Vigil marks date of City Hall killings
Dozens of people gathered at San Francisco's Harvey Milk Plaza on Sunday night to mark the 44th anniversary of the 1978 assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city Supervisor Harvey Milk, who were shot and killed in City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White.
The annual vigil, organized by the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club, comes about a week after the deadly mass shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. The Castro event also commemorated the victims of the Club Q attack, which left five people dead and injured at least 18.
Milk was California's first openly gay elected official, and many are drawing parallels between his slaying and more recent acts of violence against the LGBTQ community — including the Colorado attack and the 2016 shooting at Pulse LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando.
Colorado shooting suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder and hate crimes and is expected to be formally charged next week.
“We will never forget Harvey Milk and George Moscone,” tweeted State Sen. Scott Weiner, who spoke at Sunday's vigil. “We will never forget the people massacred at Club Q and at Pulse. We will forever fight for our community against the violent bigots who want us to disappear. We're not going away. Ever.”
The 1978 assassinations came less than two weeks after the massacre of more than 900 people, many San Franciscans, at a compound in Jonestown, Guyana, run by cult leader Jim Jones. Jones ordered his followers to drink poison and sent a squad to shoot an investigative delegation led by Rep. Leo Ryan, DSan Mateo, as it prepared to fly home from a nearby airstrip.
Ryan and four others died on the airstrip, and 10 others — including Ryan's aide Jackie Speier, who now holds his seat — were wounded.