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City Hall from Fulton Street
They say you can't fight City Hall, in San Francisco that's not quite true. What follows is a brief history of just some of the notorious events that happened to the city's politicians over the years.
In 1879 mayoral candidate Isaac Smith Kalloch was shot and wounded by the San Francisco Chronicle's editor-in-chief, Charles de Young. Kalloch was elected mayor and a year later his son, Milton Kalloch shot and killed de Young. In 1908 James Gallagher, the President of the city's Board of Supervisors had his house dynamited.
The mid '70s were an especially bad time to be a San Francisco politician, in 1976 City Supervisors, Quentin Kopp and John Barbagelata received candy box bombs. later that year Mayor Alioto's home was bombed. Still later Dianne Feinstein received a bomb in a flower box. The next year District Attorney Joseph Freitas, Jr. escaped a bombing assassination attempt. In the same year Dianne Feinstein had gunshots fired at her home. Six days later John Barbagelata had a bomb explode outside his home. Nine days later an armed man gained access to Mayor Moscone's office. In November of 1978 Mayor Moscone and City Supervisor Milk were killed in City Hall by ex-City Supervisor Dan White.
On July 25, 1981 a letter was delivered to Mayor Feinstein at City Hall. The letter stated that a nuclear device would be detonated in San Francisco on July 15th unless a ransom of $100 million in industrial diamonds was paid. A U.S. sailor stationed at nearby Mare Island Naval Shipyard was arrested for the extortion attempt... there was no nuclear device.
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1 Comments:
My father , John Barbagelata was Supervisor from 1969-1977 and ran a very close race against George Moscone for mayor in 1975. I could have grown up in Belfast or Palestine. Here are several incidents that occured to me and my family during my fathers political period. I was making hot chocolate with my sister one evening when a huge bomb exploded near our kitchen window as my father,mother and campaign manager sat at the kitchen table. Shots fired at our family real estate business. Police offers notified us one late night that our family had serious death threats and advised us to leave immediately. We got in the station wagon went to my grandparents in Stockton.My father and older brother cased the grounds with guns at 2:00 am making sure we were not followed to our safe haven. We had over a year of 24 hour police security walking around and stationed in front our our home because of the severity of our family being harmed. A See's candy box was sent to our home with a quarter stick of dynamite. It did not explode even though my sisters were throwing it around anxiously asking to open it up. I could go on about People Temple's threats and factual data of voter fraud in my fathers 75' race but that is for another day. San Francisco was dangerous, violent and teeming with extreme groups that did not value human life. I was a young kid and assumed that attempts on your life were the staus quo for SF Politics, it is not now but was then.
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