The Assassination of Harvey Milk | Gunshots at City Hall | 5

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It's just before 11 a.m.

on November 27th, 1978 at City Hall in San Francisco.

44-year-old Dianne Feinstein is in her office, preparing for this evening's Board of Supervisors meeting.

There's been a lot of extra attention on the board this month.

And as president, Dianne's determined to make sure everything goes smoothly.

But even as she works, she's keeping one eye on her open door.

She's hoping to see Dan White.

She needs to speak with him about a pressing matter, and she needs to do it as soon as possible.

So when she spots Dan rushing down the hallway, she calls out to him, but he doesn't stop.

It'll have to wait, he calls over his shoulder, and just like that, he's gone.

Dianne puts down her pen and rests her head in her hands for a moment, trying to think.

She's worried about Dan, just wants to help him.

Still, maybe he'll come back in a few minutes when he's done with whatever he's up to.

Dianne's just picked up her pen once more when she hears it.

Diane doesn't hesitate, just stands up from her desk and starts rushing towards the door.

But she's not running away from the danger, she's going towards it.

The sound came from Dan's office, she's sure of it, and she thinks she knows why.

He shot himself.

But maybe she can still save him.

Within seconds, Diane's at Dan's closed office door.

A man arrives at the same time, Carl Carlson, a friend of her colleague, supervisor Harvey Milk.

They open the door together, and Diane immediately sees that it's not Dan lying on the floor, it's Harvey.

Once again, Diane doesn't waste any time.

She rushes to Harvey's side.

There's blood everywhere, on the floor, the walls, and especially on Harvey.

She's almost certain he's dead, but her late husband was a surgeon, and she knows that she needs to check just in case.

She tells Carl calmly, but firmly, to go and call the police.

Kneeling down beside Harvey's unmoving form, she reaches for his right wrist to feel for a pulse.

Her fingers find a bullet hole instead.

Getting up, Diane strides through the hallway and into Harvey's office.

Carl is standing behind the desk.

He's in no state to make a phone call.

He's sobbing and screaming, so Diane gently prizes the phone from his hand and tells him to get a drink of water.

Then with blood still on her fingers, she dials the police chief's number.

But she can't get through.

Perturbed, Diane tries again, then again, and she keeps getting a busy signal.

It's strange what on earth she thinks could have possibly happened to tie up the police phone lines like this.

Surely nothing else could have happened to San Francisco.

From Airship, I'm Jeremy Schwartz, and this is American Criminal.

At the beginning of 1978, a new crop of supervisors were sworn in at San Francisco City Hall.

As usually happens, the group were relatively evenly split, with one side being more progressive and the other less so.

Harvey Milk, one of the more liberal supervisors, represented District 5, and he charged into the job with a determination to accomplish as much as he could in his first term.

On the other side was Dan White, a strapping young fireman from the working class District 8.

He didn't enjoy the level of success in his new role that Harvey did, nor did he feel the same sense of job satisfaction.

And while both men were struggling financially, trying to get by on their government salary of just $800 a month, it was Dan White who couldn't stand the other pressures of the job, the politics, the backstabbing, the secret deals.

He just didn't have the heart for it.

Those other people might be all right swimming in the political cesspool that was City Hall, but he couldn't do it.

Not Dan White.

Then in November, a perfect storm settled over San Francisco.

There was a shocking resignation, a suspicious reversal, and in one person's opinion, the rank stench of betrayal.

And then there was Jonestown.

But before any of that dust could settle, Dan decided that he had to act.

He had to do something about the state of his hometown and about his injured pride.

Dan White might have been above the dirty business of politics, but you know what he wasn't above?

Murder.

This is episode five in our five-part series on The Assassination of Harvey Milk.

Gunshots at City Hall.

It's the afternoon of June 25th, 1978 at San Francisco's Gay Freedom Day Parade, five months before the assassination of Harvey Milk.

The numbers are unheard of.

Hundreds of thousands of people line the city streets in support of the growing gay community.

Later, historians will say it's the largest gathering in San Francisco during the 1970s, but for today, everyone's just in the moment.

There are groups assembled from around the state and across the country dressed in bright colors and business suits and drag, in marching band red, in shirts bearing slogans or in very little clothing at all.

They walk from the financial district through the tenderloin up towards the towering City Hall.

They're here to celebrate their identities, their communities and their progress.

But they're also here to protest.

A year ago, Senator John Briggs introduced a ballot initiative to ban gay men and women from teaching in California schools.

Since then, debate over the initiative, Proposition 6, has raged all over the state.

