Bolles’ car should be destroyed, not displayed

The bombed-out car of murdered

Arizona Republic journalist Don Bolles never should have been put on public display in the first place.

And now that The Newseum in Washington, D.C., has closed and the car is in storage, it should be destroyed.

That would be the right thing to do. It would have been the right thing to do years ago.

It breaks my heart that those who hoped to honor Bolles and other journalists who have given their lives to the profession didn’t recognize that.

The car was donated to the museum by Bolles’ wife, Rosalie Bolles Kasse. A spokeswoman for the Newseum said it will be kept in storage until a new place can be found to put the Newseum’s collection on display.

God, I hope not.

The only way such a thing should have happened in the first place is if the Newseum had gotten the OK of every member of Bolles’ immediate family. Particularly his children.

Back in 2008, Bolles’ daughter, Frances Bolles Haynes, told me she was vehemently against putting the car on public display.

She said in part, “That is just grotesque. I can’t tell you what pain it is knowing that people are going to walk by and gawk. It reinforces the idea that my father is a footnote, and I rail against that.”

The fact that one of Bolles’ children was opposed to including the car in the Newseum’s “collection” should have been enough to nix the idea. Victims must come first.

I’m sure the Newseum saw the brutally damaged Datsun sedan as a powerful visual representation of the dangers some journalists face and the price they are willing to pay. But going against the wishes of a family member — a victim — to make that point is just the opposite of what journalism should stand for.

Empathy and understanding should have superseded any desire to use the vehicle.

Journalists should be better than that.

Bolles was better than that.

He died days after being lured to a downtown Phoenix hotel for a meeting. As he left, backing out of a parking spot, the bomb was detonated under the floorboards of the driver’s side.

The first time I saw Bolles’ small white sedan was in early 1997.

At the time, it was the only vehicle left in a police evidence storage lot south of Phoenix’s sewer treatment plant. I wrote at the time:

The car looks to be in good shape, until you get close. Then you see that the front windshield is out and the tires are flat. The hood is buckled. The front license plate has been bent back. Yanked back. Sucked back by the explosion …