WEBVTT - S1 E11: There Comes a Point Where the Only Way You Can Make a Statement is to Pick Up a Gun 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:05.440 Rip Current is a production of iHeart Podcasts. The views 0:00:05.440 --> 0:00:09.000 and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the host, 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:15.360 producers or parent company. Listener discretion is it Fine? 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.079 Five suspective members of the Symbionese Liberation Army are dead 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.079 following the bloodiest and most massive gun battle in the 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:26.400 history of Los Angeles hundred. 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.320 After the disastrous Los Angeles shootout in May nineteen seventy 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:34.879 four that had left six members of the Simonese Liberation 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:39.560 Army dead, the remaining three Corps members, Bill and Emily 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:45.240 Harris and Patty Hurst went underground. They became for sixteen 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:49.720 months the most wanted fugitives in America. During that time, 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:55.240 new recruits joined a vastly changed SLA. Sinq was dead, 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:00.000 Patty and the Harris's state underground mostly out of Pennsylvania 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:05.360 farmhouse before eventually moving back to the Bay Area. This 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:10.120 new SLA included the three Solia siblings, Steve and his 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:14.319 sisters Kathy and Joe, Michael Bordon, who'd been involved in 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:18.160 a loose organization called the Revolutionary Army, and an artist 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:24.280 named Wendy Yashimora. On September fifteenth, nineteen seventy five, just 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.160 one week before Sarah Jane Moore would take a shot 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:30.920 at Gerald Ford, the FBI visited a two hundred unit 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:36.240 apartment complex in Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco. 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.640 The agent showed the manager, a man named Bill Osgood, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.520 some pictures, wondering if he recognized any of the people 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:47.600 in them as working on a crew painting the apartments. 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:53.560 Osgood pooked out two Michael Bordon and Steven Solia. The 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.120 manager said that two young women also worked on the crew. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.760 The agents waited, and at ten thirty that morning saw 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:07.800 Kathy and Joe Solia arrive ready to work. After sixteen months, 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:13.120 they'd finally located the SLA the big question where Patty 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:17.600 Hurst or the harrises with them. Around five point thirty 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.520 that afternoon, the two Solia sisters left the complex with 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.119 an unidentified man and drove to a house at six 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:29.640 twenty five Morse Street in San Francisco. The agents watched 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.280 the three people enter the house and circled the block 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:36.120 a few times before being called off. Morse was a narrow, 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:40.400 one way street and very difficult to stake out. The 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:44.560 next morning, the sixteenth, a new FBI team watched as 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.840 Steven Solia left the house alone at ten point fifty. 0:02:48.720 --> 0:02:51.160 They followed him as he drove his forward further into 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:55.280 San Francisco to two eighty eight Procida, where he picked 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.640 up his sisters and brought them to the complex in 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.920 Pacifica for another day of painting. The FBI set up 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:05.240 a watch at the Persida address. It was a busier 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:09.160 street and easier to surveil, and they thought Kathy Solia 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.239 most likely lived there. The consensus was that Kathy was 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:17.160 the key person to keep an eye on. The following day, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.359 the seventeenth, the FBI watched Kathy and Joe leave two 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:24.800 eighty eight Prisida at ten am, walked to their car 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.960 and presumably had to work at the apartment complex. The 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:33.560 agents did not follow. They stayed with the stakeout. At 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:36.360 ten point fifty, a man left the house. He had 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:38.600 a full beard and wore cut off jeans and a 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.760 T shirt. It was Bill Harris. He went back into 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.520 the house and emerged again forty minutes later, this time 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:51.320 with Emily Harris. They went for a jog. The FBI 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:55.440 had located two of the three most wanted fugitives. Where 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:01.600 was Patty On Thursday, September eighteenth, the FBI agents again 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:04.720 watched two eighty eight Prosida, but not the house on 0:04:04.800 --> 0:04:08.600 Morse Street. The observed Kathy and Joe leave again for work. 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.520 A young black man pulled up to the house in 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:14.320 a truck. He knocked on the door and talked to 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:16.880 Bill Harris for a moment, then the two of them 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:20.760 walked down to the truck. The agent's tensed, not sure 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.760 what was happening, but Harris walked away from the truck 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.800 carrying a fish. The man was a black Muslim fish peddler. 