George Moscone

Shot on 27 November 1978 in his City Hall office in San Francisco by former supervisor Dan White; the mayor was killed alongside Harvey Milk.

Overview

Moscone, a liberal state senator turned mayor, had decided not to reappoint the resigned conservative supervisor Dan White to the board. On a morning arranged with hidden entry through a basement window to avoid metal detectors, White shot Moscone in his office, reloaded, and walked to Milk office and shot him as well. The double murder of a mayor and the board first openly gay member stunned the city. White conviction for voluntary manslaughter, the so-called twinkie defense diminished-capacity argument, sparked the White Night riots; he served five years and killed himself in 1985. The murders transformed gun politics in city hall security nationwide and fixed Milk martyrdom in gay rights history, but Moscone, the working-class mayor of the neighborhoods and future governor hopeful, remains the half-forgotten half of that day.