Just 2 Seconds (29 page)

6.
Date: February 21, 1965
Target: Civil Rights Leader Malcolm X
Location: Harlem, New York
Details: Malcolm X was delivering a speech to a crowd at the Audubon Ballroom. A scuffle broke out in the crowd and someone threw down a smoke bomb in the back of the room, drawing his bodyguards out of position. Thomas Hagan shot Malcom X in the chest with a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, and he fell to the floor. Normal Butler and Thomas Johnson ran up and shot him several times with a .45 pistol and a 9mm Luger. As the gunmen fled, a bodyguard fired three shots, hitting Hagan in the leg, and he was captured. The others escaped, but were later captured. Malcolm X suffered 16 bullet wounds and died two hours later in surgery. Malcolm's home had been firebombed one week before his death.

7.
Date: August 25, 1967
Target: George Lincoln Rockwell, Founder of the American Nazi Party
Location: Arlington, Virginia
Details: Rockwell was backing out of a parking space at a shopping mall, having just left a coin-operated laundry. John Patler, atop the building, fired two shots from a Mauser rifle through the windshield of Rockwell's car, hitting him in the head and chest. Rockwell crawled out of his car and died. Police spotted Patler at a bus stop and he fled, but was captured. He was convicted, sent to prison, and paroled in 1975.

8.
Date: April 4, 1968
Target: Reverend Martin Luther King
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Details: King stepped out of his room and paused on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. James Earl Ray fired one shot from a 30.06 Remington 760 Gamemaster rifle with a Redfield 2x7 scope from a bathroom window at Bessie Brewer's rooming house about 300 feet away. The bullet struck King in the jaw, causing massive injuries. He was rushed to St. Joseph Hospital, where he died. TV coverage on the day before had pinpointed his location, and his entourage had refused police protection. Ray escaped and was captured on May 18 at Heathrow Airport in England. He died in prison in 1998. In December 1999, a Tennessee jury in a wrongful death lawsuit found that King was the victim of a murder conspiracy, not a lone gunman. The finding did not exonerate Ray, but simply said that others were involved.

9.
Date: June 3, 1968
Target: Filmmaker Andy Warhol
Location: New York, New York
Details: Warhol was working at his film studio, known as The Factory, when Valerie Solanis, an actress who had appeared in one of Warhol's films pulled a .32 pistol out of her bag and began shooting. She fired at Warhol three times, hitting him once in the right side. One other person was also hit. Warhol was later pronounced dead at the hospital, but doctors continued to work and saved him. Solanis fled the scene, but later surrendered to a policeman on the street. She was committed to a mental hospital.

10.
Date: June 5, 1968
Target: Presidential Candidate (Senator) Robert F. Kennedy
Location: Los Angeles, California
Details: Kennedy finished addressing a large crowd in the Ambassador Hotel and walked off stage toward the hotel's kitchen, through which he was to exit the ballroom. His protectors were two famous athletes, and they were trailing Kennedy. Sirhan Sirhan had read Kennedy's schedule in the newspaper and was waiting in the pantry when Kennedy was led through by a headwaiter. Sirhan opened fire with an Iver Johnson .22 revolver, striking Kennedy four times. Five other bystanders were also wounded. Due to the crowd, it took 17 minutes to evacuate Kennedy to an ambulance. He died 25 hours later.

11.
Date: August 12, 1969
Target: William Lennon, Father of the Lennon Sisters
Location: Marina del Rey, California
Details: Chet Young confronted Lennon at his car in the parking lot at work. He shot Lennon with a .303 rifle in the back as he was running away, then again in the temple. Young was an obsessive fan of Lennon's daughters and had stalked them for seven years. He had earlier threatened to kill President Lyndon Johnson and was arrested by the Secret Service.

12.
Date: November 25, 1970
Target: Municipal Court Judge James N. Colasonto
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Details: Colasonto answered a knock on his front door around 7:00 a.m. and was shot five times. He died two days later. The shooter, Theobalt Magnini, called a local radio reporter to confess. He later committed suicide. Magnini explained that he had held a grudge against the judge for five years. Court records showed that in 1966, Magnini issued a summons against a neighbor for maintaining a vicious dog. The judge ruled that city ordinances prohibited such a classification unless the dog had bitten two people. He suggested the proper charge was running at large, but Magnini did not pursue it. In January 1969, Magnini again appeared before the judge on a traffic ticket, which the judge dismissed. A recent issue of
Washingtonian
magazine described Colasonto as an inferior judge. A week before the shooting, Magnini's wife and daughter moved out of the house. The vicious dog was a Chihuahua.

13.
Date: May 15, 1972
Target: Presidential Candidate & Alabama Governor George Wallace
Location: Laurel, Maryland
Details: Wallace was working a rope line at a political rally when Arthur Bremer opened fire with a .38 revolver. Wallace was wounded four times, along with Secret Service Agent Nick Zarvos and Alabama State Police Captain E. C. Dothard, who were both on his security detail. Bremer was arrested, convicted, and served 35 years in prison.
(1-STARS: Management of the incident immediately after the attack favorably influenced safety/survival.)

14.
Date: November 4, 1974
Target: Magistrate Judge Joseph J. Crescente
Location: Wanaque, New Jersey
Details: While presiding over night court, Crescente was killed by a sniper. Four teenage boys were charged in the shooting. One of the boys had been ordered from the courtroom earlier that evening for creating a disturbance. The boys discussed burning a police car, but decided to shoot the judge instead. The shooter fired twice through the courtroom window, hitting the judge in the back.

