Biography
Erica Bouza was the wife of then-Minneapolis Police Chief Tony Bouza. Became national news in April 1983 when she and 138 other anti-nuclear protesters sat down in front of Honeywell's Minneapolis headquarters and were arrested by officers under her husband's command. Arrested again on October 24, 1983 in the second mass sit-in (577 arrests) and sentenced to 10 days at the Hennepin County workhouse. Featured in People Magazine. The first of approximately 11 peace-related civil-disobedience arrests in the Twin Cities.
Photograph provenance and separate custody events
The original 900 by 900 photograph is captioned Erica and Tony Bouza at the Wellfleet OysterFest, courtesy Richard Rosenthal, in the Provincetown Independent's named family obituary. Both subjects are retained; it is a later life photograph, not a 1983 arrest image. Photograph date and reuse license remain unknown; no new crop or reconstruction is used.
The October blockade date is October 24, not October 23, corroborated by local historical chronology and Winona LaDuke's movement account. The original November 11, 1983 Evening Herald carries UPI reporting that Bouza was then serving her ten-day workhouse sentence. A November 1 placeholder is not an exact release and must not produce a nine-day served total. Unsupported custody endpoints and that total are cleared. Her April 18 arrest and citation-release were a separate event; they do not establish admission for the later workhouse sentence.
Sources: Tom Recchio, Provincetown Independent, July 12, 2023, named photo caption; original photograph; St Louis Park Historical Society, Honeywell chronology; Winona LaDuke, The Circle, October blockade recollection; Evening Herald, November 11, 1983, page 2, UPI custody report; UPI, April 18, 1983, separate arrest and release. Original complete custody-report page visually inspected; no exact discharge is back-calculated from sentence length.
Separate April 1983 arrest and same-day release
A distinct case is added for the April 18, 1983 blockade. Contemporary UPI reporting identifies this as Bouza's first arrest and says the initial group was charged and released. The next day's Associated Press interview, printed April 20, specifically describes Bouza being taken to the police garage, given a citation and released. This brief processing episode is not merged with the later October prosecution and workhouse sentence. A same-day date span is zero whole days, not proof that no hours were spent in police custody. No prison-admission field or later judicial disposition is guessed.
Sources: UPI, April 18, 1983; James W. Hatton, Associated Press, University Daily, April 20, 1983. These contemporary reports were consulted through indexed text; the AP scan could not be retrieved for visual inspection. The October case's exact custody endpoints remain unresolved.
