Joseph Bowers

Joseph "Dutch" Bowers (born December 13, 1896 – died April 27, 1936) was the first man to attempt an escape from Alcatraz prison. On 27 April 1936, convict Henry Larry claims to have watched Bowers, who was feeding seagulls, stack some empty barrels and climb up next to the fence so he could retrieve a bit of food which had fallen on the barbed wire. He stood there feeding the birds for several minutes until a tower guard turned, saw him atop the fence, and fired on the convict. Bowers fell seventy feet to his death on the rocks below.

As documented in "The Desperate Escape of Joseph Bowers" at AlcatrazHistory.com:

The incident termed Bowers' "Desperate Escape" was variously deemed by inmates to have been an actual escape attempt, a deliberate suicide (Bowers had made multiple suicide attempts, and was deemed by some prisoners to be criminally insane), an attempt to climb up to grab garbage wedged in the chain link fence (Bowers was assigned to the garbage incinerator detail), or an attempt to climb the fence to feed a seagull. However, regardless of Bowers' initial motive, it is indisputable that Bowers ignored the guards' forceful signals to halt and he kept climbing even after the guards began firing, such that he fell on the outside of the fence.