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| Ex-officers, inmates reunite at Alcatraz |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 08/23/2004 |
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Armando Mendoza drove 2,000 miles from his home in Mazatlán, Mexico, to visit the Rock. It's not the distance he traveled that's unusual; the penitentiary-turned-tourist-attraction draws more than one million visitors a year, a good number of them from abroad. But Mendoza is no tourist. He's a former inmate -- one of seven former convicts, 10 onetime officers and other former island residents who returned to the Rock last Saturday for the annual Alcatraz alumni gathering. ``My wife said, `Are you crazy? What kind of reunion is that?' '' Mendoza said. ``It's a chapter, a chapter in a book.'' This year also commemorated the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the first federal prisoners to Alcatraz. Ex-officers greeted ex-cons like old friends. Men and women who were children of correctional officers who lived on the island reminisced about playing ``cops and convicts'' in the well-kept gardens. And former prisoners told stories of murders and stabbings, and rehashed bitter memories. Now 78, Mendoza first arrived at the Rock in 1957. He was a drug dealer in East Los Angeles who ``had 30 years to do, no parole,'' he said. ``I felt like a dead man.'' On Saturday, he peered into his old cell. ``You want to step inside?'' someone asked. ``Hell, no,'' he said. More than 1,500 men served time on Alcatraz during the 29 years the prison was open. It housed Al Capone, George ``Machine Gun'' Kelly and Robert ``Birdman'' Stroud before closing in 1963. |
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