White Night Burns: San Francisco Demands Justice

Dan White killed two men in San Francisco City Hall and a jury called it manslaughter. On May 21, 1979, thousands of people decided that verdict was worth burning for. The White Night riots erupted within hours of the announcement, turning the Civic Center into a battlefield between San Francisco's gay community and the police who had failed to protect it. White, a former city supervisor, had resigned his seat, tried to get it back, and on November 27, 1978, walked into City Hall with a loaded revolver. He shot Mayor George Moscone four times, then walked to Supervisor Harvey Milk's office and shot him five times. Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, died at his desk. The defense argued diminished capacity, claiming White's depression and junk food diet had impaired his judgment. The jury accepted it. When the voluntary manslaughter verdict came down on May 21, anger that had been building for six months detonated. Protesters marched from the Castro to City Hall, smashing windows, overturning police cars, and setting fires. Police responded with a retaliatory raid on a Castro Street bar, beating patrons indiscriminately. The riots damaged 12 police vehicles, injured 160 people, and caused over $1 million in property damage. More importantly, they galvanized political organization in the LGBTQ community nationwide. Harvey Milk's assassination and the perceived injustice of White's sentence became rallying points for a movement that would reshape American civil rights law over the following decades. White served five years and killed himself in 1985. California abolished the diminished capacity defense the following year.