Apparent second Trump assassination attempt draws comparison to 1975 Ford attempts, one in Sacramento
SACRAMENTO — The second apparent assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump's life in weeks is drawing comparisons to another pair of attempted assassinations decades ago.
In 1975, President Gerald Ford was also targeted by gunmen twice.
On September 5, 1975, Ford crossed Sacramento's L Street surrounded by a crowd just as Squeaky Fromme aimed a gun at him at point-blank range. Her shot did not go off.
just more than two weeks later on September 22, Ford was in San Francisco when a shot was fired from across the street. He ducked. The suspect was taken into custody immediately.
In each case, the gunman was a woman—Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore.
Dan Walters was in his first year as a California State Capitol reporter in 1975 and was on scene during the assassination attempt in Sacramento, watching Fromme as she was placed into a patrol car.
Walters links the pair of attempts then to a time of turmoil in California, including the Jonestown Massacre, and the assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
"There was kind of weird stuff going on, but was it all connected," Walters said. "I don't know, I mean, on a cosmic sense maybe."
Willie Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and Assembly Speaker, recalled the Ford assassination attempts as being linked to protest movements in the wake of the Vietnam War.
"The world of politics was not nearly as organized as they are now," Brown said.
Both Brown and Walters said that this era of rhetoric online is a game changer for inciting political violence.
"It has to do with the insanity of all the things Trump talks about," Brown said.
"You can read on the internet people saying 'so and so ought to be shot, or somebody ought to be hanged,'" Walters said. "That's kinda scary stuff that wasn't happening in 1975."
Walters noted that despite the fact he survived two assassination attempts in California, Gerald Ford chose California to retire after his politcal career was over.
Both Fromme and Moore were convicted and received long prison sentences.