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.000 At ten of one, Bill and Emily Harris came out 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.920 and went for their jog. After the shootout in Los Angeles, 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.279 the FBI wanted to arrest the Harrises on the street. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.520 They got in position, and when the Harrises returned to 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.320 the block, four agents stepped out of a car and 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:50.279 identified themselves. Emily tried to run, but agents blocked her path. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.000 She screamed expletives at them as she was put into 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.839 an FBI car. Bill stayed silent and was driven away 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:02.400 in a separate car. FBI agents searched the house. They 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:07.200 found guns, bomb making equipment, and radical literature. They did 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:12.240 not find Patty Hurst. Members of the San Francisco Police 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:15.680 Department and the FBI went to the Morse Street address. 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.240 They didn't expect to find anything, but wanted to cover 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:22.720 all the bases. Looking through the kitchen window, they saw 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.400 two women at a table. An FBI agent named Tom 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.720 Padden kicked down the door, gun drawn, yelling at the 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.120 two women to freeze. One of the women seemed to 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:36.640 be thinking of retreating to a back room. Padden pointed 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.640 the gun at the other woman and yelled, freeze or 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.080 all shoot her in the head. The woman laughed, then giggled, 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:49.480 then put her hands up. It was Patty Hurst. According 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.119 to the FBI, Patty was arrested at two twenty five 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:58.000 on September eighteenth. Sometime just prior to that, radio station 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.080 KPFA received to call from a woman claiming to be 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:06.839 Sarah Jane Moore. She told station manager Larry Benske that 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.800 the arrest had happened. Bensky knew Sarah Jane. He recognized 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:16.160 her voice. It's not clear how she came by this information. 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:22.720 I'm to be bald, and I'm Mary Catherine Garrison, and 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.680 this is rip current. 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.719 Well, I yelled the bitch has got a gun before 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.279 I made the lunch flot as the trigger was going. 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:45.320 On Episode eleven, there comes a point where the only 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:47.760 way you can make a statement is to pick up 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:48.120 a gun. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.160 Good evening, Patty Hurst has been taken into custody. The 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:01.760 FBI says Patty Hurst was picked up today in San Francisco. 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.480 The hearst newspaper Eiras has been missing for nineteen months. 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.560 Patty Hurst's capture was easily the biggest story in the country. 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:16.040 California newspapers in particular were suddenly under pressure to produce 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:21.600 stories about or related to her captivity and arrest. Ellen Hume, 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:24.840 who was a reporter at the La Times, had already 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.640 been working on a series of articles about the current 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.560 state of the radical left, and. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.800 I did it with a colleague at the La Times, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.920 Arta Zechino, and she and I went out and spent 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.320 a long time interviewing everybody we could about all aspects. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.760 How did the Black Panthers fit in, how of the 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.560 weather underground fit in? And so we were trying to 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:46.960 create this huge series. 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.400 The plan was to run a sidebar about Sarah Jane 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.440 Moore to accompany one of the stories in the series, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.440 but with Patty and custody. The deadline for the series 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.680 was moved up to begin the far following Monday. They 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.360 had a weekend to get the articles ready to publish again. 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.120 Sarah Jean often went by Sally at this time, and 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.080 that is how Ellen refers to her here. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.000 So Narda and I were continuing to work on our series, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.120 and then all of a sudden, Patty Hurst and Harris 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:21.840 As were arrested in San Francisco, which meant our series 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.400 had a new time peg. We had to get it 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.679 in the paper immediately. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:27.880 So we worked. 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.560 Narda and I worked all weekend preparing all these different 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.600 packages that were going to go in the paper one 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:38.480 day after another. And the first story ran on page 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:42.439 one on a Monday, and the story about Sally was 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.760 supposed to run with another piece that was going to 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.400 go on Wednesday. That was the whole plan, so we 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.600 had multiple stories. Her little sidebar was going to go 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:53.679 on Wednesday. 