For that reason and for so many others, 48-year-old Harvey Milk has decided to join the parade today, where he's been invited to give a speech.

A few days ago, Harvey received a typewritten postcard bearing a threat to shoot him as soon as he stepped up to the mic.

But Harvey decided that he couldn't give in to anonymous threats.

He's a leader for the gay community, so it's his duty to attend.

Besides, he loves any excuse to be in the spotlight.

As the only openly gay member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, Harvey's afforded a special place in the parade.

He's sitting on the roof of a Volvo driven by his aide, his legs dangling down through the sunroof.

Despite his wide smile and enthusiastic interactions with the crowd, Harvey can't help feeling nervous.

But he makes it through the parade unscathed, and when he gets to the microphone, no gunshots ring out.

Instead, Harvey delivers an impassioned speech about preserving democracy from the quote-unquote constitutional bigotry of the John Briggs' and Anita Bryant's of the world.

They're not going to sit in silence, he says.

Not this time.

With less than six months until California voters go to the polls to make their call on the Briggs Initiative, both sides are ratcheting up their campaigns.

For his part, Senator Briggs is just determined to get his face out there as much as possible.

He's made himself the poster child for socially conservative values in the state, and had hoped that the position would help him win the governorship at the same time.

But Briggs crashed out of the governor's race just a few weeks before the Gay Freedom Day Parade.

In the Republican primary, he earned less than 2% of the votes.

Doesn't mean he's giving up the fight against the gay community, though.

He trots out arguments that gay people want to recruit children to their lifestyle, that they want to abuse them.

None of this is true, of course, which Harvey Milk says over and over in his role as proxy for his people.

He and Briggs meet in a series of public debates on stages around the state, some of them even televised.

Harvey doesn't turn down a single invitation for any opportunity to speak on the issue.

This, in addition to performing his duties as supervisor for District 5, and trying to keep his tiny camera store afloat, and taking time to speak with his constituents about whatever concerns they have about their neighborhood.

It's a lot for Harvey, not just emotionally and physically, but financially.

He refuses to accept any kind of payment from the community groups who organize the debates, saying that he's talking about something he believes in, so taking money feels unethical no matter how desperately he needs it.

As both campaigns pick up speed at the end of the summer, though, Harvey's dealt a devastating blow.

On August 28th, he arrives home from work to find his boyfriend, 25-year-old Jack Lira, dead by suicide.

In the aftermath of Jack's death, Harvey doesn't slow down.

He doesn't have time, he tells people.

And how could he take a break now?

The whole world is watching to see what California does.

There will be more people like Jack dying if Prop 6 passes in November.

Harvey has to do everything he can to make sure that doesn't happen.

While Harvey fights to usher in a victory for the no vote, his City Hall colleague, 31-year-old Dan White, is just trying to keep his head above water.

The salary for San Francisco's supervisors is just $800 a month, which is barely enough for Dan and his wife, Mary Ann, to get by.

Not only do they have a mortgage to take care of, they're still out the several thousand dollars they loaned Dan's campaign.

Plus, they've just had their first child, which has only made life more expensive.

Luckily, Dan made some friends in high places during his campaign, and he's scratched just the right backs now that he's in office.

Dan's offered a retail space at the soon-to-open Pier 39, a waterfront tourist trap.

He and Mary Ann go into business with his brother and former campaign manager to open a fried potato stand on the pier, though they have to go further into debt to do it.

Now with a restaurant to manage, Dan's not giving his government responsibilities the attention they deserve.

He doesn't visit his office at City Hall all that much, and he sends his aids to community forums whenever he thinks he can get away with it.

He does show up to meetings to vote, though, and it's a good thing he does.

It means he's there to vote against Mayor George Moscone's business tax package, which is estimated to cost the business community some $30 million.

As one of the deciding votes in the matter, Dan earns the gratitude of plenty of people and corporations in the city.

So, a wealthy entrepreneur helps throw Dan a fundraising party to help erase the leftover debt from the campaign.

Thousands of dollars pour in from San Francisco's business and real estate community, to industries who are glad to have a supervisor comfortably in their pocket.

In just one afternoon, the campaign's 8 grand debt is wiped out, which means Dan and Marianne can breathe a little easier.

Well, in theory, they can.

In practice, Dan is still struggling.

It's not just the money, though.

It's like he's slumped into a deep depression.

When he's not at the restaurant, he tends to spend long days doing as little as possible.

He doesn't shave, doesn't leave the house, and wolfs down junk food like he's worried he'll never get another meal.

