WEBVTT - School Bus [6] 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:05.800 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.799 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.880 and do not necessarily represent those of iHeartMedia, How Stuff Works, 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:20.759 or its employees. The Zodiac was now in San Francisco. 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:23.479 He had killed a cab driver and took credit for 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.239 the murder in a new letter inside a piece of 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.960 bloody cloth from the cab driver's shirt. The Zodiac now 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.000 had the city's attention, and he gripped the entire Bay 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.320 Area in fear with his deadly game. It was clear 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.640 that anyone could be next. People walked the streets with 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.599 caution as they went about their everyday lives. But as 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:47.080 Michael Butterfield says, Pallstein's murder wasn't the most terrifying detail. 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:50.800 For the first time, the Zodiac had included a very 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:52.720 real threat. 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.680 School children make nice targets. I think I shall wipe 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.760 out a school bus some morning, Just shoot at the 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.760 front tire and then pick off the kiddies that they 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.000 come bouncing out, signed Zodiac. 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:14.480 This was, of course terrifying, because he had already demonstrated 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:17.360 that he was capable of extreme acts of violence, and 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:20.560 now he was threatening school children. The fact that he 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.600 had moved to a major metropolitan city and murdered a 0:01:23.640 --> 0:01:26.840 cab driver for no apparent reason, which was completely outside 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:31.000 of his previous victim preference, indicated that this man was 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.039 very unpredictable, and when he started threatening school children, there 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.000 was no reason to believe that he was bluffing. 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.440 In San Francisco, we have been since the first day, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.640 since the reception of this note, we have a number 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:48.640 of playing clothes officers following buses in the morning and 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:49.320 in the. 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:54.200 Evening, so there was a concerted effort to protect school 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.840 children on school buses and all around the Bay Area. 0:01:58.400 --> 0:02:01.279 There were police officers that were following the buses, police 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.360 officers sheriff's deputies who were assigned to ride on the 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:09.280 buses with shotguns. There were helicopters following buses, and bus 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.160 drivers were given instructions on what to do in the 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:13.839 event that someone did shoot at them. 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.280 We have specifically requested that they alert their drivers to 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.400 not stop under any conditions if a shot is fired 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.280 or if the bus is subjected to a flat tire 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.400 by the sniper. Further, that they get the children down 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.240 immediately and proceed with all speed out of the airth 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:36.560 to try and attract all the possible attention by blowing 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.840 their horns and therefore get out of the situation. 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.560 So every effort was made to avoid the scenario that 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.560 the Zodiac preferred, and that of course created a rather 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.400 traumatic childhood for a lot of children who were growing 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:52.679 up in the Bay area and who at this time 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:55.799 now remember him as some sort of boogeyman who scared 0:02:55.840 --> 0:02:56.360 them the death. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.480 I heard this loud shot from the left hand side 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:02.280 of the bus. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:03.520 What do the children do? 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.760 They heard it. My reaction was get them off the bus, 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.720 get them into school as fast as I could, and 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:12.080 I was right behind them. 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:16.000 Now, conversely, there's also a great piece of video from 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.840 that period, a piece of film footage shot by a 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.520 local news station where they're interviewing one of the bus drivers. 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.200 Have any of the drivers trust any concern over their job? 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:30.680 Now, there's naturally talk everybody, so I guess there's chanced 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:32.760 about it, but they all seem to be in good 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:35.600 spirits and all seem to be going on with the job. 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.240 I don't know of anybody that's quit. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:39.640 And the bus driver saying, well, you know, I'm not 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.840 really that concerned about it or whatever, but we're going 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.000 to be careful. And in the background there's a little 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.440 kid who shouts out, you're not afraid. 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.320 No, no, no, not too afraid. 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.120 And it kind of puts things in perspective for you 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.320 that children really didn't understand what was going on. They 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.480 knew enough to be scared, and they knew enough that 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.120 there was something happening around them, but they had no 0:04:03.240 --> 0:04:06.640 concept like the adults did, of what was really going on. 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:09.840 The children just knew someone was threatening them. The adults 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:11.560 knew that they were being threatened by a man had 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.440 already killed before and was perfectly capable of doing it again. 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.440 So that bus threat changed everything in the case. It 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.560 not only terrified people and created this whole situation where 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.240 they'd have to protect children all over the Bay area, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.919 but it also elevated the Zodiac to a level he 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.000 had not been at before, which was someone who could 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:33.760 attack anyone at any time. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.880 A man in a mask, robbed, tied, and stabbed them, 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:42.560 leaving them for. 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:47.320 Dam subjects stated, I want to report a murder, no 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:48.679 a double murder. 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:49.920 I did it. 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.320 A man who wore an evil style executionershood, carried a 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.719 knife and gun and intended to use them. 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:03.560 They haven't arrested me because they I'm not the damn Zodiac. 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.160 Who is the Zodiac and where is he from? 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:12.880 iHeartRadio, Houstuff Works and Tenderfoot TV. This is monster, the 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:20.040 Zodiac killer. There's nothing like the hysteria and paranoia of 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:24.480 fearing for their child's life. The Zodiac preyed on hysteria 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.640 and fear like the Joker from Batman. Fear made him 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.200 feel powerful, and it created a difficult problem for journalists 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.039 and civic figures. Should one continue reporting the misdeeds of 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.560 the Zodiac or does that only fuel him? Is that 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.040 doing what he wants? The worst part about fear mongering 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:45.560 is it a bomb doesn't even have to be there 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.200 to accomplish the goal of Mayhem. 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.760 Zodiac's threat to harm school children created a ripple effect 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.400 across the Bay Area. In Valeo, the local community was 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.480 still reeling from the recent attacks. It had only been 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.320 a few months since the Zodiac killed Darlene Farrin at 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:06.800 Blue Rock Springs. Now Valeo police were also taking precautions 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.640 to protect school buses. While San Francisco was no stranger 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:17.560 to high pressure situations, Valeo was different. Suburban quiet back then. 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.440 Valeo was a really really nice town, nice place to live. 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.520 Me and my little sister walked to school all the time. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.320 I was, you know, ride along Sonoma Boulevard there at 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:29.720 seven eight years old, and nobody thought anything of it. 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.480 My name is Mark Ibner. I'm fifty six. I live 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.880 in Loomis, California, and I was born and raised in Balo. 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:40.960 In the neighborhood that we lived in California Meadows, we 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:45.400 had a huge, huge field or lot. As kids, we 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.440 could just go play around and collect lady bugs and 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.000 a lot of friends. You know, we'd just go ride 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:55.159 bikes and do kid things. I'd be five six years 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:57.680 old and be gone for hours with my friends in 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.320 the neighborhood and out in that field, and I think 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:04.520 my mom ever had any worry about that until. 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.240 Just shoot out the front tire and then pick off 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.880 the kiddies as they come bouncing out. 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.280 I remember as a kid having a cop car follow 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.440 behind us, and I remember that because as kids we 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.520 would all kind of run to the back of the 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:22.760 bus and wave with the cop out the back window 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.520 of the bus. And then certainly for a couple of years, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.120 our trick or treating had to be done in the daylight. Obviously. 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.880 With adults, what is most noticeable is the lack of 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:38.760 teenagers and young people out at night or in the weekends. 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.160 It seems that the parents are are keeping the children home. 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:46.960 I don't have a recollection of saying that, you know, 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.760 the Zodiac killers out there. I heard the name. I 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.160 just knew that there was something going on. You know, 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.680 you'd see the headlines in the Valeo Times Herald. Nobody 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.440 was really thinking about a serial killer so much as 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.800 just a couple people that were murdered. I think that 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.600 started taking on that life, you know, in the in 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:06.520 the following years. 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.440 There's a lot of Valeo ones who have been here 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:14.960 for generations. A lot of them you know, of course, 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.080 worked at Mare Island, at the shipyard, and so even 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:20.720 though we're in a major metropolitan area, especially, I think 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.000 at that time it really had kind of a small 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.760 town feel to it. It just just another typical suburb, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.600 which is why I think the events with the Zodiac 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:30.880 were so surprising, because it doesn't seem like the kind 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.560 of thing that would happen in a town like Valeo. 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:35.880 My name is Jim Kern. I'm the executive director of 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:39.960 the Valeo Naval and Historical Museum. You hear about murders 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.520 and violence, and it's always been, unfortunately a part of 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:47.440 human nature, but sometimes it takes place in an environment that's, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.720 you know, a little scarier, or something that's that's not 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:52.880 germane to people's everyday life. So this is different because 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:54.960 this was just everyday people that might have been your 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:57.280 next door neighbors, and suddenly it's it's right here in 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.520 your town, So that makes it quite a bit more scary. