Dan White

Daniel James "Dan" White was an American politician who, on November 27, 1978, assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. His controversial trial, which brought to his conviction on a less serious charge, became famous for the so-called "Twinkie defense". White committed suicide in 1985.

Background and Political Career
White was born in Long Beach, California, in 1946, but grew up in Visitacion Valley, a working-class neighborhood of San Francisco. The second of nine children of Catholic, Irish-American parents, he went at Riordan High School, where he was expelled for violence during his junior year. He later attended Woodrow Wilson High School, where he became a star athlete and graduated valedictorian of his class. In 1965, he enlisted in the Army, serving as a 101st Airborne Division sergeant in Vietnam, from 1969 to 1970. After his discharge, he worked as a security guard in Anchorage, Alaska, in 1972, before returning to San Francisco to become a police officer. Despite his commanding officer begging him not to do so, White reported one of his colleagues for beating a handcuffed black suspect, leaving the force shortly afterwards. In 1974, he was accepted into the fire academy, where he helped three black trainees, who were about to be flunked just for being African-Americans, remain there and pass their exams. While on duty as a firefighter for the San Francisco Fire Department, his heroic rescue of a woman and her baby from a Visitacion Valley seventh-floor apartment was covered by the San Francisco Chronicle, which referred to him as "an all-American boy". During this period, he married his girlfriend, Mary Ann, and fathered his first son with her.



In 1977, White decided to run for city Supervisor from District 8, which included the neighborhood he was born in. His campaign was supported by both the police and firefighter unions and a local street gang named the Sons of Sunnydale, which brought to White being criticized by other candidates because of the Sons' behavior at rallies. After winning the election, he had to give up his job as a firefighter, since a provision in the city charter barred anybody from holding two city jobs. He subsequently started a snack-food business on Pier 39, "The Hot Potato", which later failed due to the pressure he was exposed to as an official. Despite his religious background, his advocacy of family values, and a reported homophobic remark, not to mention his own electoral base's opinions concerning homosexuals, White got along well with, and was even said to admire fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk, who, at the time, was the first openly gay elected official in California. They disagreed on most political matters, as each had his own personal agenda. Nonetheless, he persuaded Dianne Feinstein, then president of the Board of Supervisors, to appoint Milk chairman of the Streets and Transportation Committee, and voted in favor of Milk's Gay Rights Ordinance, which protected homosexual San Franciscans from hate crimes and from losing their jobs simply for being gay or lesbian. According to White's chief political advisor and business partner, Ray Sloan, who was himself homosexual: "Dan had more in common with Harvey than he did with anyone else on the board. They were both proud of their military service, they both hated big money interests, and they both represented people on the political margins. And neither was afraid of a fight."

The casus belli between White and Milk was the Church-proposed construction, in April 1978, of the Youth Campus, a facility for juvenile offenders who had committed serious crimes like murder, arson, and rape, in the District 8 Portola neighborhood. Since White strongly opposed the construction, he discussed the matter with Milk, and the two struck a deal: Milk would have voted against the facility, while White would have voted in favor of Milk's Gay Rights Ordinance (which was still to be definitively approved). However, Milk broke the truce, voting in favor of the Youth Campus, which enraged White. The latter, in retaliation, was the only one to vote against Milk's ordinance, later publicly denouncing the gay parade which followed the approval. Eventually, trying to make amends with Milk, White opposed the November 1978 anti-gay Briggs Initiative, and invited him to the baptism of his second son, Charles.

Moscone-Milk Assassinations
Despite his attempts at reconciling with Milk, White was beginning to lose interest in his political career. He was facing financial difficulties due to his stagnant restaurant and his meager Supervisor's salary. Moreover, doubts were casted on his own integrity, when the downtown business community and San Francisco's real estate interests decided to help him with his campaign debts. In the fall of 1978, the stresses to which he was subjected became unbearable, and he decided to resign from his position. A week after his dismissal, White met with leaders of the Police Officers' Association and the Board of Realtors, who considered his vote on the Board of Supervisors to be crucial to their interests, at which point he rethought his decision, with Mayor George Moscone handing him back his letter of resignation. However, White's resignation had been, in the meanwhile, unanimously accepted by the Board, which was later ruled as meaning he was out for good. In addition, Milk had literally threatened Moscone not to help him get reelected, if he reappointed White.

