On Sept. 22, 1975, President Gerald Ford had just finished a speech to the World Affairs Council. As he left the St. Francis Hotel, he was shot at twice by Sarah Jane Moore. This was only 17 days after the attempted assassination by Charles Manson groupie Squeaky Fromme. Moore was a housewife from West Virginia who was mentally unstable. She thought that killing the President would start a revolution that would change America for the better. She had been detained the previous day for illegal possession of a handgun. The police kept her .44 caliber pistol and 113 rounds of ammunition. She acquired a .38 caliber pistol which she used from 40 feet away from Ford. The first shot missed his head by 5 inches. Before Moore could aim again, an ex-Vietnam War Marine named Oliver Sipple forced his way through the crowd from 40 feet away to grab Moore’s arm. She pulled the trigger, but the bullet ricocheted off the street and hit a man standing in the hotel entrance. It was not a serious injury. After the second shot, a San Franciscan policeman named Timothy Lettrich tackled Moore and took the pistol. Meanwhile, the Secret Service agents pushed Ford into the car. Donald Rumsfeld covered Ford with his body as the limousine rushed to Air Force One. Moore plead guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1989, she escaped from prison, but turned herself in two days later. She was released on parole in 2007.
Sipple became a national hero for what he described as an instinctive act. It turned out to be a life changing event for him…for the worst. It quickly got out that Sipple was gay, but he had not come out of the closet. It is believed that his friend Harvey Milk (who was later assassinated by a co-worker) outed him because he wanted the public to associate gay with a war hero instead of the common stereotypes of gay. Unfortunately, Sipple had been keeping his sexual orientation secret and when his family found out, they disowned him. He took to alcohol and became mentally challenged. He died in 1989, alone in his apartment with a bottle of booze by his side. His body had not been discovered until several weeks after his death. On the wall was a framed thank you letter from Ford.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Gerald_Ford_in_San_Francisco
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-ford-survives-second-assassination-attempt
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