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.760 There's always been murders, and there's always scandals and crimes, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.400 and people are interested in that kind of thing. People 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.000 were kind of fascinated by it, but I think the 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.160 fascination is when they can read about it or see 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:15.040 a movie, or when it's sort of one or two 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:17.520 or three steps removed from their everyday life. But suddenly, 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:21.200 when it's happening all around you, that's a different thing altogether, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.160 and it's no longer quite so fascinating. It becomes more terrifying. 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.600 Valeo would be forever changed by this chapter. That feeling 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:35.160 of small town charm had begun to fade, and maybe 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:39.520 that's exactly what the zodiac wanted in San Francisco police 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:43.960 took these threats even more seriously. Patrols followed dozens of 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.360 buses on their routes each morning and afternoon, and this 0:09:47.480 --> 0:09:51.760 lasted for months. To achieve this, police had to dedicate 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:54.720 a huge amount of manpower and this got me thinking 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:57.959 could they pull that off today? And if not, how 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:01.040 would San Francisco officials respond to such a threat. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.560 The response nowadays would be very different from what we 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:09.400 probably saw in the late sixties with regards to manpower 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.160 and being able to have the people to do that 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.200 would be very tough. My name is Paul Cassada and 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:19.240 I'm the director of Crisis Response and Emergency Preparedness for 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.200 the San FRANCISCOO Unified School District. Crisis response is being 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.240 able to deal with the day to day issues that 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:29.280 might be affecting our schools. There's a case, an example 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.360 that I share with my staff. Two teachers were outside supervising. 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.520 One of them heard loud pops from a distance. She 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.800 had no idea what it was, but it felt wrong 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.840 to her. She had never heard it before. The pops 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.280 were getting closer and she felt we need to move 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.960 the kids inside, and so she did. Small school, maybe 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.000 hundred and thirty kids there, and it was a gentleman 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:53.199 who had gone out in his vehicle and was shooting 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.760 at anything he could and pulled up into the school. Unfortunately, 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.120 no one was out there because the teacher brought everyone inside. 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:04.240 Paul Casada deals with situations like these every year. However, 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.960 he had never heard of anything like Zodiac's threat to 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.080 shoot a school. Thus, these days school threats are very different. 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:14.880 We're following that breaking news story for you out of 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:15.920 Texas this hour. 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.679 Police have confirmed there are multiple casualties at a local 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.520 high school in Santa Fe, which is south of Houston. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.280 These unfortunate things have been happening for years, right, and 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.800 usually the warning comes from the sounds of gunfire, or 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.120 the voices and distress or what have you. I think 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.160 information is always key for all of us, and I 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.600 think when people don't have it, that's when panic mode 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:41.400 tends to kick in. 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.760 Luckily, Paul Casada says, the response time of law enforcement 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:48.920 has only gotten better. That's due in large part to 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:50.400 advancements in technology. 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.160 There was no mass way of getting this information out quickly. 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:55.840 You know, you had to put it in the newspaper, 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:57.640 print it and send it out, and then you had 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.640 to hope yet people buying the press right to be 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.920 able to see it. I think today, given our technology, 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:04.959 where we can, you know, send out a quick message 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.080 to everybody, a mass message, you know, I mean, heck, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.880 we can send out a message and a phone call 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:12.240 to all fifty seven thousand of our students in a 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.840 matter of two seconds. It's impressive how we can do 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.280 that now versus back then when you weren't able to 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:18.560 do that. 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.920 So the first letter came, you know, and was printed 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.760 in the Sunday paper, and when the second letters came, 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:46.640 we printed our story and Examiner printed their story. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.200 Remember Duffy Jennings, he was a copy boy who became 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.240 a crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. I met 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:54.800 up with him at a park near his home. 0:12:56.120 --> 0:12:58.000 You know, I still don't. I still don't have a 0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:03.200 sense that this was the biggest story of the day. 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.400 But it was decided that yes, there's a bona fide threat, 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:10.920 there's evidence that whoever wrote this letter committed these shootings, 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:15.080 and we'd better take it seriously enough that if we 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.560 don't print it and he does take out a school 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:19.679 bus full of kids and they find out that we 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:22.199 knew about it ahead of time, didn't tell anybody. It's 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.679 that same dilemma that editors go through every day. Is 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.120 it in the public interest and benefit to publish this 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.480 even though it might panic people? And the decision was 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.480 made that in the interest of public safety, it was 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.480 sort of compelling to publish the threat so people could 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:45.480 take their own measures as they saw fit. And