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:55.280 While Ellen was working on her series. The weekend of 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.160 September twentieth and twenty first, President Ford was back in 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:02.720 California for the first time since his close call with Lynette. 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:07.720 From On Saturday, he received an honorary degree at Pepperdine 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:12.640 University in Malibu. Ford then flew to the Monterey Peninsula, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.000 where he played golf in the afternoon. He and his 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.120 wife spent the night at the residence of Lawrence Firestone, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:24.199 the ambassador to Belgium. The next day, Sunday, the twenty first, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.800 the President would travel to Palo Alto, where he would 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:33.400 dedicate Stanford's new law school building. That Saturday, Sarah Jane 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:37.920 phoned San Francisco Police Inspector Jack O'shay. She had met 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.559 him during her work for the People in Need program 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.520 and had since occasionally fed him bits of information. On 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.080 the call, she told him that she was thinking about 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:51.280 driving down to Palo Alto two, in her words, test 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:56.160 the system. Jack O'shay was alarmed by this statement. He 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:58.880 called the Secret Service to tell them about the conversation. 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:05.400 Said this Gal could be another squeaky from At this time, 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:10.240 Sarah Jane was becoming increasingly isolated, shunned by the radicals 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.160 in the Bay Area because she was a known informant 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.560 for law enforcement. Popeye Jackson's execution had made clear to 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.400 her the danger she was in. She was an admitted informant. 0:10:21.800 --> 0:10:24.839 Her accusations against Popeye may have led to his death, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.840 and she had been called out publicly by the Vietnam 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.640 Veterans Against the War and other groups for her infiltration 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:35.960 into radical organizations. Since entering the world of the Bay 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.720 Area radical scene through the People in Need program, Sarah 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:41.960 Jane had done everything she could to be in the 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.160 center of events. This was no longer possible with most 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:48.600 of the far left groups that she'd been involved with 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:52.439 for the previous year. In an interview with Ellen Hume 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.320 two days after her attempt, Sarah Jane. 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:59.280 Said, I knew I was rapidly reaching a point that 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.720 all of the ADAM news of taking action were being 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.400 closed one at a time. 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:10.400 Sunday morning, September twenty first, Jack O'shay again called the 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.800 Secret Service about Sarah Jane. He then met with her 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.800 in person. During this meeting, O'shay asked Sarah Jane if 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.240 she had a gun. Yes, she said she had a 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:26.400 forty four. It shows how crazy things had gotten in 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.640 Sarah Jane's life that she went straight from that meeting 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:34.000 with Inspector o'sha to participate in a potential sting operation 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:38.800 with the Firearms Bureau of the Department of Treasury. She 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.160 and a short stocky ATF agent who went by the 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.800 name Chuck, drove to the Danville house of Mark Fernwood 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.920 two weeks before. Fernwood had sold Sarah Jane of forty four. 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.000 Now she was back with a check to pay for 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:58.200 the gun. She had told the ATF that she suspected 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.800 that Fernwood was selling guns illegally. It's not clear if 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.080 she really believed this. This is Sarah Jane being interviewed 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:10.640 by Ben Williams for KPIX in San Francisco. 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:13.800 So, the man who went with you to buy the 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.280 thirty eighth that you found at the President was a 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:21.200 government agent. Yes, his name was Chuck or something like that. Yes, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:24.640 what was his role in helping ut to buy a gun? 