(This is from the Sacramento Bee.)

Claim denied before crash:
$500 million sought by Capitol rammer

By Steven A. Capps

Bee Capitol Bureau

(Published Jan. 23, 2001)

State officials rejected a $500 million claim filed by a 37-year-old Riverside County man just days before he crashed his semi truck into the state Capitol last week, according to state records.

The claim by Mike Bowers, who died in the crash, alleged that he had been mistreated while in custody in state mental hospitals and prison.

Bowers was told in a letter earlier this month that his claim was being rejected, according to Sharon Loris, a spokeswoman for the Board of Control, the state panel that considers legal claims against the state.

The letter meant that if he wished to pursue the matter he would have to file a lawsuit, Loris said Monday. Bowers did not contact the board after the notification was sent to him, she said.

"No one talked to him," she said. "He did not call here and ask questions or get angry or anything."

The board's staff told Bowers that his claim was beyond the scope of the Board of Control because "it raised complex issues of fact and law," Loris said, and she said that the rejection would be made formal at a hearing before the Board of Control on Feb. 27.

Bowers was killed a week ago when his truck crashed into the south side of the Capitol and exploded. Witnesses said the truck had circled the building several times before heading down 11th Street at a high rate of speed and jumping the curb, eventually coming to rest against the Capitol.

Authorities have yet to pinpoint Bowers' motives, but in his claim against the state, Bowers talked of being mistreated while in custody at state mental institutions and in prison, starting with his first arrest in 1986.

Bowers first filed the claim in April of last year, but it was rejected by the Board of Control staff for being in improper form, according to Loris.

He filed a follow-up claim in July, which also was rejected, she said. In November, his third document was deemed in proper form, but was later rejected for being beyond the scope of the Board of Control, Loris said.

The three handwritten documents, totaling 38 pages, are rambling and often hard to decipher.

"Our legal counsel spoke to him in July," Loris said. "He was an individual who was very disturbed."

In the claim, Bowers wrote of being persecuted for pursuing a "New World Order," but did not explain the meaning of the term.

Bowers wrote that he had suffered the consequences of "illegal and wrong medication" that caused him pain and made his eyes roll back in his head. At one point he said he was placed in solitary confinement, "the hole," while in state prison.

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