it 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.240 did panic people a lot of kids. The kids were 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:50.920 kept home from school or at least kept off their 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:54.720 school bus. Parents were walking their kids to school or 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.960 driving them to school, and buses were you know, were 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:04.000 empty to a large degree just because of this. So 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.719 that was the impact. But I don't remember it as 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:08.760 a story that had a lot of legs that there 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.120 was a follow up the next day and the next 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:12.120 day and the next day, as you as big stories 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:15.880 tend to do. Also, in nineteen seventy seventy one, there 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:20.240 was the kidnap of the chow Chillis school bus out 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.720 in the Central Valley, where three guys commandeered a school 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.600 bus with twenty six kids on it, age five to fourteen, 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.480 took the bus to a quarry in Livermore and buried 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:34.280 it for several days until the driver and the kids 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.160 were able to dig their way out, and the three 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.720 guys who did it went to prison. So Zodiac wasn't 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:44.640 the only sort of school bus situation that occurred. Then 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.800 here was a guy who learned to manipulate the media, 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.920 a threatned public safety, and nobody knew where the next 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:56.400 attack was going to come from. Now we have, in 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.240 my view, one of the early terrorists. 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:05.920 The Zodiac's threat to shoot kids on a school bus 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:07.120 was only the beginning. 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:10.800 Once he had committed his murders and started writing his 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.040 letters and terrifying people, and then he started threatening to 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.440 shoot school children and things. That wasn't enough for him. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:20.000 Then he moved on to the next level, where he 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.640 started threatening to blow up a school bus full of children. 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.240 He claimed that he had planted bombs along roadsides that 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:29.640 would take out a school bus full of kids. He 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.560 would send these diagrams, these elaborate drawings of these bombs. 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:36.760 He would describe the ingredients that were going to be used, 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.480 and he referred to this as his death machine. 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:44.280 The death machine is already made. I would have sent 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.200 you pictures, but you would be nasty enough to trace 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.440 them back to developer and then to me, So I 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.920 shall describe my masterpiece to you. Take one bag of 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.840 ammonium nitrate fertilizer and one gallon of. 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.960 Still will again. The San Francisco Chronicle had a difficult 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:03.480 choice to make. Would they publish the Zodiac's threat or not. 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.320 The Chronicle decided not to publish. 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.640 I think it's extremely unnerving to think that there's somebody 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:17.280 out there preying on young people more or less randomly, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.360 and then taunting the culture at large through the media. 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.040 This is Peter Richardson, historian and lecturer at San Francisco 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:27.040 State University. 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.080 I mean, if you want to compare it to a 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:33.360 similar case, you can think of the abduction of Patty Hearst. 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.080 Good Evening, Patty Hurst has been taken into custoding. The 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:41.880 FBI says Patty Hurst was picked up today in San Francisco, 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.400 the Hearst newspaper. Heiress has been missing for nineteen months. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.360 First she was kidnapped, Then she announced that she had 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:52.840 joined ranks with her kidnappers, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army. 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:56.440 She called herself Tanya. She was later indicted in connection 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.040 with the San Francisco bank hold up and labeled a 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:00.240 fugitive with. 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:04.160 The abduction of the granddaughter of this great media titan, 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.919 William Randolph Hurst and her father, who was still connected 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:13.600 with the San Francisco Examiner. The media frenzy that resulted, 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.040 predictable as it was, was a huge part of the 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.680 story itself. So in some ways we start to see 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.360 the media become a player in the stories that they're covering, 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:27.679 partly because it had to do with the media. And 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:30.199 I think that was really true both with Zodiac but 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.560 also with the Patty Hurst induction. Whether or not the 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.840 media made the right call there, I know they struggled 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.120 with it. It's not obvious that you want to turn 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.720 your newspaper over to a nut and let them communicate 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.120 directly with your readers. We see that again with the 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:47.399 unibomber case. 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.880 On January twenty second, nineteen ninety eight, the unibomber ted 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:54.880 Kazinski pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. Kazinsky sent 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:58.440 sixteen mail bombs to universities and airlines over a seventeen 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.800 year period, killing three people and injuring twenty four before 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.639 his arrest in nineteen ninety five. The Washington Post and 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.520 New York Times reluctantly printed his thirty five thousand word 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.560 manifesto under threat Kazinski would strike again if they. 