Unsuccessful Ford assassin says she regrets act, mourns his death

AP via MercuryNews ^ | 1/3/7

[SmithL]

DUBLIN, Calif. - A woman who once tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford says she regrets the murder attempt and joins Americans in mourning his recent death.

Sara Jane Moore was only 40 feet away from Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco when she fired a single shot at him on Sept. 22, 1975.

As she raised her .38 caliber revolver, Oliver Sipple, a disabled former U.S. Marine who was standing next to her, pushed up her arm as the gun discharged. The bullet flew over Ford's head by several feet, ricocheted off the side of the hotel and slightly wounded a cab driver in the crowd.

"I am very glad I did not succeed. I know now that I was wrong to try," Moore, now 76, told KGO-TV on Tuesday in a phone interview from a federal prison in Dublin, where she's serving a life term for the attempted assassination.

[USS Alaska]

Why does the woman that shot at but missed Ford remain in prison while the guy that actually shot Reagan and Brady get weekend home visits?

[Valpal1]

That's a good question.

[mtbopfuyn]

My bad.

[bondjamesbond]

"People kept saying he would have to die before I could be (paroled)," Moore said.

Why would people say something stupid like that? Why should she be paroled now?

Assassination of the President is an attack on the nation. It should be dealt with in the harshest possible way. There is no reason to parole this person now.

[OESY]

Sara Jane Moore was a far-left wacko, yet after her attempt to kill the President nobody in the media called for a crackdown on far-left groups (and there were no demands for them to cool their rhetoric). Could you imagine what the media would have been demanding if the situation was reversed?

One doesn't have to imagine. After the Oklahoma bombing, Clinton driven by the media cracked down on the Michigan militia.

[The KG9 Kid]

No, he died in 1989 from alcoholism in SF's Tenderloin district in a dingy little apartment surrounded by newspaper clippings of his good deed.

[SpringheelJack]

Why does the woman that shot at but missed Ford remain in prison while the guy that actually shot Reagan and Brady get weekend home visits?

25 years ago Jimmy Carter pardoned a Puerto Rican who'd tried to kill Harry Truman and succeeded in killing a police officer.

[napscoordinator]

I never heard of her and never even knew that President Ford was shot twice...I was 4-6 when he was President which explains why. I am impressed that she is sorry for her act now. I guess everyone on FR is still not willing to forgive her. You all sound really angry over this. Obviously, I can see why you would be upset, but after thirty years shouldn't we begin to forgive. Even Pope John forgave his attempted assassin.

[dfwgator]

And when a Commie shoots a Democratic President (Kennedy), the lefties have to assert that it was really right-wing mafioso and right wing anti-Castroites that ordered the assassination.

[krb]

never even knew that President Ford was shot twice

He wasn't. He was shot at twice.

[IAmASheeple]

Did former Marine Sipple get the Medal of Freedom?

I'm not sure, but he did get screwed over by the MSM:

From Wikipedia: "The police and the Secret Service immediately commended Sipple for his action at the scene, while Ford thanked him in a letter. The news media portrayed Sipple as a hero but would eventually report on his outing by San-Francisco gay activists, thus disclosing his private life. Though he was known to be a homosexual by various fellow members of the gay community, Sipple had not publicly "come out of the closet." His sexual identity was something he had always kept a secret from his family. He asked the press reporters to keep his homosexuality off the record, making it clear that neither his mother nor his employer had knowledge of his sexual orientation.

Despite his wishes, gay activist and politician Harvey Milk, publicly proclaimed Sipple a "gay hero" and said his act "will help break the stereotype of homosexuals." Gay liberation groups petitioned local media to give Sipple his due as a gay hero. Then columnist Herb Caen published the private side of the former Marine's story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Six other papers ran the column as well. After discovering her son's secret, Sipple's mother reacted to the knowledge of her son's sexual orientation by cutting off contact with him. Sipple's mother was reportedly harassed by her neighbors. When her son called to talk to her, she hung up on him. Sipple's split with his family never healed. When his mother died in 1979, his father refused contact with him."

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Great question, his family had money to buy a lawyer(liar) to say he was crazy.

---

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think.
- "Unburlesquable Things," The Galaxy Magazine, July 1870
MARK TWAIN

[Obadiah]

Because John Hinckley, who shot Reagan, was determined by the court to be insane. Apparently, he has recovered enough to have weekend visits. (No word yet from Jodie Foster as to whether the will now date or not.)

[krb]

Looks like the media outed him as a homosexual and helped wreck his life:

Oliver Sipple.

[91B]

That's horrible. The homosexual activists put their agenda ahead of this man's personal wishes and they didn't care what kinds of problems it caused him so long as they could further their cause.

As far as I'm concerned he was a hero and who cares if he was gay? If he wanted to keep that part of his life private, Milk and company were way out of bounds in defying his wishes.

[PzLdr]

Separate nutcase. Hardcore Manson family member.

[PzLdr]

He was found " 'Not Guilty' by reason of mental disease or defect". They were convicted of the crimes they were charged with.

[fishtank]

Thanks. That was a long time ago and I'd forgotten.

[drb9]

I think the federal government eliminated parole in 1984, long after this woman's conviction. I think she has a chance at parole, but don't know the details of her sentence.

[drb9]

Funny coincidence. I just googled this issue, and discovered that this woman is eligible for parole in September 2007. I bet she'll express much regret between now and then.