Voted 3rd Best Artist in the Weekly Alibi
Posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008
I am mentioned on this page in the Alibi
Thank you all who voted for me!
The two photos for today are both from the old NM State Prison that was involved in the February 2, 1980 riots.
The self-portrait (that is me peeking through the broken window) was shot in the dormitory where the riot was started.
The other photo is of the gas chamber. This gas chamber was used once on August 11, 1960 to put David Cooper Nelson to death. His last words were “OK Warden. God be with you.”
Incredible shot – one of my favorite by you of all time!
My brother Joseph Anthony Mirabal was one of the 33 inmates tortured and killed during the Santa Fe Penitentiary riot of February 2-3, 1980. He and I took very different paths in our lives. We both harbored a great deal of anger for the barbaric, inhuman, brutal, abusive (in every sense and form) treatment we both endured in our lives since we were small children. Joseph went in the US Navy (73-77) and participated in the vietnamese evacuations towards the end of the vietnam conflict. He always tried to do the right thing, even at his own peril. His last heroic act before he was sent Santa Fe was to save a dying girls life, which in-turn caused him to violate his probation. To this day, the girl, of whose life he saved, still holds a debt of gratitude for the selfless courage he displayed to protect her. When Joseph went off to prison in March 1978, I enlisted in the US Army where I remained for 27 years until I retired in 2005. What I am revealing in this writing has never been fully told by anyone, but I felt compelled to share my thoughts with those who have had to endure the loss of their loved one(s) through these incomprehensible acts of cruelty and inhumanity to their fellow man. May God bless the fallen forever, and may God have mercy on us all.
Bobby Mirabal