page_title: White Night riots
section_title: Assassinations
hierarchical_section_title: White Night riots / Background / Assassinations
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of the San Francisco City Hall after seismic retrofit with the help of base isolation
context_page_description: The White Night riots were a series of violent events sparked by an announcement of a lenient sentencing of Dan White for the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and of Harvey Milk, a member of the city's Board of Supervisors who was one of the first openly gay elected officials in the United States. The events took place on the night of May 21, 1979 in San Francisco. Earlier that day, White had been convicted of voluntary manslaughter, the lightest possible conviction for his actions. That White was not convicted of first-degree murder had so outraged the city's gay community that it set off the most violent reaction by gay Americans since the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
  The gay community of San Francisco had a longstanding conflict with the San Francisco Police Department. White's status as a former police officer intensified the community's anger at the SFPD. Initial demonstrations took place as a peaceful march through the Castro district of San Francisco. After the crowd arrived at the San Francisco City Hall, violence began.
context_section_description: Dissatisfied with city politics, and in financial difficulty due to his failing restaurant business and low annual salary of $9,600, former police officer and Supervisor Dan White resigned from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on November 10, 1978. However, after a meeting with the Police Officers' association and the Board of Realtors, White announced that he wanted his seat back. Liberal Supervisors saw this as an opportunity to end the 6-5 split on the Board that blocked progressive initiatives they wanted to introduce. After intense lobbying by Supervisors Milk and Silver, as well as State Assemblyman Willie Brown, Moscone announced on November 26, 1978, that he would not be reappointing Dan White to the seat he had vacated.
  The next morning White went to City Hall armed with his police .38 Smith & Wesson revolver and 10 extra cartridges in his coat pocket. To avoid the metal detector he entered the building through a basement window, and proceeded to the office of Mayor George Moscone.  Following a brief argument, White shot the Mayor in the shoulder and chest, and then twice in the head. White then walked to his former office, reloading his gun, and asked Milk to join him. White then shot Milk in the wrist, shoulder and chest, and then twice in the head, execution style. Supervisor Dianne Feinstein heard the gunshots and called the police, who found Milk on his stomach, blood pouring out of his head wounds.
caption: San Francisco City Hall, where the killings took place. The building was heavily damaged during the riots.
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