Murders at City Hall

Associated Press

Someone left flowers and the afternoon headlines on the steps of San Francisco's City Hall shortly after the shooting deaths in the building. A crowd of several hundred gathered outside.

Mayor, gay councilman are shot dead

From First Page

unaware they were shots at the time." White apparently left by a back door.

The mayor's body, wounded in the head and arm, was discovered by his chief budget officer, Rudy Nothenberg, who had gone in to see him for an 11 o'clock meeting.

White reportedly went from Moscone's office down a long corridor to the office of a former aide and demanded a key to the door that leads to supervisors' offices.

He was "extremely agitated," sources said, and "banged into a file cabinet, yelling and screaming." But he apparently got the key.

After White entered his old office, Milk, 48, who had supported still another candidate for White's supervisorial vacancy, reportedly went in to see and try to calm him down.

Supervisors President Dianne Feinstein, who was in her office at the time, told reporters later, "I

heard shots. I heard three." Upon the advice of Police Chief Charles Gain, she would make no further statement.

As a result of threats by various radical groups to the city's elected officials, visitors to City Hall have · been screened by a police guard and a metal detector for several months.

But police officials said supervisors are rarely screened and are permitted to walk around the detector. Police said the gun used in the shootings was a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.

After surrendering, White was taken to the Hall of Justice. He was red-faced and grim as he was led down a hallway to his cell. But he stared straight ahead and said nothing to reporters.

As president of the board, which is equivalent to a city council, Mrs. Feinstein becomes acting mayor until the 11-member board convenes to either confirm her or appoint someone else.

She ordered an immediate state of mourning in the city and said San Francisco "has experienced a

·

tragedy of incredible

double proportions."

The murder of Moscone was the second time in history that a mayor

of a major American city had been slain while in office. On Feb. 15, 1933, Mayor Anton J. Cermak of Chicago was fatally wounded in Miami, Fla., by a bullet meant for President-elect Roosevelt.

Franklin D.

The mayor had been supported by the Rev. Jim Jones, leader of the Peoples Temple and one of those who died in Guyana. He once appointed Jones to the city's housing authority.

Herb Caen, a long-time columnist with the San Francisco Chronicle, said in a column Sunday that one of "life's little pluses" was "George Moscone's warmth and friendliness even to his severest critics."

The assassinations were only the latest in a series of almost unbelievable events that have shaken the city: The Zodiac killer. The Zebra kilings. A long parade of violent radical demonstrations. The Patty Hearst kidnaping. The Sym-

bionese Liberation Army. And, last week the insane carnage in Guyana wrought by San Francisco-based Peoples Temple.

Milk was elected to the 11member board in 1977. He was popular in the homosexual com munity, said to make up about one-sixth of the city's 700,000 population, and was influential in winning approval by supervisors of a homosexual rights ordinance! White was the only supervisor to vote against it and was vehemently opposed to homosexual rights.

Both Moscone and Milk were outspoken in the campaign against the statewide Briggs initiative, which would have banned homosexual teachers. It failed in the Nov. 7 election.

#

White was portrayed by friends and associates as an idealistic and.. uncompromising young conserv ative who "thought he could change. things." He was seen as a staunch supporter of law and order causes, a friend to both the city police and fire departments on which he had served.

Sketches of the three principals

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Sketches of the three principals in the San Francisco assassinations:

George Moscone

George Richard Moscone, slain mayor of San Francisco, was not one to run away from a political fight, and he usually won.

He started out in 1976, after, a narrow victory at the polls, as the hero who kept the baseball Giants from moving to Toronto. He survived, triumphantly, what amounted to a recall election last year when he turned back an effort by a conservative alliance to clip his liberal wings.

The issue of violent crime dogged him throughout his incumbency, and at one point City Hall resembled a fortress and top officials received 24-hour police protection because of terrorist bombings.

Moscone, who became 49 Friday, was a friendly, good-looking, athletic man who stood just over 6 feet tall. He graduated from St. Ignatius High School, where he was an all-city basketball player, and moved on to the University of San Francisco. He served in the Navy, earned a bachelor's degree in sociology at the University of the Pacific and finished work on his law degree at the University of California in San Francisco in 1956.

༤

His political rise was quick as he moved from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the California State Senate, where he served as Democratic floor leader, and back to San Francisco as

mayor, having pondered and shelved a gubernatorial race along the way.

He was a consistent opponent of welfare and mental health cuts pressed by then Gov. Ronald Rea gan. Moscone often marched with the United Farm Workers, led by Cesar Chavez.

He narrowly defeated a conservative, John Barbagelata, to win the mayoral election in a runoff in December 1975 and took office the following January, pledging to make the streets of San Francisco safe again.

But by December, a wave of violence arose and he had to institute a crash program to combat robberies, shootings and other incidents.

Still, his detractors accused him of being soft on crime

Moscone married Gina Bondanza in 1954. They have four children.

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk, the slain 48-yearold San Francisco supervisor, was the city's first acknowledged homosexual official He had been instrumental this year in passage of a homosexual rights ordinance considered the most stringent in. the nnion

Dan White, the former supervisor arrrested in the shooting deaths of Milk and Moscone, was the only one of the city's 11 supervisors to vote against the ordinance.

Milk and White were elected to the board in November 1977 Milk's district encompasses most of the Haight-Ashbury and Upper Market

Street areas, where a large segment of the city's homosexual population is concentrated.

Milk had run twice before for supervisor. He never made a secret of his homosexuality.

He was born in New York City and received his bachelor's degree in 1951 from the Albany State College for Teachers. He had worked as a financial analyst on Wall Street and moved to San Francisco in here in 1969 to take a similar position.

Shortly afterward, he opened a camera store

Last August, Milk's roommate, Jack Lira, was found hanged in their apartment, an apparent suicide.

Milk's homosexuality had resulted in his discharge from the Navy in the early 1950s.

Dan White

Daniel James White is a former San Francisco city supervisor,

·

742

firefighter, policeman and military paratrooper in Vietnam.

Last year, White, 32, was elected to the Board of Supervisors. But he resigned Nov. 10, saying the $9,600 annual salary was not enough to support his wife, Mary Ann, and their 4-month-old son.

Then he changed his mind. He went to court Friday, seeking to block Moscone from naming anyone else to the board.

K.

White was a conservative who stressed morality in government and in the community.

He attended San Francisco City College before joining the city police department in January 1969. He resigned from the department in October 1970, rejoined the force in September 1971, and quit again in May 1973. ·

Eight months later, he became a firefighter, leaving that job last December after a ruling that he could not serve as a supervisor and a firefighter at the same time...

Musician Rosolino slays son, kills self

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Frank Rosolino, the innovative trombonist who helped pioneer the modern jazz age, shot one of his sons dead, seriously wounded another son and then committed suicide, authorities said yesterday..

Rosolino, 52, and his son, Justin, 9, were killed by gunshot wounds Sunday morning, said Police Sgt.

Charles Meter. Jason Rosolino, 7, was in critical condition with a gunshot wound at County-USC Medical Center.

Police said they discovered a suicide note in Rosolino's home, but they did not disclose the contents.

The short, silver-haired Rosolino was born in Detroit and settled in Los Angeles in the early 1950s.

;