He hasn't even been in office a year yet, but it's all getting to be too much.

He doesn't like being on the losing side as often as he is in votes, and the center issue of his campaign, stopping the youth psychiatric facility, turned into a complete disaster because of Harvey Milk's betrayal.

The more he thinks about it, the more Dan realizes that he can't go on like this.

Something has to change, and soon.

Few people are paying close attention to Dan White's struggles, though.

The entire state is fixated on the upcoming election over the Briggs Initiative.

In the months after Senator Briggs first announced Proposition 6, support for the bill was high, despite California's reputation as a progressive state.

One early poll suggested that 61% of voters were in favor of expelling gay teachers from schools.

But the gay community and their supporters have worked steadily and creatively to turn the tide in cities and towns all around the state.

In Beverly Hills, where the local Chamber of Commerce was about to endorse Prop 6, gay shoppers announced a credit card burning on the famous Rodeo Drive.

The chamber backed down.

Punk musicians held to save the homos fundraiser.

And one man quit his job to walk some 1200 miles across the state, passing through agricultural communities and talking to local press at every stop.

A bevy of teachers' associations make statements opposing the measure, as does the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of trade unions in the country.

Teachers themselves have stepped forward to stand with their gay colleagues.

Because Briggs' proposition wouldn't just ban people who are gay from being teachers, the ballot measure attacks quote-unquote public homosexual conduct, which according to the proposition is defined as the quote, advocating, imposing, encouraging or promoting a private or public homosexual activity directed at or likely to come to the attention of school children and or other school employees.

That's a very complicated way of saying that any teachers who are gay, who interact with gay people, talk about the existence of gay people, their protest, anti-gay legislation, are liable to lose their jobs.

So in addition to speaking out at town halls about the ballot measure, many heterosexual teachers come forward to vow that if Prop 6 passes, they'll clog the system by making public gay confessions, which will trigger automatic hearings at a cost of around $12,000 a pop.

That would be about 60 grand in 2024, and it's money no one really wants to spend, especially not the Board of Education.

But traditionally liberal institutions aren't the only ones urging Californians to vote no on Prop 6.

The Bishops of San Francisco's Catholic and Episcopal Churches both oppose Briggs, as do the Senator's own GOP colleagues.

Even California's former Republican Governor Ronald Reagan comes out against Briggs.

So, as election day draws ever closer, the Yes on 6 camp is running low on support, funds and allies.

The only political organizations that are backing the measure are the KKK, the Nazi Party and the Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff's Association.

On November 7th, 1978, Californian voters go to the polls and soundly reject Senator Briggs' Proposition 6.

Over 58% vote no.

In San Francisco, where the political, financial and social power of the gay community has already been proven, it's closer to 75%.

The only district where voters come out in favor of Prop 6 is the 8th, where supervisor Dan White calls home.

But Dan's not all that concerned with the gay state of affairs in California.

In the lead up to the election, he's been thinking more about his own plight.

He's coming up on a year on the board of supervisors, which means three more to come.

And the 32-year-old just can't face it.

So on Friday, November 10th, just three days after the Briggs vote, Dan arrives at City Hall with his mind made up.

He walks into his office where his two aides are already working away.

He tells them to stop what they're doing and to start typing up a resignation letter for him.

Together, the three of them workshop the wording, and then when it's ready, it's brought to Mayor Moscone.

Effective today, it says, Dan White is done being supervisor.

After he reads the brief letter, Moscone summons Dan to his office.

He wants to make sure that he's thought everything through, that he understands the decision he's making.

Once Dan convinces the mayor that he's certain, Moscone shakes his hand, tells Dan they'll miss him around City Hall.

That same day, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors hears about the resignation and requests a copy of the letter.

He wants to have the document prepared for when the matter comes up in next Monday's board meeting.

That weekend, Dan feels like a weights pen lifted off his shoulders.

He even goes out to celebrate at a baseball game that night.

He's looking forward to getting his life back on track after the fiasco that was his brief foray into politics.

Once the press gets wind of Dan's decision, the White family issues become front page news in the city.

People everywhere can read about Dan's finances, his need to tend to his fledgling business, the struggles of being new parents.

Once people find out what's been going on, it's hardly surprising to them that he resigned.

On Monday, the board takes up the matter and votes to accept Dan's letter of resignation.

None of his colleagues have any intention of standing in his way.

The very next day, though, Dan White shocks San Francisco by announcing that he's changed his mind.

Actually, he wants his job back.

For a few days, he was happy to be getting out of City Hall.

But he's met with his backers in the police union and the real estate industry.

