The Killing of America (1981) - full transcript

Drop the gun.

Drop the gun.

Dean, is there anything
we can help you with

while you're there?

Uh, negative.

Shots fired.

479 Park Path Walk.

Suspect has a shotgun.
Possible gang.

Okay, he's underneath
my light, guys.

Roger. We got your light.

Suspects heading southwest...



211 just occurred.

1833 West 24 Street.

Suspect used
a double barrel shotgun...

Female with a gun

inside 209 West 103rd Street.

She has a .22
automatic stainless steel.

Use caution...

Drop the gun.

Shots have been fired.

Southeast unit. Code 2.

My leg!

Just relax, relax.

Can you move your foot though?

Twice.



Just above the heart, too.

- What were you stabbed with?
- I don't know.

It's a sickness within us,
I suppose.

You just have to...

You're obsessed with getting it.

You're just obsessed
with making damn sure

that this bastard
isn't going to do it again.

Oh, Jesus.

My God. No, not him, too.

Oh, dear God.

Five years ago,

we had 1,500 murder cases.

This year it will be
about 2,500 cases.

That is almost doubled.

Right here's a version
of just an average

semiautomatic rifle. .22.

You buy it in a hardware store,
department store

and they saw it off.

Shooting in progress.

103 Sequoia.

It's the scene of a large party
and we issued Code 3.

Pick up that
shooting in progress

- on Sequoia Northeast.
- Roger.

Any Rampart unit.
Screaming female.

415. Male with a gun.

America is the only
industrialized nation

with a higher murder rate
than countries at civil war,

like Cambodia and Nicaragua.

Just take and drill
some holes in it...

An attempted murder
every 3 minutes.

A murder victim
every 20 minutes.

Japan, England,
and West Germany,

with a combined
population equal to America,

have 6,000 murders a year.

America has 27,000.

In the 80 years of this century,

America has had more
than a million murders.

More than all her fatalities
in all her wars.

Bodies and more bodies.

All day, every day.

Guns and more guns.

No place seems safe.

Not even the street.

No person feels safe.

Not even the president.

President Reagan
waves to the crowd,

then is shot in the left lung.

A secret serviceman
is knocked off his feet

by a bullet in the stomach.

This is the gun.

The gunman is arrested.

John Warnok Hinkley, 25.

Son of a wealthy businessman.

- How do you feel?
- How do you feel?

Great.

What are you going to do
when you get home,

Mr. President?

What are you going to do
when you get home?

Sit down.

But the President
of the United States

had been close to death.

It wasn't always like this.

Just 25 years ago,

the American dream
seemed to come true.

Big cars, big houses,
big everything.

But not everyone

could get an equal share
of the dream.

Though it seemed impossible,

they now exist side by side.

America the beautiful

and America the violent.

When legal remedies
are not at hand.

Redress is sought
in the streets.

In demonstrations, parades,

and protests,

which create tensions
and threaten violence

and threaten lives.

We face therefore a moral crisis
as a country and people.

The turning point
was November 22nd, 1963,

the day the American dream
of freedom was wedded

to the American nightmare
of murder.

President John Kennedy,

the symbol of his handsome
young country.

His smile embodies
America's confidence

that it can do anything,

even walk on the moon.

Jacqueline Kennedy is making
her first public appearance

since the tragic death
of their newborn child.

President Kennedy
lands in Dallas at 11:40,

greets the waiting crowd,

and leaves the airport at 11:52.

His motorcade passes
street after street

of enthusiastic crowds
cheering as he waves

and rides into
the heart of Dallas.

At 12:29, his limousine
approaches this building,

passes beneath
his assassin 's window,

and slows down
to 11 miles per hour

to turn this sharp corner
into Dealey Plaza.

The president's car is now
turning onto Elm Street,

and it will be only
a matter of minutes

before he arrives
at the Trade Man'.

I was on the Stemmons
freeway earlier,

and even the freeway was
jam-packed with spectators

waiting their chance
to see the President

as he made his way
towards the Trade Mart.

It appears as though
something has happened

in the motorcade route.

There's numerous people
running up the hill

alongside Elm Street
by the Stemmons Freeway.

Stand by.

Just a moment please.

Parkland hospital,
there has been a shooting.

Parkland hospital has been
advised to stand by

for a severe gunshot wound.

I repeat: A shooting
on the motorcade

in the downtown area.

The president's car
is now going past me.

The limousine is now traveling
at a very high rate of speed.

Secret servicemen
standing up in the limousine.

They are armed
with submachine guns.

It appears as though
someone ahead of the limousine

might have been hit.

Put me on, Phil. Put me on.

Phil, am I on?

We're here at the Trade Man'.

The motorcade is coming by here.

The presidential car
coming up now.

We know it's the
presidential car.

You can see
Mrs. Kennedy's pink suit.

There's a secret serviceman
spread eagle

over the top of the car.

Something is terribly wrong.

Looks as though they're
going to Parkland Hospital.

Could have been one or two
or even all of the people

within the car
may have been the victim here.