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.760 He wasn't helping me buy a gun. And that's a 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:33.720 part of the very in my world was falling apart 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.720 at the end. There were a variety of pressures that 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.160 were brought to bear on me, and there was a 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:42.240 little bit of blackmail on the part of the SFPD, 0:12:43.240 --> 0:12:48.520 and I got trapped into something and it was the 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:52.319 kind of thing that was happening to me at the end. 0:12:54.440 --> 0:12:57.319 It seems likely that this half hearted attempt to set 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:01.439 up Mark Fernwood was in response to or perceived pressure 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:05.760 from law enforcement to give them something useful. She'd been 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.520 largely shunned by the radical left after confessing that she 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:13.520 had been an FBI informant. Her need for connection as 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:17.319 she became increasingly isolated, led her to continue to work 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.320 with the San Francisco Police Department, the FBI, and other 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.640 agencies just for the human contact. Some of the pressures 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.880 she perceived may have been her own need to continue 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.080 to fuel those relationships. The trip to Danville came to 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.760 very little. The ATF agent called Chuck, walked around looking 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.400 at things but saying little. Sarah Jane paid Mark for 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.800 the forty four and made small talk. Then they left. 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.840 There was no indication that Fernwood was doing anything illegal 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.000 more biographer Jerry Spieler. 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:57.320 So nothing happened with that. But you know, she used 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.080 that saying, look, I really help with what you're doing. 0:14:01.120 --> 0:14:04.720 You know, I'm really helping you do these things. So 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.240 she wanted to make herself look important in helping the 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:09.800 government do what they needed to do. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:15.480 Sarah Jane and Chuck drove back to San Francisco. She 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.880 returned to her apartment at two thirty to find two 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:22.240 San Francisco police officers waiting for her. Jack O'sheay had 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:24.920 sent them. They asked her if she had a weapon, 0:14:25.120 --> 0:14:26.640 and she said that she had a forty four in 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.840 her purse. They searched her car and found two boxes 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:34.120 of ammunition and eleven loose rounds. At the time, this 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:38.080 amounted to a misdemeanor offense in California. The officers told 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:39.840 Sarah Jane that they were going to take her to 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:43.520 the local precinct office. A blond woman emerged from Sarah 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.080 Jane's apartment and said she'd go with Sarah Jane to 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.960 the police station. This woman is believed to have been 0:14:49.000 --> 0:14:51.760 a member of the radical group Tribal Thumb, who lived 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.920 with Sarah Jane for a couple of weeks that September. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.240 The officers didn't know this, of course, and allowed her 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.880 to accompany Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane was held in the 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.120 station until about four in the afternoon, long enough that 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:06.360 she wouldn't have time to travel the forty miles to 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.640 Palo Alto to see President Ford. Then an SFBD lieutenant 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:12.560 called the Secret Service to see if they wanted the 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:17.240 SFPD to continue to hold Sarah Jane. The response they 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.320 could let her go. The Secret Service planned to see 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:23.240 her that night, so she was allowed to leave and 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.960 return to her apartment. At about eight thirty that evening, 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:32.000 two Secret Service agents, Gary Yager and Martin Haskell Junior, 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.840 arrived at Sarah Jane's apartment. There is no mention of 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:39.080 the blonde woman in accounts of this encounter. The two 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:41.720 agents took Sarah Jane to the Federal building on Golden 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.160 Gate Drive and interviewed her for about an hour and 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:48.320 a half. The Senate would later hold hearings investigating whether 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.840 law enforcement had made errors in their dealings with Sarah 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.360 Jane and the hours leading up to her attempt on Ford. 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:57.120 At one of the hearings, Gary Yager described their conversation 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.760 with Sarah Jane at the Secret Service office. She was 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.880 hesitant to talk and became a little upset, saying something 0:16:04.040 --> 0:16:08.240 like I'm in a fine kettle of fish. The agents 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:11.440 asked her why she carried a gun. She said because 0:16:11.440 --> 0:16:14.240 her life had been threatened, and this apparently was an 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:18.040 adequate explanation. They asked her whether she planned to shoot 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:22.120 Ford or perhaps a demonstrator. According to their testimony. She 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.640 calmly replied no to both questions. She also said that 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:30.240 she had no animosity towards Ford or his administration, which 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.080 she considered uncontroversial. As the interview wound down, one of 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:39.440 the agents phoned SFPD Inspector Jack O'sheay O'shee told the 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.800 agent what he knew about Sarah Jane, her background, her 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:46.000 work is an informant for both the SFPD and the FBI, 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.560 and that he felt as though he knew her personally. 