And after talking to his former campaign manager, he's been convinced to get back in the game.

Unfortunately for Dan, the same day he makes his announcement, a California congressman arrives in Guyana, in South America, to investigate claims about a cult that set up shop there after fleeing San Francisco.

And what happens in Jonestown will take everyone's mind off the dramas of City Hall, for now.

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It's late in the afternoon of November 18th, 1978 on a dirt and grass airstrip in the jungle of Guyana.

31-year-old reporter Tim Reiterman is waiting for his turn to board a small plane.

Along with a group of other journalists, Tim's just completed a visit to Jonestown, the isolated commune of People's Temple, a cult that had a solid foothold in the Bay Area for a few years, until they fled to South America to avoid journalistic and governmental scrutiny.

The contingent had been led by Congressman Leo Ryan, who represents California's 11th Congressional District, which includes San Francisco.

The mood among the party is tense.

Congressman Ryan was attacked and held at Knife Point just before the group left the commune, and over a dozen members of the cult have defected, asking to be brought back to the United States.

Now, after the stories the reporters have heard and what they've all seen at Jonestown, some of them wonder if they're safe.

Jim Jones, the cult's leader, seemed unhinged, and his fanatical acolytes are well-armed.

Just as the first plane, a small six-seater, finishes boarding, Tim hears it, the heart-stopping pop of gunfire.

Turning, he sees a red tractor moving towards them across the clearing, a trailer hooked up to the back.

Riding on the trailer are a band of men holding guns.

More gunfire sends Tim and the rest of the people on the airstrip darting for cover.

He feels a bullet tear through his forearm, then another hits his wrist, ripping off his watch.

But Tim doesn't stop.

He makes it to the far side of the field and jumps into a patch of long grass.

From there, he crawls towards denser cover, flinching every time he hears another gunshot ring out.

From his hiding spot, Tim can hear his colleagues being killed in broad daylight.

Sadly, they won't be the only victims of Jonestown.

On November 19, 1978, news about the airfield ambush in Guyana breaks across the US.

Early details are foggy, but the facts emerge eventually.

Five dead, including Congressman Leo Ryan and 11 injured.

Just hours later, though, more news from Jonestown shocks the country.

Again, early reports of the death toll are inaccurate, with estimates between 300 and 400 dead by suicide at the People's Temple commune.

In reality, over 900 people, including children, have died in a mass suicide and murder, with poison flavor aid as the main mode of death.

Around the country, Jonestown is all anyone can talk about.

Nowhere is the chatter louder than San Francisco, where the cult was based until a year ago.

Not only were many of the dead people from the Bay Area, but People's Temple had enjoyed a special place in certain powerful circles.

In particular, people start asking questions about the relationship Jim Jones had with the city's politicians.

Local journalists are quick to point out that many of San Francisco's top brass took advantage of the manpower People's Temple offered to those who supported them.

Mayor George Moscone is one of them.

So is Harvey Milk.

Moscone at least publicly admits it was a mistake to trust Jim Jones.

But the magnitude of that mistake keeps growing.

Moscone's political opponents stepped forward to announce that they'd been asking the mayor to investigate People's Temple for some time, but that they were ignored.

They charged that if Moscone had acted, those 900 people might still be alive.

It's the kind of accusation that could cost Moscone his political career.

Unfortunately for the mayor, though, it's not just his enemies who are coming for him.

His own allies are pressing Moscone to clean up the mess in City Hall.

When Dan White announced he was rescinding his resignation, Moscone said he'd happily tear it up and welcome him back onto the board of supervisors.

But now, progressive supervisors like Harvey Milk are putting the screws to Moscone to get him to appoint a liberal replacement for District 8, someone who can help usher through the mayor's own agenda for the city.

Harvey repeats the same threat he made when he took office in January.

Work with me or I'll make sure you're never elected again.

Stalling for time, Moscone makes a statement.

He'll announce his decision about the 8th District seat on Monday, November 27th.

But while the mayor drags things out, Dan's making his own aggressive push to get his seat back.

Now that he's changed his mind about resigning, Dan's competitive nature has resurfaced.

The one that led him to victory in the election, that had him staring down nuns and swearing vengeance on enemies.

He has a small army out gathering letters of support from the community, as well as signatures on a petition asking him to be reinstated.

But Dan's popularity in Visitation Valley has waned since he won office.

Goldie Judge, his first campaign manager, has amassed a large group of residents who are speaking out against him.

She even held a rally, where speakers lined up to trash Dan's performance as supervisor.

