Joseph Bowers

Joseph "Dutch" Bowers (born Josef Ebner, February 18, 1897 – April 27, 1936) was an inmate who was the first man to attempt an escape from the federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. Born in Rohrbach in Oberösterreich, Austria-Hungary, Bowers was arrested for robbery of mail with a firearm. Having been on Alcatraz for nearly two years, he was fatally shot during his escape attempt.

On April 27, 1936, Bowers worked alone at the incinerator on a lower level of the island's west side. He burned trash and mashed tin cans and sent them rattling into the bay. Tower guard E.F. Chandler saw Bowers dash to the fence and start climbing. After Chandler claimed to have shouted through his megaphone for Bowers to stop, he raised his gun and fired several shots at the convict. One bullet hit Bowers through the lungs, and he leaped convulsively, before he fell sixty feet to the rocks below. The prison launch recovered his body.

The incident termed Bowers's "Desperate Escape" was variously deemed by inmates to have been an actual escape attempt, a deliberate suicide (Bowers had made multiple suicide attempts, and was deemed by some prisoners to be criminally insane), an attempt to climb up to grab garbage wedged in the chain link fence (Bowers was assigned to the garbage incinerator detail), or as an alternative account comes from convict Henry Larry who claims to have watched Bowers, he was feeding seagulls, stacked some empty barrels and climbed up next to the fence so he could retrieve a bit of food which had fallen on the barbed wire. He stood there feeding the birds for several minutes. However, regardless of Bowers's initial motive, it is indisputable that Bowers ignored the forceful signals to halt and he kept climbing even after Chandler began firing, such that he fell on the outside of the fence.