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.680 When he was done, the agent asked him if there 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.400 was anything else. He said no. After the interview was completed, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.720 the agents concluded that Sarah Jane was not of sufficient 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.280 ptime detection interest to warrant surveillance. They released her from custody. 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:07.800 It was sometime after one in the morning of September 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.879 twenty second. Within sixteen hours, Sarah Jane would fire a 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:33.679 shot at Gerald Ford after the break. After her release 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.840 from Secret Service custody in the early morning hours of Monday, 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:40.800 September twenty second, Sarah Jane presumably went home to sleep. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.560 By nine point fifteen, she was up and making a 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:47.040 series of phone calls. She was clearly in a period 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.960 of high stress exacerbated by her mental illness, she feared 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.080 for her life. She later talked about this in her 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.879 interview for Playboy magazine. I was going to get killed. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.600 I'm glad to see stories in the paper finally that 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.200 people are admitting it. They had told me that if 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.359 anyone was saying I was safe, I never heard it. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:08.000 I even got calls from people out of town saying, 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:09.600 my god, do you know what we've heard from our 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.520 underground contacts. They were calling to tell me I was 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.840 going to be killed. When people began dying around me, though, 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.479 I began to think maybe I was next. In an 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:23.159 article following Sarah Jane's attempt, Carol Pogash wrote that a 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:27.080 mutual friend of hers and Sarah Janes told her everything 0:18:27.200 --> 0:18:29.679 was coming together on her. She had moved to the 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.159 Mission to be in the center of the action. She 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.480 had made many enemies. I warned her she might be killed. 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:39.600 Sarah Jane felt as though she needed to prove to 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.240 the left that she had chosen their side over that 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:46.800 of the establishment, meaning the FBI, SFPD and so on. Or, 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:48.800 to put it in terms we have already talked about, 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.280 she wanted to prove that she was a member of 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:56.359 the radical young and not Middle America. She had hoped 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.760 that Ellen Hume's peace about her in the La Times 0:18:58.840 --> 0:18:59.760 might accomplish that. 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:03.119 And this is what's so interesting about the power of 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:07.560 the newspapers in those days. She expected that my story 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:11.159 in the La Times explaining that she'd converted to the 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:15.720 radical cause. She had spoken, you know, as an informant 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:18.840 to the FBI, but her real heart now had converted. 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:22.560 She expected that would save her life. And I didn't 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.600 understand the extent to which she was hanging on that 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:27.879 and waiting for that. I told her it was going 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:29.960 to take a couple more days or weeks to get 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.080 the story in the paper because we were waiting for 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:36.280 the whole series to be finished. But the stakes for 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.280 that story were very high for her. She believed it 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:40.240 would save her life. 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:43.800 One of the calls Sarah Jane made that morning was 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:47.040 to Ellen. Ellen had been working all weekend with NARDA 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:49.880 Zechino to finish a series on the state of radicalism 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:53.480 in nineteen seventy five. The publication dates had been moved 0:19:53.560 --> 0:19:55.280 up because of Patty Hurst's arrest. 0:19:56.440 --> 0:20:00.320 So Monday rolls around and I'd been up all night 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:05.400 every night all weekend with NARDA. I was asleep and 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:08.800 the phone rings in my home and it's a switchboard 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.080 saying someone named Sarah Jane Morris or Sally Moore is 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:14.760 calling you from San Francisco. Will you take the call 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:17.320 because they would have patched it through to me. And 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.679 I said, oh, tell her to call back later, you know, 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:22.360 because i'd pro finally gone to bed. 