Charlie Kirk’s killing evokes memories of a 1975 assassination attempt
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Charlie Kirk had barely been declared dead this week when the internet exploded with cries of anger and blame. Surely a far-left loon had killed Kirk, the conservative firebrand. If not, leftists had been “poisoning the minds” of Americans for years, creating the atmosphere for violence, asserted Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
As a Californian, one of my childhood memories was of the killing of Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles. My most unforgettable interview as a cub reporter was with Sara Jane Moore, the suburban homemaker and sometime accountant who tried to shoot President Ford. Those experiences and many others leave me wondering how so many people are so certain they know the motive for Kirk’s slaying.
More than 24 hours after the killing, authorities have released only a picture of a thin young man in black clothes and dark glasses, a person of interest in their investigation. No homicidal manifesto has been uncovered. No social media ravings exposed. Yet it remains a (all too predictable) marvel that so many people seem so sure they know just what the killer was thinking.
I was a pup of 23 when I visited the federal prison in Pleasanton, Calif., to interview Moore about her failed attempt to gun down Ford outside a San Francisco hotel in 1975. When I look at the yellowed news clipping today, I see the San Ramon Valley Herald’s photo of a fierce-eyed Moore, glaring at the camera.
Moore had tended a home in Danville, a quiet suburban town over the hill from Oakland. She had worked her way through five marriages and in her 40s fallen in with far-left political groups. She also had become an FBI informant.
“I did something that I have tried to keep from doing since,” the woman whom friends called “Sally” told me back then. “I had boxed myself into a little box and I was reading things only that agreed with me and …. talking to the already convinced. I was deliberately ignoring and becoming blind and deaf to anything that did not” agree with her worldview.
The FBI had asked Moore to infiltrate radical organizations but then the agency severed its relationship with her, four months before the shooting. She became convinced the feds wanted her dead, she told another interviewer back then. “I was going to go down anyway,” Moore said. “If the government was going to kill me, I was going to make some kind of statement.” Moore also told me she thought she might get away with it, because the public so routinely underestimated women.
So, 17 days after another extremist, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, tried but failed to take a shot at President Ford as he walked near the state Capitol in Sacramento, Moore fired a single shot at the president. A bystander shoved her at the last moment, perhaps causing the shot to miss by roughly 5 feet.
Did she try to kill Ford to please her radical friends? Because she thought the FBI was coming for her? Because she felt like a woman for too long ignored? The 50th anniversary of the Sept. 22, 1975, assassination attempt looms, and it feels like we’re no closer to a single, clear answer.
Which, again, makes me wonder why so many of those opining on Kirk’s senseless death, including President Trump, are so sure they know just what caused it. In Wednesday’s Oval Office address, the president blamed the “radical left” and then listed a string of attacks on Republicans, including the shooting that could have killed him last year.
Trump seemed to have forgotten that violence has been visited on liberals too. He did not mention the assassination of a Democratic state lawmaker from Minnesota and her husband, the hammer attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, or the arson assault on the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family.
The Nashville Banner interviewed the now-95-year-old Moore after the attempt on Trump’s life last year. She said she had felt like a character in a play the day she tried to kill the president. Paroled years ago, Moore is living in Tennessee. Her motivations remained cloudy. “I’ve deliberately not thought a lot about it,” Moore said.
In contrast, a group called the Independent Center has thought about political violence. An organization that speaks out for independent voters, the center on Thursday said, enough already, to the vitriolic rhetoric after Kirk’s death. The group’s statement concluded: “We call on our political leaders, Republican and Democratic alike, to seek … de-escalation and reconciliation.”
The week’s biggest stories
Charlie Kirk shooting: What else we know
- The FBI released photos of a “person of interest” in Charlie Kirk’s shooting as the manhunt intensifies.
- Investigators recovered the weapon they believe was used to kill Kirk — a high-powered bolt-action rifle they found in a wooded area near the campus — as well as footprints and palm prints.
- MSNBC has fired political analyst Matthew Dowd after he suggested that Charlie Kirk’s “hateful” rhetoric contributed to the activist’s slaying.
A Pasadena man recounts 13 days in ICE’s “basement”
- Rami Othmane spoke with The Times about his July 13 arrest and subsequent 13-day detention in harsh conditions while suffering from a brain tumor. The experience, he said, left him altered.
- “I was surrounded by like five or six masked people in unmarked cars,” Othmane told The Times. “I kept telling them I have my ID and I’m a green card applicant. … I was following the right procedure.”
- He also said his wife, chief of medical staff at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, received death threats and racist comments while he was detained.
California lawmakers announce a last-minute climate and energy package
- After months of negotiation, California legislative leaders have reached an eleventh-hour agreement on a suite of closely watched climate and energy bills.
- It includes reauthorization of California’s signature cap-and-trade program and the expansion of a regional electricity market, among other items.
- Among the most prominent items is the extension of California’s nation-leading cap-and-trade program beyond its 2030 expiration date to 2045.
What else is going on
- A judge keeps limits on the use of “less-lethal” weapons by federal agents at L.A. protests.
- A coyote was spotted swimming off Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, an unusual sight that surprised wildlife experts.
- The world’s toymakers set up shop in El Segundo’s new toy hub to be near Barbie.
- Is the “Trash House” in Fairfax District a hoarder home or an elaborate recycling project?
Commentary and opinions
- This summer, the U.S. started two more “forever wars,” writes guest columnist ML Cavanaugh.
This morning’s must reads
Andry Hernández Romero emerged from the Salvadoran mega-prison as a household name. He’s now grappling with how to heal from the traumatic ordeal.
Other must reads
- Mötley Crüe starts over, “From the Beginning,” with a Las Vegas residency and a new era of decadence.
For your downtime
Going out
- Theater: The most exciting immersive show in L.A. right now is a funeral.
- Restaurants: Find your perfect pancake at these 11 L.A. restaurants.
- Museums: Steven Spielberg returns to “Jaws” via a new Academy Museum exhibit.
Staying in
- Television: “The Golden Girls” at 40: Here are the 5 best episodes, according to one of the show’s writers.
- Awards show: How to watch the 2025 Emmy Awards (and everything else you need to know).
- Recipes: Here’s a recipe for
- ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and jigsaw games.
A question for you: What is your favorite place to visit in California during the fall?
Hilary O’Hara writes, “Buellton, Calif., for the scarecrow contest.”
Email us at essentialcalifornia@latimes.com, and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally ... your photo of the day
Today’s great photo is from Times contributor Manolo Landis at the Wende Museum of Cold War History, which recently debuted a $17-million culture and wellness center offering free yoga, meditation, sound baths and therapy.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
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