On November 26, White learned from a reporter he would not have been reappointed, with liberal Don Horanzy taking his place on the Board. Next day, his aide drove him to City Hall, where he entered the building through an open first-floor side window, in order to avoid metal detector alerting security personnel about his former service revolver, which he had brought with him that morning along with several rounds of ammunition. White headed for Moscone's office and requested to talk to him, to which he accepted. After Moscone again manifested his intention to not reappoint him, inviting him in his back room for a drink, White abruptly shot him five times. Reloading his gun, he saw Supervisor Milk's aide and decided to pay a visit to his office, since he realized it was Milk who masterminded his downfall all along. After the latter denied being involved in his replacement, White fired five more shots at the Supervisor, killing him as well. After the murders, White met with his wife in a church, then walked with her to a police station and surrendered himself to the authorities.

Trial and Death
White was charged with first-degree murder with special circumstance, which potentially carried the death penalty. White's defense never questioned his guilt, but argued he was suffering from severe depression at the time of the murders, furtherly aggravated by junk food consumption (which came to be known as the "Twinkie Defense"). Moved by White's taped confession, the jurors chose to convict the latter of voluntary manslaughter rather than first-degree murder, which brought to a seven years and eight months sentence. The resultant outrage in the homosexual community sparked the so-called White Nights riots, which caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage to City Hall and the surrounding area, as well as several injuries among both police officers and rioters.

White served five years of his sentence at Soledad State Prison, then, in 1984, he was paroled later returned to San Francisco, although Dianne Feinstein, by then mayor of the municipality, had formally asked him not to do so. He attempted to rebuild his life with his family, but his marriage soon ended. On October 21, 1985, White committed suicide in his garage through carbon monoxide poisoning. In 1998, Frank Falzon, the SFPD homicide inspector to whom White surrendered himself after the murders, said he had met with him in 1984, and that the latter admitted the murders were premeditated and that he had also intended to kill two more politicians. He quoted White as having said: "I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver [another Supervisor], she was the biggest snake ... and Willie Brown [at the time member of the California State Assembly], he was masterminding the whole thing."

Modus Operandi
White employed his former service weapon, a Smith & Wesson Model 36 snub-nosed revolver loaded with hollow-point bullets, to kill Moscone and Milk. In each instance, he unloaded the entire cylinder on his victims, who were both also shot at least once in the head at point-blank range. He was able to avoid security measures by entering City Hall through an open first-floor side window.

Profile
At his trial, White's attorney, assisted by experts of the likes of forensic psychiatrist Dr. Donald Lunde, argued his client was suffering from a manic-depressive episode at the time of the murders, which was furtherly aggravated by his consumption of junk food (e.g. Twinkie cupcakes, candy bars...). Thus, his act could not have been perpetrated with malice aforethought because of "diminished capacity". On the other hand, the prosecution expert, Dr. Roland Levy, sustained that while White showed signs of being moderately depressed, and suffered from obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, he still could have premeditated the murders.

It would be unrealistic to sustain that White's murders were sparked by homophobia, since he reportedly had a mixed record on gays (possibly due to his necessity to gain support from both his electoral base and more liberal Supervisors like Milk, to remain in charge). Moreover, his motive was more about the pressure he was facing at the time, regaining his job, and his own feeling of having been treated unfairly than anything else.

Known Victims

 * November 27, 1978: San Francisco City Hall:
 * George Richard Moscone
 * Harvey Bernard Milk

On Criminal Minds

 * Season Seven
 * "A Thin Line" - While yet to be directly referenced in the show, White may have partially inspired Clark Preston - Both were similar-looking, conservative political personalities who resorted to violent means during the course of their respective careers (Preston manipulated a mentally unstable young man to commit murders that benefited his campaign, while White shot dead the mayor and another Supervisor of his municipality for masterminding his downfall).