as if you were in Prison with them."
Hebrews 13:3
LA VOZ DE AZTLAN EDITORIAL
January 18, 2001
Terrorist Attack on
California State Capitol
Los Angeles, Alta California - (ACN) The slamming,
at 70 mph, of an 18 wheel truck into the
California State Capitol on Tuesday night
was an act of political terrorism. The kamikaze
action by 37 year old Michael Bowers against
the state government was a result of, according
to Bowers' mother, the California corrupt
penal system's ill treatment of her son.
Michael Bowers' problems began when, at age 22, he was accused of battery on a police officer and sent to the notorious California state prison system for 2 years. In California, being incarcerated for assaulting a police officer carries extra penalties, penalties that are inflicted by the particularly brutal California prison guards. According to family friends, once Bowers was put in the corrupt prison system, he could not escape it and his continuous protests and complaints of his treatment resulted in getting him more hard time behind bars.
Those close to Bowers stated that once an inmate
is labeled a troublemaker, his fate is doomed.
When the correctional system was mandated to
release Bowers on constitutional rights of citizens,
prison authorities would find ways of bringing
him back on parole violations. He was, like many
youths of color, trapped in the penal system, a
system that is not oriented towards the rehabilitation
of prisoners, a system that is fueled by the number
of prisoners in its grasp. There are now huge state
bureaucracies whose budgets, number of employees
and level of salaries are determined by the number
of prisoners in the system. The larger the number
of prisoners the more opportunities for promotions
and higher pay.
When Bowers was brought in for his last parole violation, he was sent to Corcoran State Prison for six years. Corcoran is the notorious California prison where guards were indicted recently for holding "Gladiator" type fights between rival prison gangs. These prison guard sponsored matches resulted in the brutal death of inmates both at the hands of guards and at the hands of other inmates who were put in the prison yard with rival gang members. When Michael Bowers alerted the press of what was going on, prison authorities retaliated by placing Bowers in solitary confinement for an entire year.
"The system really abused Michael," his mother Sharon Bowers said. "It is unbelievable what happened to him." According to Bowers' mother, the one year in solitary confinement in the brutal Corcoran prison broke Michael's mind. Soon after, prison authorities labeled Bowers a "mentally disturbed offender" and committed him to various prison mental wards.
According to a court investigator, George Connors of Beaumont, California, Michael Bowers was extremely articulate and well versed in the law. His abilities were instrumental in convincing a jury to release him in 1999. By the time he won his freedom in 1999, however, he was a psychological wreck, his family said.
Bowers, an intelligent man, felt that the State of California was responsible for the "hell" he had to endure at the hands of its corrupt penal system. A prison system where drugs are more plentiful than in the streets and where prison officials routinely profit from its trade. He was a broken man. He felt that the state had ruined his life and wanted to take his cause to those that were ultimately responsible, those at the very top of state government.
On Tuesday at approximately 9:30 P.M., he drove his
employer's 15 ton truck and took aim at the "highest
symbol" of California's state government, its State
Capitol building where the Assembly was in session
debating the state's electric energy crisis. Not
unlike Palestinian resistance fighters who
are willing to give up their lives for their cause,
Bowers made the ultimate sacrifice in
order to have his cause heard.
Bowers' cause has become the cause of many who are routinely victimized by the increasingly corrupt law enforcement, judicial and "correctional" systems. The victimization weighs heaviest on people of color but white working people are not immune to it, as was with Michael Bowers. We pray that the elected representatives see this incident as a wake up call and move valiantly and vigorously to reform the wrecked institutions of the state before it is too late!
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If you live in California, please send a copy of this editorial to your elected Assemblyperson and State Senator.
La Voz de Aztlan
http://www.aztlan.net