15.
Date: September 21, 1976
Target: Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Letelier was being driven to work when a remote-controlled limpet mine under his car exploded, killing him and passenger Ronni Moffitt. Two Cubans who were tailing Letelier's car detonated the bomb using a radio pager as an initiator.

16.
Date: March 6, 1978
Target: Magazine Publisher Larry Flynt
Location: Lawrenceville, Georgia
Details: Flynt was walking into the courthouse for his highly publicized trial on obscenity charges. A sniper's bullet struck lawyer Gene Reeves in the arm. A second shot struck Flynt in the stomach. Flynt required more than a dozen surgeries to save his life, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. The shooting of Flynt was one of more than 20 shootings in 12 states over a three-year period by Joseph Paul Franklin, a rare non-professional serial assassin. The shooting spree was against people that Franklin viewed as promoting "race mixing." Franklin is currently in prison, though he was never charged with the Flynt shooting. (See also
Case #22
.)

17.
Date: November 21, 1978
Target: Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kerr
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Details: Kerr led the investigation into the Chagra family's connection to a drug smuggling operation out of Mexico. As he drove to work, he pulled up behind a panel van. Seeing the barrel of a rifle emerging from the back window, Kerr dove under the dashboard just as his windshield erupted from a spray of bullets. He was slightly injured by glass cuts.

18.
Date: November 28, 1978
Target: Mayor George Moscone & City Supervisor Harvey Milk
Location: San Francisco, California
Details: Former policeman Dan White entered city hall by climbing through a cellar window to avoid the magnetometers in the lobby. He went to Moscone's office and demanded to be reinstated to his city supervisor position. When Moscone refused, White shot him five times with a .38 revolver. White then reloaded and went to Milk's office, and shot him five times. Both men died instantly. White was convicted of manslaughter in a controversial trial. He was released in January 1984, and committed suicide in October 1985.

19.
Date: December 21, 1978
Target: Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Leibowitz
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Leibowitz was shot in the courthouse parking lot at mid-morning. Two men in a car drove up to him and the passenger fired twice with a .22. The first shot sliced off Leibowitz's tie, the second shot hit near his hip. The assailant escaped. Liebowitz was prosecuting a large drug case involving Robert Willie Young. The shooting may have been to scare the witnesses.

20.
Date: May 29, 1979
Target: Federal Judge John Wood
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Details: Wood was shot to death by a sniper round while he was getting in his car at his home. Charles Harrelson, a killer-for-hire, later confessed to the shooting. A drug dealer whose case Wood was to hear had promised Harrelson $250,000. Harrelson was sent to prison for life.

21.
Date: March 14, 1980
Target: Former Congressman Allard Lowenstein
Location: New York, New York
Details: Lowenstein was shot to death in his law office by Dennis Sweeney, a former acquaintance. Sweeney, a civil rights volunteer in Lowenstein's voter registration drives in Mississippi in the mid-1960s, fired five bullets into the congressman, then waited for police to arrive. During his trial, Sweeney testified that Lowenstein and others in the CIA controlled him through radio receivers planted in his teeth. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and found not guilty by reason of insanity.

22.
Date: May 29, 1980
Target: Civil Rights Leader Vernon Jordan
Location: Ft. Wayne, Indiana
Details: Jordan stepped out of his car on the parking lot of his hotel. Joseph Paul Franklin, a white separatist, fired two shots from a Remington model 700 .30-06 rifle from a sniper's lair in a grassy area near the hotel, striking Jordan in the back and right thigh. He was rushed to the hospital, and survived his wounds. Franklin escaped, but was later arrested and indicted on numerous sniper shootings, including Jordan's.

23.
Date: June 10, 1980
Target: United Airlines President Percy Wood
Location: Lake Forest, Illinois
Details: A package bomb postmarked Chicago and disguised as the novel "Ice Brothers" exploded when opened by Wood at his home. Wood suffered injuries to his hands, face, and thighs. Weeks before, he had received a letter telling him that he would be receiving a book that all business executives should read. The initials "FC" was found etched on a piece of pipe left from the bomb. It was the fourth bomb in the Unabomber case.

24.
Date: December 8, 1980
Target: Musician John Lennon
Location: New York, New York
Details: Mark David Chapman shot Lennon in the back five times with a .38 revolver. Lennon had just arrived home at his apartment and was entering the building. When he had left the building earlier that day, he paused and autographed Chapman's record album. Chapman reportedly considered attacking President Reagan, Hawaii Governor Ariyoshi, Johnny Carson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Senator Edward Kennedy. (Some reports indicate he tried to encounter Johnny Carson at New York's Intercontinental Hotel.)

25.
Date: March 30, 1981
Target: President Ronald Reagan
Location: Washington, D.C.
Details: Reagan was attending a function at the Washington Hilton Hotel. As he emerged from the building and walked toward his limousine, John W. Hinckley Jr. opened fire with a Rohm RG-14 .22 revolver, firing six shots in 1.8 seconds from fifteen feet away. Reagan was wounded in the left side by a bullet, which bounced off the side of his armored limousine. Security personnel overpowered Hinckley. Rapid Secret Service response saved him from greater injury, and immediate transportation to the hospital after the shooting saved him from death. During the attack, a Secret Service agent was wounded in the abdomen, a police officer was struck in the neck, and Reagan's press aide was struck in the forehead. All survived. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and placed in a mental hospital. Hinckley had also stalked President Carter at a political rally the previous year, and had considered killing himself at the scene of John Lennon's murder.
(3-STARS: Protector action during the attack favorably influenced safety/survival)