He wasn't able to block the youth facility like he promised, and shirked his responsibilities in other ways.

So with actual evidence of his popularity thin on the ground, Dan makes liberal use of the photocopier at City Hall, running off extra copies of his supposed letters of support.

As the day of Moscone's decision gets closer, San Francisco's papers start quoting an anonymous supervisor who's very opposed to Dan getting his seat back.

It doesn't take a genius to guess that it's Harvey giving the quotes.

And that's just what he's saying in public.

Behind closed doors to his friends and colleagues, Harvey starts talking about Dan in much more serious terms.

He's dangerous, Harvey says.

Dan himself knows that Harvey's against him.

While walking past Harvey's office one day, he hears a phone call between Harvey and the city attorney.

By the sounds of things, Harvey's trying to convince the attorney to reject Dan's latest argument.

Dan's been claiming that his resignation was never valid because he delivered it to Mayor Moscone when it should have gone directly to the president of the Board of Supervisors.

Whether Harvey's phone call is the deciding factor or not, the city attorney rules against Dan.

His resignation is binding.

Dan won't be getting back into office on a technicality.

The only way he'll get back in is if the mayor appoints him to the board.

So, on September 24th, the day after Thanksgiving, Dan has his attorney apply for a restraining order to block Moscone from giving his seat to someone else.

But the judge denies the motion.

Dan's resignation was valid, and the board of supervisors has already voted to accept it before he tried to take it back.

What's done is done, and it's in the mayor's hands now.

By the 25th of November, it's been two weeks since Dan announced his resignation, ten days since he retracted it, and seven days since Jonestown.

There's a lot going on in San Francisco.

And in two days, Mayor Moscone is going to announce he will be taking the now empty seat on the board of supervisors.

For Dan White, the pressure is too much.

The new campaign to get back what he gave up has been a whole extra fight he wasn't prepared for.

And it's exhausting.

To make things worse, he feels like he's got no one he can lean on.

His wife is supportive, but he still feels isolated.

They haven't slept together for weeks.

Instead, he's been spending nights in a sleeping bag on the couch.

Even when they are together, he doesn't say much.

It's like before he resigned, but somehow worse.

All weekend, both of them are hanging their hopes on Monday, the day of the mayor's announcement.

But late on Sunday evening, a reporter calls and says they've got sources saying that Moscone's not going to reappoint Dan to the board.

Hearing that, Dan just mutters no comment and hangs up.

He stays up the rest of the night eating cupcakes, washing them down with Coca-Cola and stewing on all the ways he's been betrayed and the people who are responsible for his humiliation.

The next morning, he gets up, gets dressed and picks up his gun.

November 27th, 1978 is a busy morning for Mayor Moscone.

Firstly, he has his secretary schedule a press conference for 1130 AM.

That's when he'll announce his decision about the vacant supervisor seat.

A little later, a small group of Dan's supporters show up to ask to see the mayor.

They've got petitions and letters to deliver to him, but Moscone has neither the time nor the inclination to speak to them.

He's made up his mind already.

Still, his secretary accepts the documents on his behalf a little after 9 AM, promising to deliver them to the mayor herself.

Next, Moscone calls Dianne Feinstein to tell her what he's decided.

He's going to name real estate broker Don Haranzi to fill the empty seat.

He's a more liberal voice for the board to give Moscone the progressive majority for his agenda, but still moderate enough that he stands a shot at re-election down the line.

At the moment, though, Dianne's less concerned about who's going to be taking Dan's place and is concentrating on how Dan will react to the news.

She's already heard him say that he's going to show up to today's board meeting to take his seat, no matter what Moscone says.

Now that she knows where the cards are going to fall, she wants to help minimize controversy and help Dan avoid embarrassment.

So, she asks her aides to keep an eye out for Dan and to get him to come see her if they find him.

When Harvey Milk stops by Moscone's office and hears the news, he's delighted.

He's going to get an extra vote to side with him in board matters.

Everything's working out just how he wanted.

But then, Dan White shows up at City Hall with his gun and his vendetta.

First, he shoots George Moscone in the mayor's private study.

A few minutes later, he lures Harvey Milk into an empty office and shoots him too.

In the seconds after Harvey's death, Dan runs out of his office and finds his aid.

He demands her car keys.

Then he bolts for the door before anyone can ask him what's going on.

It's a little after 11 a.m.

when Mary Ann White rushes up the steps of St.

Mary's Cathedral.

Less than 15 minutes ago, Mary Ann's husband Dan called her at their fried potatoes stand to ask her to meet him here.

He sounded despondent, teetering on the edge.