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:15.639 Didn't, which turns out to be the key to the 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.880 arrass maid in the unibomber case, because somebody realizes, Hey, 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.200 that letter, that writing sounds a lot like my brothers. 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.480 So you can make arguments both ways. I think if 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.440 you let this information out, you might get new information 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.240 from somebody that says, boy, that sounds like you might 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.560 get leads that way, but there's a real risk because 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:39.600 if you know that your perpetrator is kind of getting 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.040 energy from this and that it becomes something that he 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.480 wants to keep doing, if you open that door, then 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.639 you really have a kind of moral decision and a 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:54.080 moral responsibility if you're the media. 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.040 When it comes to the ethics governing how you report 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:03.040 on serial killers, terrorists, mass there's tons and tons of 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.520 journal articles written by people trying to assert certain journalistic 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:10.320 codes of conduct and stuff like that, but there's no 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.320 clear consensus because it's so incredibly debatable. 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:18.320 Adam Rgusia is a professor of journalism at Mercer University. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.040 So many of the arguments about how you should absolutely 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.439 publish this or you shouldn't publish that are predicated on 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:28.800 unprovable counterfactuals, right, like it asks us to believe that 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:32.360 if a newspaper hadn't published a thing, then somebody wouldn't 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.359 have gotten killed. Well, we can't know that. And then 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.520 there's another point of view that says no, no, no, no no, 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.199 we shouldn't concern ourselves with outcomes. In journalism, that's not 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.920 our job. We're not activists and we're not cops, right, 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.320 we're journalists. Our job is to put information out there. 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.720 If it's relevant, if it's newsworthy, then you put it 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:53.760 out there, and then you let the chips fall where 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.240 they may. There's other people whose job it is to 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.760 concern themselves with the outcomes. Job is to get the 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.200 information out there. And I'm not saying you never withhold stuff, 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:06.720 but I think if you are going withhold information, it's 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.119 got to be because there's an immediate direct threat to 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.400 somebody's life that would be posed by publishing that information, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:18.399 or some very specific way in which publishing that information 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:22.119 would sabotage a police investigation. You know, when there's a 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.040 really direct line that you can draw, that's when you 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.600 hold back information. But if it's just sort of vague. 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:27.200 Then I think you. 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:27.920 Put it out there. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.560 And I also don't think you should necessarily trust what 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.720 the cops say, you know, because police and government agencies 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.960 they have sort of a bias towards secrecy, they really do, 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:42.000 and they will sometimes ask you to not publish something, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:43.800 and if you try to interrogate them as to why, 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:45.920 they don't even really have a good answer. You know, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:49.119 it's just they have a bias towards towards secrecy. So 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:50.879 unless they can give you a really good answer, no, 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.840 you publish because that's what you do. You're concerned more 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:59.200 with matters spiritual than matters temporal, meaning you're concerned more 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.639 with informed the public than with how that information may 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:08.600 be used out there in the world. 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.120 These bombs, they serve the purpose of removing him from 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.119 the equation. He doesn't have to be there anymore to 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.960 kill you. That's frightening. I'm just going to set this 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:32.840 up and someone's going to die, and I won't be 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.919 anywhere near where this happens. And I think this was 0:21:36.000 --> 0:21:39.199 part of a change in his mo to where he 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.439 didn't need to actually carry out a crime anymore to 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.200 scare people and get attention. But now he was creating 0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.679 crimes in your head. He was making you imagine what 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:51.639 would happen. But people believed it could happen, and that 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:52.400 was all the matter. 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.600 Another letter concerning the bombs arrived at the Chronicle. 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.560 I hope you enjoy yourselves when I have my blast. 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.200 If you don't want me to have this blast, you 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:05.879 must tell everyone about the bus bomb with all the details. 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:10.040 Now there was a direct threat. The Zodiac said he'd 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:12.520 put the bomb to use if the Chronicle didn't write 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:15.920 about it. And this time the paper decided that they 0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.600 had to publish, but they didn't publish everything. 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.399 This whole dilemma of should journalists concern themselves with simply 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.720 informing the public with relevant information or should they concern 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:30.760 themselves with the effects of their reporting. It's a really, 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:34.320 really problematic dilemma. There's no clear answer about it. But 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:36.359 maybe things get a little bit clearer when you start 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.760 talking about things like bomb recipes. You know, it seems 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.119 like it's a pretty clear case of journalism ethics that 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:47.040