There's already a cordon
of police officers

running from the cars,
from their vehicles here.

"The policeman says," No.
You cannot come in here.

You cannot come in here.
We'll let nobody else in."

It was definitely
the president's car.

We can see the
first lady's pink suit.

That's the only
identification we could see.

Just now we received
reports here at Parkland

that Governor Connally was
shot in the upper left chest.

And the first
unconfirmed reports say

the president was hit
in the head.

President Kennedy has been
given a blood transfusion

at Parkland Hospital
here in Dallas

after he and Governor John
Connally of Texas were shot.

Just a moment. Just a moment.
We have a bulletin coming in.

We now put you through directly
to Parkland Hospital.

The President
of the United States is dead.

President Kennedy
has been assassinated.

It's official now.
The president is dead.

Do solemnly swear.

That I will faithfully execute.

The office of
President of the United States.

The office of President
of the United States.

The young widow
leads the shocked nation

through its grief with
great strength and dignity.

She tells her two-year-old son

to salute his father farewell.

Presidents and kings
do the same.

Two hours
after the assassination,

Lee Harvey Oswald, 24,

is arrested in this theater
with a pistol

and taken to this building,
the Dallas police station.

His rifle is found hidden
near the assassin's window.

Two days later,

as Oswald is escorted
to a car in the basement,

a gunman jumps out
of the crowd of reporters.

He's been shot.

He's been shot.

Lee Oswald has been shot.

The gunman is Jack Ruby,

52, a nightclub owner.

In 1964,

the Warren Commission concluded
there was one assassin

who fired three shots
from behind the president.

In 1979,

the House committee concluded
there were two assassins

and four shots fired
from both behind

and in front of the president.

This film is the best evidence.

Which way did the fatal
shot come from?

Government audio experts say

a second assassin fired one shot
from behind this fence.

The controversy continues
to the present day.

We want all of our freedoms.

We want it here,
and we want it now.

Martin Luther King

tried to heal the sickness
of racial hatred

and won the Nobel prize
for urging a violent land

to turn away from violence,

but the answer he got
was more violence.

Shortly after this
photo was taken,

on April 4th, 1968,

Dr. King was assassinated
on this motel balcony

in Memphis by James Earl Ray,

39, prison escapee.

In 1979, a government
investigation concluded

he was probably paid to do it

by two white men
who hated blacks.

The murder of Martin Luther King

triggered riots in 125 cities.

Police needed the help
of 45, 000 soldiers

as the government fought
a war with its own people.

Then another series
of battle lines was created

by the growing hatred
of the war in Vietnam.

~ There's something
happenin' here

~ But what it is
ain't exactly clear

~ There's a man
with a gun over there

~ Tellin' me I got to beware

~ I think it's time we
stop children

~ What's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's going down

~ There's battle lines
being drawn

~ Nobody's right
if everybody's wrong

I' Young people speaking
their minds

~ Getting so much resistance
from behind

~ It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's going down

We want workers
to defend students.

~ What a field-day for the heat

~ A thousand people
in the street

~ Singing songs
and carrying signs

~ Mostly say,
hooray for our side

~ It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's going down

~ Paranoia strikes deep

~ Into your life it will creep

~ It starts when you're
always afraid

~ You step out of line

~ The man come and take you away

~ I think it's time we stop,
children, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's going down

~ Paranoia strikes deep

To shoot to kill any arsonist

or anyone with
a Molotov cocktail

in their hand in Chicago.

~ It starts when you're
always afraid

~ You step out of line

~ The man come and take you away

~ We better stop,
hey, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's going down

~ We better stop,
hey, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's doing down

~ We better stop,
now, what's that sound

~ Everybody look
what's doing down

~ We better stop,
children, what's that sound

I did represent more
the average citizen

in this country than did
any other candidate,

based on the fact that

the man who works
each day for a living

and pays his taxes and
holds the country together

has been ignored
except on election day.

Next president
of the United States:

The honorable George C. Wallace.

Gorge Wallace
has a good chance to defeat.

Richard Nixon
until this day in Maryland,

May 15th, 1972.

Call an ambulance!

This is the gunman,

Arthur Bremer, 22,

a drifter from Milwaukee.

Wounded four times,
Wallace survives

and is confined to
a wheelchair for life

but now has no chance
to be elected.

Call an ambulance!

Before following
Wallace's campaign,

Bremer first fol/owed Nixon.

Though hard to believe,

presidential elections

were now being
decided by killers.

Robert Kennedy
appealed to young and old,

black and white,

student and worker,

trying to end the violence

that began with the
murder of his brother.

We want Bobby.

We want Bobby. We want Bobby.

But as he speaks
at this Los Angeles hotel,

an assassin is waiting nearby.

I thought
that he was the prince.

I thought he was the heir
apparent to President Kennedy,

and I wish to hell
that he could have made it.

When I saw him in real life,
it was a thrill to me, sir;

But when I saw him there
that night at the Ambassador,

he seemed like a saint.

My thanks to all of you

and now on to Chicago,
and let's win there.

Thanks very much.