Mary Ann hadn't wasted any time.

She jumped in a cab and got here as soon as she could.

Now she finds Dan in the chapel, kneeling in front of the gold cross at the front of the room.

She goes to sit beside him and he tells her what he's done.

Mary Ann takes a steadying breath.

She's been worried about her husband for months, worried about what he might do.

But she never expected anything like this.

Still she puts her hand on Dan's shoulder and tells him that she'll stand by him no matter what.

Dan nods his head in silence then gets to his feet.

They should head over to Northern Station, he says, where Dan got his start as a police officer.

He's going to turn himself in.

As the couple walks the half mile to the station, Marianne wraps her arm around her husband.

To all the world, it looks like a loving embrace.

And it is.

But it's also a practical one.

With her arm back there, Marianne places her hand firmly over Dan's revolving, still tucked into its holster.

She doesn't want him doing anything rash, not again.

It's just after 11 a.m.

on November 27th, 1978 at San Francisco's City Hall.

Budget Director Rudy Novenberg is in a busy hallway, heading for a meeting room when he sees Supervisor Dan White running up ahead of him.

Seeing that, Rudy turns around and heads towards the mayor's chambers.

George Moscone is supposed to be in Rudy's next meeting, but he was just told that the mayor was still speaking with Supervisor White.

Now that Rudy can see Dan's left the mayor's office, he figures he'll let the mayor know which room they're meeting in.

Walking through the main reception room, Rudy sticks his head into Moscone's office, but there's no one there.

He moves through the airy space towards the smaller sitting room.

He knocks quietly on the door, then opens it, calling out to the mayor.

No answer.

Pushing the door wide, he takes a step into the room, which is when he sees George Moscone's body on the floor surrounded by blood.

For a few frantic moments around 11 a.m., City Hall is three different places.

For some people, it's where Mayor George Moscone has been shot and killed.

For others, it's the place where supervisor Harvey Milk has been shot and killed.

For the rest, it's just a place of work, or marriage certificates and permits.

Then, through a chain of whispers, screams and frantic phone calls, three City Halls become one.

As news of the shooting seeps its way out into the city streets, journalists converge to find out what's going on.

Talk of politicians being shot has plenty of people wondering if maybe representatives from People's Temple have shown up to kill former political allies.

There's been rumors about squads of killers lying in wait ever since the events of Jonestown.

But then, at 1120, now acting Mayor Dianne Feinstein emerges from the supervisor's office to deliver the news.

Stepping in front of the flash bulbs of cameras, Dianne has to be physically supported by the chief of police.

Both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed.

The suspect is Supervisor Dan White.

Looking back later on that brief announcement, Dianne will recognize just how much shock she was in.

But in that moment, she's just trying to get through the unthinkable crisis.

By noon, a small crowd has gathered quietly outside City Hall.

Some leave flowers on the steps of the massive building.

Someone nestles a sign among the bouquets.

It reads simply, Happy Anita, referring to Anita Bryant's nationwide crusade to obliterate the rights and freedoms of gay people.

The writer of the sign isn't alone in assuming that Harvey Milk's assassination was motivated by his gayness.

As the news reaches Harvey's neighborhood of the Castro, business is shut for the day.

Bars close their doors, and all through District 5, people hang black bunting in their windows and put up photos of Harvey.

It's a community in mourning.

The city's police stations, though, are another story altogether.

When news of the assassinations first reaches the SFPD radios, cops around the city erupted into applause.

In precincts and patrol cars, officers start singing Danny Boy, an Irish anthem of sorts.

Others sing the fight song to the University of Notre Dame, home of the fighting Irish.

Harvey's gayness has always made him a contentious figure with most cops, and the mayor had foisted a progressive chief onto the department, who had been working to diversify and clean up their act over the last couple of years.

So yeah, there's not a lot of love lost there.

And when they find out it's one of their own, an ex-cop who pulled the trigger, that makes it even sweeter.

At the Northern Police Station, Dan White gives a tearful taped confession to a former colleague and friend.

The pair used to play on a police softball team together.

So there are no tough questions.

After his interview, Dan's led to a holding cell.

On the way, one of the cops gives him a tap on the butt, like a football player might give their teammate after a solid play.

While San Francisco's police department pumps their fists, tens of thousands of people pour onto Castro Street, carrying candles and placards and flowers.

The last time the community gathered like this, Harvey led them on a peaceful march through the city.

Only now, their leader is gone.

They march anyway.

By the time the head of the column reaches City Hall, there's some 40,000 people in the candlelight vigil, a ribbon of light that stretches through the city.

