Alcatraz Island, California – The exhibitions on Alcatraz Island, the infamous federal prison which has been closed and preserved as decades as a site in the National Park and the tourist attraction, invite visitors to imagine what it was to be a guardian or a detainee confined to the solitary and misty rock in the middle of the Bay of San Francisco.
But Monday, one day after President Trump Published on social networks That he wants to reopen the almost centenary prison as an Alcatraz, much extended and rebuilt, to house the most ruthless and violent offenders in America “, many tourists imagined a very different role: what it would be to be the director of construction who could really understand how to do.
“I am absolutely for what (Trump) does, but it does not make sense,” said Beverly Klir, 63, an ardent supporter of Trump who visited Chicago. “I think Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay prison) can be better. This is where they all belong. They do not belong here. ”
She and her husband stood in the middle of a riot of pink flowers on the steep cliffs of the island, looking at the Golden Gate Bridge like a pair of Canada geese and three dandinated fuzzy canetons. Behind them, he looms the prison, his facade in the form of a fortress apparently threatening, but also a testimony of age and time, with ruined stucco, deteriorated masonry and fleeting joints.
Higher on the island, outside the three -story cell house, where some of the country's most incorrigible prisoners were once locked in primitive cells, Melody Garcia, 10, visiting the Concord family, seemed just as perplex. “Most Alcatraz are broken down and all that,” she said.
However, within hours of Trump's statement, the prison office published a statement saying that it was already at work.
“The prisons office will vigorously continue all the ways to support and implement the president's agenda,” said BOP director William K. Marshall III. “I ordered an immediate evaluation to determine our needs and the next steps. USP Alcatraz has a rich story. We are impatient to restore this powerful symbol of law, order and justice. ”
Many Californian officials, for their part, replied with a range ridiculous and concern. A spokesman for Governor Gavin Newsom rejected the declaration as a ploy designed to distract voters from dark economic news. The Senator of the Scott Wiener State (D-San Francisco) called him “disarticulated”. But he also warned that “when Donald Trump says something, he wants it” and speculated that Trump could “open a gulag here in the United States”
The presence of the United States government on Alcatraz began in the 1850s, with the construction of a strong bristling of cannons to defend San Francisco against hostile ships.
Shortly after, US officials also started using it as a military prison. During the civil war, the crew of a Confederate ship, as well as union soldiers found guilty of rape, murder, desertion and other offenses were imprisoned there. The American army also locked hope, the Indians Apache and Modoc there and, later, the objectors of conscience of the First World War.
In 1934, Alcatraz opened its doors as an official federal prison for men who had made attempts to evacuate other federal prisons, or otherwise behaving. Among his notable detainees were Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly.
Known as “The Rock”, the prison, which had a capacity of 336 men, obtained a place in popular culture as an island of distant despair. “Everyone wants to be an individual,” said former detainee James Quillen, who served 10 years from 1942 to 1952. “You want to be human. And you were not at “The Rock”. “
In addition to being great, prison was really expensive to maintain and operate. So dear, in fact, that in 1963, the general of the time, General Robert F. Kennedy, ordered him closed.
John Martini, an Alcatraz historian, said that the prison had been partially closed because it was built with defective construction methods and was decaying, and it would be such a silver pit to bring it up to standard … that it was easier to build a new penitentiary. “”
Six years later, the island acquired a prominent place in the history of the Amerindians when a group of Native American activists landed on the island, declaring that they took it on behalf of the “Indians of all the tribes”. The occupation lasted 19 months and helped to awaken the nation to the concerns of indigenous Americans.
When federal agents moved in to withdraw the last occupants in 1971, officials intended to Bulldozer everything. But in 1972, the Congress created the National Leisure Zone of Golden Gate, and the island became one of the most popular attractions in San Francisco. More than 1.4 million people visit each year, walking in the blocks of wet cells and occupy exhibitions on the Amerindian occupation.
By calling for reopened Alcatraz, Trump said that his restoration “would serve as a symbol of law, order and justice”.
But the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, a non -profit organization that helps preserve and support operations in Alcatraz, published a statement on Monday that the stature of the prison as a historic monument and an educational destination is already used an important role.
“Alcatraz has not been a workers' prison for over 60 years,” the organization said in its press release. “Today, it is a powerful symbol – a national historical benchmark preserved forever, a transformative experience of the national park and a global site for reflection … This is where history speaks – and where we learn from the past to shape a better future.”
John Kostelnik, regional vice-president of the west of the council of prison residents 33, said that the idea of reopening Alcatraz was not only “irresponsible” use of federal money, but also a slap in front of prison guards, who have long been complaining about low wages.
“It seems just very hypocritical that they have arrived and said that they will make the government more efficient and more doge and all that,” said Kostelnik, “and now they say they will throw hundreds of millions of dollars into a symbol.”
In December, The Bop said He closed his federal prison in difficulty in Dublin, California, about 30 miles east of San Francisco, as well as five prison camps with minimum security in the States of Florida in Colorado. The office declared in a document obtained by the Associated Press that it closed the facilities to meet “important challenges, in particular a critical endowment shortage, a ruined infrastructure and limited budgetary resources”.
The office of the mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie, gave investigations on Alcatraz's proposal to the National Park Service, which did not immediately respond to a comment request.
Tourists wandering on the island on Monday seemed concerned with two questions: how and why?
“It's not ready. He is in no way ready or in form, “said Daniel Mulvad, 24, who lives in San Francisco and visited guests from outside the city. He noted that the costs of renovating the structure would be astronomical and seemed insane given that as a tourist attraction, Alcatraz seemed to generate a lot of income thanks to the sale of tickets and the goods.
“It would really be necessary … Returns,” said Alyssa Sibley, 26, of Sacramento, while she was standing in the old shower room, fixing the raw and rusty bathroom devices.
Tumidei Valentin, 34, French psychologist on vacation in California, decreed it as a “terrible idea”. “Every day he has new ideas,” said Valentin about Trump, most of them “to make a buzz” and attract attention.
Kristin Nichols, 60, from Palm Springs, who visited his family, said that as a person who was part of Chickasaw, she was particularly moved by the exhibitions on the Amerindian occupation.
“The amount of money it would take to do it …” she said. “I would question the goal.”
She added: “It is a historic place, and if they return it to prison, it will ruin the whole story.”
