Why Arizona should honor this ‘enemy of the people’
A bill has passed in the Arizona House that would allow for a memorial to Don Bolles at the state Capitol.
It may not get a vote in the Senate, however, if Republican Sen. Jake Hoffman does what he did last year, which was keep a similar bill from getting a hearing.
The reason is simple: Hoffman hates the media.
Or perhaps Hoffman, one of the fake electors being investigated by Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, is doing what he believes Donald Trump would want him to do, since Trump has many times called the press the “enemy of the people.”
And Trump sycophants like Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake have imitated their Dear Leader. Or, as Lake has said, “The Media is the Enemy of the People. And frankly — the right hand of the Devil.”
Don Bolles was a member of the media.
House Bill 2595, authorizing his memorial, would cost taxpayers nothing. It would be done with private funding. It would be done to honor his legacy. His sacrifice.
Bolles spent years investigating and exposing malfeasance.
On June 2, 1976, during the Bicentennial summer, Bolles drove to the Hotel Clarendon in midtown Phoenix where he was to meet a small-time criminal named John Harvey Adamson.
Adamson told Bolles he had information about corruption. But Adamson didn’t show.
After a time, Bolles chose not to wait any longer. He left the hotel and got into his car. As he started the engine and began backing up, a radio transmitter set off a bomb hidden beneath the vehicle.
Bolles died from his injuries 11 days later. He was 47.
Three men eventually were convicted in the bombing, but questions remain over who ordered the hit.
Over time, as the anniversaries of his death piled up, I’ve spoken to several members of Bolles’ family.
His daughter, Diane, only 6 when her dad was murdered, told me, “I grow weary of my emotions and memories being minimized. I actually do remember a lot.”
She added, “I remember the little tea parties we used to have. I remember him coming home from work and we’d all run to him . ... I kept telling myself he would come home and walk through the door, but he never did.”
Another of Bolles’ daughters, Frances, said, “I could hardly breathe the first year. I remember wondering if I would ever stop crying. There is no place in our brains and our hearts to process one human being doing