Mostly people are silent, though some sing, Swing low, sweet chariot.

As the marchers pass the corner of Castro and 18th, they can see the graffiti someone's left on a wall.

Who killed Harvey Milk?

It's a simple question asked by a frightened, angry community.

But in the coming weeks, more graffiti will pop up throughout San Francisco, showing just how different viewpoints can be.

Dan White for mayor, one message reads.

Dan White showed you can fight City Hall is another.

And then there's the ever popular kill fags.

Five months later, in the spring of 1979, jury selection for the trial of Dan White begins.

Dan's lawyer systematically eliminates anyone from the pool who he suspects of being gay along with black people and Asians.

One woman is removed because she says that she has gay friends.

They don't want anyone who might sympathize with Harvey Milk's status as an outsider.

Instead, he finds people who are white, church-going, blue-collar types.

And for some reason, the judge and prosecution don't raise any objections.

Once arguments begin on May 1st, Dan's attorney spends time describing Harvey as a gay man and a leader of the gay community in San Francisco.

Then, carefully targeting the jury he so painstakingly carved out, he paints Dan White as a moral, righteous voice for the American family, someone who stood up for decency and old-fashioned values.

The prosecution's argument is that Dan planned the murders in advance, and as evidence of that, they point to the fact that he brought extra ammunition with him to City Hall.

They also remind the court that Dan snuck into the building to avoid the heavy security at the main entrances.

This was planned.

It was cold-blooded.

The defense counters were psychiatrist's witnesses, who described Dan's gun as his safety blanket, and explained that Dan avoided the metal detectors because he didn't want to embarrass the police officers manning them.

Another expert takes the stand to claim that because of Dan's outstanding moral character, he had to shoot George Moscone for the way he treated him.

Any other violent option, like punching him in the face, was just too personal an attack.

It had to be a gun.

Then comes the so-called Twinkie defense.

Dan's lawyers present testimony that Dan's consistent diet of junk food caused extreme variations in blood sugar levels, which exacerbated his supposed manic depression.

In the grand scheme of things, it's a small part of the case, but it causes outsized ripples in the media.

To this day, people use the term Twinkie defense to describe any improbable legal strategy.

If all of that sounds like a lot of expert witnesses, that's because it is.

And how can Dan afford such a robust defense?

It turns out that his friends in the police and fire department took up a collection and raised a hundred grand to cover his legal fees.

All that money is well spent, too.

On the day that the court hears Dan's taped confession, some of the jurors weep.

To them, this righteous family man was so beaten down by the world that he was practically forced to shoot Harvey and Moscone.

By the time both sides rest, people in the city seemed to sense what's going to happen.

Still, it doesn't soften the blow when the jury returns their verdict on May 21st, the eve of what would have been Harvey's 49th birthday.

Instead of murder, the jury finds Dan White guilty of voluntary manslaughter, which means that although they agree that Dan pulled the trigger intentionally, they don't believe he held any malice towards his victims, or that he planned the crime.

He's sentenced to just seven years and eight months in jail, the lightest sentence he could legally receive.

As the news ripples through the city, people denounce the verdict.

Mayor Dianne Feinstein holds an impromptu press conference and says that in her opinion, the verdict should have been murder.

Carol Ruth Silver, Harvey's closest friend on the Board of Supervisors, announces, Dan White has gotten away with murder.

In the press, one journalist wonders why the jury didn't posthumously convict Harvey of unlawful interference with a bullet fired from the gun of a former police officer.

No one is more outraged by the verdict than San Francisco's gay community.

Within minutes of the announcement, a crowd gathers on Castro Street.

They start marching towards City Hall and by the time they arrive, there are over 5,000 strong.

Unlike the night of the assassinations, this march isn't peaceful.

Chants of kill Dan White, kill Dan White, fill the air, but words aren't enough.

The angry San Franciscans smash glass and tear at the doors of City Hall.

It's like they want to bring the whole thing crumbling to the ground.

They throw rocks and bottles.

Even as some of their numbers link arms to hold back the most aggressive rioters.

By the time the police arrive, it's an all out frenzy.

A patrol car is set on fire.

Parking meters are ripped from the concrete.

But the police are ordered not to escalate the situation.

They're told to simply hold their ground.

While a reporter watches a young man set fire to yet another police car, the man calls out, make sure you put it in the paper that I ate too many Twinkies.

After a few hours, when the dust is settling, another journalist hears a member of the SFPD swearing revenge.

Just hours later, police roll into the Castro in huge numbers.

