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The White Night Riots, beginning on May 21, 1979, comprised two events: The first was the San Francisco, California, gay community's response to the minimal sentence given to former policeman, firefighter then San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White for killing George Moscone (then Mayor of San Francisco) and Harvey Milk (an openly gay supervisor of San Francisco), in November 1978. It began as a peaceful but angry march from the Castro District to City Hall, but turned into a riot after it reached its destination. Acting mayor Dianne Feinstein addressed the crowd as did Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver, alleged to be one of Dan White's targets, in attempts to defuse the crowd's frustration with the judge's sentencing Dan White to only seven years in prison for the dual assassinations.
Most members of the crowd were peaceful and mournful, carrying candles aloft and placing them on the statue of Abraham Lincoln beside City Hall, but other, angrier mourners actually rioted, causing significant property damage at City Hall, which included broken windows and glass doors and the torching of twelve San Francisco police cruisers; but no deaths and only some minor injuries were reported. It was reported later that the police cars were set on fire by a group of men who set fires by opening the unlocked doors of the police cars and throwing torches inside one by one as the police would then be called away for crowd control. This level of violence, although not directed at people, was surprising in a group of gay men that had been expected to act like "sissies"
The second stage of the riots was a police riot hours later back in the gay Castro neighborhood. After order was restored at City Hall, a number of SFPD cars and dozens of officers headed into the Castro District. Police marched into a bar called the Elephant Walk, smashed plate-glass windows and fixtures, and beat patrons with clubs. Most of the assault victims were just drinking at the bar and had had no part in the earlier rioting downtown. No fatalities from the police riot have been proven.
See also
- Dan White
- Twinkie defense
- The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) documentary which describes the White Night Riots
External links
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