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.359 What Ellen didn't know was that Sarah Jane thought that 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.520 the piece about her was supposed to run on that day, Monday, 0:20:29.600 --> 0:20:33.159 the twenty second, It was actually slated for Wednesday, the 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:36.520 twenty fourth, So on Monday morning, when she looked at 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:40.440 the La Times, the story wasn't there. She presumably called 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:42.840 Ellen to ask her what had happened, but Ellen didn't 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:48.439 take her call. Sarah Jane told Playboy Charles Bates, special 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:50.800 agent in charge of the San Francisco office, told me, 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.800 if the FBI did not like anything in the proposed story, 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:56.520 they would ask some higher ups at the publication to 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:00.280 edit it out. That they had done that before. She 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:03.440 felt her life was in danger. She needed to prove 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.000 herself to the radical left. The article she thought would 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:11.960 save her hadn't appeared, and Gerald Ford was in town 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:17.920 that day. Sarah Jane made other calls that morning. She 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.639 called Martin Haskell, one of the Secret Service agents who 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:23.879 had interviewed her just hours before. He was an inn. 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.040 She called Bert Worthington, a contact of hers in the FBI. 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.840 He was an in either. She called Jack O'shay at 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.720 the SFPD. An operator said that she could take a 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:38.600 message for O'Shea, but Sarah Jane hung up without leaving one. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:41.520 She may have made other calls as well. We only 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:44.120 know for sure of one other call that morning, made 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:49.280 to the gun dealing hobbyist Mark Fernwood. Sarah Jane called 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.000 Fernwood at nine thirty. She said that she wanted to 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.320 buy a gun for a friend who needed it for protection. 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.880 Fernwood said that he wanted to see this other goal 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:01.399 before he sold her a weapon. Sarah Jane told him 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:03.720 that her friend wasn't available to come out to Danville 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.000 that day, but that she needed the gun. Fernwood was reluctant, 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.520 but everything that he'd seen of Sarah Jane made him 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.320 believe that she was responsible and trustworthy. He agreed to 0:22:14.359 --> 0:22:18.400 sell her a thirty eight for her friend. Sarah Jane 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.159 drove out to Danville. Fern One would later say that 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:23.880 she was friendly. He offered her soda and she drank 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.600 it quickly while they made small talk. Eventually, she bought 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:29.399 the thirty eight with a check for one hundred and 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.119 forty five dollars. As she left, Fernwood mentioned that she 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:34.840 might want to check the sight on the gun, that 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.959 it was a little off. She got back in her 0:22:38.000 --> 0:22:41.960 car and drove towards San Francisco. In the days that followed, 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:44.440 Fernwood would say that the thirty eight was a self 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:49.359 defense gun, not suitable for an assassination. Sarah Jane would 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:51.880 later claim that she wanted someone to stop her from 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.159 trying to kill President Ford. She'd made those calls in 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.080 the morning, but no one was there to take them. Now, 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.959 she sped down Highway six eighty from Danville towards San Francisco. 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:04.919 As she drove, she had the thirty eight in her 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:08.280 lap and she loaded it with bullets. She hoped police 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:11.160 would pull her over for speeding, find the gun, and detainer, 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.480 but that didn't happen. She crossed the Bay Bridge into 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:18.200 San Francisco and made her way to the underground parking 0:23:18.200 --> 0:23:22.360 garage at Union Square and parked. She left the garage 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.480 and walked to the Saint Francis Hotel. Demonstrators and supporters 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:30.639 stood behind cordons across the street from the hotel. Television 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.960 cameras were on hand. Uniform police were posted at three 0:23:33.960 --> 0:23:38.439 foot intervals along the street. Sarah Jane walked toward the 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.080 hotel's side entrance on Post Street. This was where she 0:23:42.119 --> 0:23:45.880 thought Ford would eventually exit the building. She stepped into 0:23:45.920 --> 0:23:50.359 the crowd, hoping to disappear among the masses. Another person 0:23:50.359 --> 0:23:52.640 in the crowd that day was a Michigan raised ex 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:56.400 marine named Oliver Sipple. He hadn't come out of any 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:01.040 political conviction. He was just curious. 0:24:01.119 --> 0:24:03.320 Well all the guys from Michigan, I've never seen him 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:05.680 the person. I'll stick around and see him. You like 0:24:05.720 --> 0:24:06.880 in series, it looks. 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:10.359 Like Oliver Sipple. And Sarah Jane and the rest of 0:24:10.400 --> 0:24:13.120 the crowd settled into wait for Ford to emerge from 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:19.160 his hotel, scheduled for about four that afternoon. Jerry Speeler, she. 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:20.520 Was forty feet away. 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:22.320 She was right at the front of the rope and 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:25.679 forty feet away from him when he walked out. So 0:24:26.359 --> 0:24:28.960 there was a woman from one of the newspapers. Who 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:32.680 was there, Carol Pogas, who saw Sarah Jane, who remembered 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:35.080 her from all of the Pean activities and that kind 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:35.560