Bc Penitentiary
Dec 31st, 2005June 9 Three prisoners at the BC Penitentiary who were about to be returned to solitary confinement took 15 hostages. The standoff with prison officials would last 41 hours and end June 11 with an emergency response team storming the hostage takers. During the raid one of the guards accidentally shot and killed one of the hostages, classification officer Mary Steinhauser, 32. Ironically she had been working at implementing courses for prisoners in solitary. Christian Bruyére wrote a 1978 play, Walls, based on the incident. It was made into a movie in 1984.
About a month before the incident took place, a prisoner warned my father to transfer out of the prison because something was planned. He warned the warden and others but they did not listen so he did transfer out a few weeks before the incident. If he had stayed, he believes because he is a 'tough cookie' as he says, that he would have been killed or wounded in place of Mary Steinhauser if he had remained in the prison.
So that is why the day is important to us.