to O.E.C.S. that it should act "to bring normalcy back" to Grenada. The plea for U.S. help, she insisted, originated with "our request to the Americans."
Also on Friday, the U.S. embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados, asked Grenadian authorities to permit two consular officers to check on the welfare of the American students. Their plane was first waved away and, when it was finally permitted to land, it was met by teen-age youths toting machine guns. The two did get to see the students, but were alarmed at the lack of governmental authority in the country. The diplomats, said one U.S. official, "were terrified. They wanted to get out themselves."