Dressed in riot gear, they drive down the relatively quiet streets, seemingly looking for a fight.

And when they can't find one, they start one.

A couple dozen cops charge into a gay bar on the main drag.

They hide their badge numbers so they can't be identified later and just start striking out with their clubs at any and all patrons.

After that, bands of cops wander the streets, beating any gay men or women they come across, until the police chief eventually makes it to the scene and starts personally ordering his officers to go home.

The White Night Riots, as the events of that evening will come to be known, mark something of a turning point in San Francisco.

Sixty-one police are hospitalized, as are more than a hundred gay men and women.

And hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage is done to the city by protesters and rioters at City Hall.

But leaders in the gay community refuse to call for them to issue apologies for the violence.

And try as they might, journalists can't even get them to condemn the events.

No one backs down.

The gloves are off.

Unified by the assassination of Harvey Milk, strengthened by their experience on White Night, and galvanized in their resolve to affect real change, the gay community throw their collective might behind Dianne Feinstein.

She'll eventually be elected to serve a full term as mayor, and make good on a promise to appoint another pro-gay police chief.

This will lead to increased recruitment of gay officers to the force, bringing the temperature down and the contentious relationship between the two sides.

As for Dan White, he serves just five years of his sentence.

And despite his defenses claims that manic depression contributed to him pulling the trigger, psychiatrists who examine him in prison report that he has no apparent signs of any mental disorder.

He's paroled in January of 1984.

But like Harvey Milk and George Moscone, he never makes it to 50.

In October of 1985, Dan White takes his own life.

A city in agony.

That was the front page headline of the San Francisco Examiner the day after Dan White assassinated George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

Underneath were reports about Dianne Feinstein stepping into her role as acting mayor, a memorial service for the slain leaders, and the issue of bail for the killer.

Below all of that was a story calling Dan White a quote casualty of pressure.

A former Board of Supervisors colleague explained that this devoted young father reached his breaking point.

He snapped.

Over four decades later, that's become a familiar explanation in America for men who bring gun violence to their places of work, to schools, to movie theaters, to grocery stores.

Snapped.

Inevitable.

Tragic.

But inevitable.

It's an explanation that can make violence seem understandable, relatable.

But in many cases, this one, for example, it's an explanation that neglects the full context of the situation.

Harvey Milk was under many of the same pressures that Dan White was.

He'd reached the end of a long fight for election, and then had to get up every day and do the job he'd asked for.

He had a community to represent and was struggling to do so on a pitiable salary.

But while both men represented their home districts, Harvey also represented the gay community.

He helped beat back the hateful rhetoric of the Briggs Initiative, and had worked for years to unite queer men and women of San Francisco to fight for their rights as Americans.

No more silence, he'd say at the Gay Freedom Day Parade just months before his death.

No more silence.

That was Harvey snapping.

Not like a branch, but like a diva snapping their fingers to punctuate a sentence.

Listen to me, hear me, I will not be ignored.

We will not be ignored.

That attitude made Harvey a leader to the gay community.

He was an imperfect man, an imperfect politician in many ways, but he helped take the queer civil rights movement out of the buttoned up meeting rooms and secretive committees and into the California sun.

He encouraged people to come out, to show the world the gay people are everywhere.

He imagined a better future for people who came after him.

Not for himself, though.

Harvey Milk had long suspected that he would die young.

Once he became a politician, that premonition crystallized into a belief he would be assassinated.

Given his lifelong love for the dramatic and his innate pride in his identity, he might have expected his death to be at the hands of a zealot whose passion was stirred by Harvey's very existence.

Not by someone as dreary, as cowardly, as small as Dan White.

But not many of us get to write our own final chapters.

Our best hope is that we, like Harvey Milk, make the ones that come before the best they can be.

From Airship, this is episode 5 in our series on The Assassination of Harvey Milk.

On the next series, a kid from New York decides to climb his way to the top of the most powerful crime family in the country.

And he doesn't care who he has to kill to get there.

We use many different sources while preparing this episode.

A few we can recommend are Double Play by Mike Wise, Season of the Witch by David Talbott, The Mayor of Castro Street by Randy Schiltz, and The American Archive for Public Broadcasting.

This episode may contain reenactments or dramatized details, and while in some cases we can't know exactly what happened, all our dramatizations are based on historical research.

American Criminal is hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Jeremy Schwartz.

Audio editing by Christian Peraga.

Sound design by Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrum.

This episode is written and researched by Joel Callan.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive producers are Joel Callan, William Simpson and Lindsey Graham.