On this day, June 4th, 1968,

he has won
the California primary,

finishes his victory speech,

and moves through the happy
crowd to this doorway.

Then enters the door

to the kitchen passageway,

where a Palestinian fanatic
waits with a gun.

He is shot from behind
three times,

including pointblank
behind the ear.

Although rapidly
losing blood, he says,

"ls everyone else all right?"

The gunman is Sirhan Sirhan, 24,

a horse track employee
in Los Angeles.

Every morning when I get up,

I say, I wish that son of a gun
were alive.

I wouldn't have to
be here right now.

A doctor.
We need a doctor right here,

there's an emergency,
please, immediately.

The ambulance finally arrives,

but Kennedy dies
in the hospital.

I started searching for coffee.

That was all that
I wanted to do.

And I found some.

In the kitchen area?

But where,
I don't remember, sir.

In a kitchen type room?

I don't remember where I saw it.

But I remember getting the cup.

It was a shiny...

- Large urn'?
- Urn,

and there was a girl there.

I don't remember much more
what happened after that.

- You don't remember?
- I don't remember.

Do you remember anything?

Other than the choking
and the commotion...

I don't remember that.

On May 18th of last year,

you were sitting
and writing in your room.

They're the writings
of a maniac.

They're the writings
of Sirhan Sirhan.

They're not the writings
of me now, sir.

I'm not mentally ill, sir,
but I'm not perfect either.

If you had three wishes,
what would they be?

The first wish...

I wish that Senator Kennedy
was still alive.

And I wish that every day
that I've been here.

Second one,

that there should be peace
in the Middle East.

That's all.

Robert' Kennedy,

killed like his brother
by assassins' bullets.

The killing of America.

A few weeks after
the assassination

of President Kennedy,

the murder rate exploded upward,

tripled in just ten years,

and continues
to the present day.

A new breed of killer appeared.

They didn't want money
or sex or revenge.

It was a new kind of murder

that senseless killing
of random strangers.

The first major sniper incident
occurred in 1966

on this peaceful campus
at Texas University.

The sniper was a student who
fired from this campus tower

overlooking the
whole city of Austin.

Charles Whitman, 25,
an ex-marine sharpshooter.

Like most snipers,

he was a white middle class
honor student

who had never committed a crime.

One morning, he went
to the top in this elevator

with a large supply of food
and ammunition

and all these guns.

Whitman barricaded this door

and used a dolly to pull all
his supplies up these stairs,

then hauled them out
on to the deck

and began methodically
shooting people at random.

The first victims are students
walking across the campus,

talking to friends,
and going to class.

Then Whitman aims at the city
and kills random shoppers

and even a man
in a barber chair.

This is a warning
to the citizens of Austin.

Stay away from
the university area.

Traffic is now
converging on this area.

A boy riding a bicycle
has been shot

and seriously wounded.

There has been a report of a
policeman that has been shot.

Students try to rescue
wounded friends.

There's another shot
and another shot.

But some are already dead.

The county blood bank has asked

that anyone with the
following blood types...

By afternoon,
16 people are dead,

and more than 30
seriously wounded.

Three police officers
finally reach the tower.

The sniper was in this position

as he was distracted
by the officers,

coming from the rear here.

He turned in this manner.

The officers fired a round,
hit him here in this area

with six rounds.

The second blast was
a round from the shotgun,

which hit him here.

This is where the sniper fell,
here in this area here.

Police discovered that
the previous night,

Whitman went to this
apartment building

and stabbed his mother to death.

Then he went home and typed,

"I just killed my mother."

If there's a heaven,
she's going there.

"If not, she's out of her pain."

Then he went in the bedroom
and killed his wife,

asleep in their bed.

But he didn't join her
until he had shot 50 strangers.

Within five years,

snipers had become
a fixture of American life.

Usually they were hardworking,
wholesome looking students,

frequently in the top
2 percent of their class,

often still in high school.

What happened is not
without a lesson to us.

That lesson is that we
must press urgently now

for the legislation
that's pending in congress

to help us prevent
the wrong persons

from obtaining firearms.

The new law merely
prevented minors

from buying guns by mail.

The increasing violence made
gun sales quadruple in 10 years.

By 1970,

the number of privately
owned guns in America

went over 100 million.

The combined total
for Japan, England,

and West Germany
is under 1 million.

Americans now own more guns
than the police and the army.

More than 100 mil/ion guns

in just 60 million households.

Two guns for every family.

September 1980,

a security camera
watches two teenagers

enter this market.

As the first one pays
for a pack of cigarettes,

his accomplice pulls a gun
and demands money.

The clerk agrees,

but before he can
even open the register,

the first teenager orders
the gunman to shoot

for no reason.

Okay.
You have to pump it yourself.

Pack of Marlboro.

Will that be it for you?

This is a hold up.
This is a hold up.

You see this?

Give me all your
money in the bank.

Right now. Fast.

Oh! Oh God!

Call the police. Hurry!

We've just been robbed and shot.

Please hurry.

The 53 year old clerk dies

as his wounded assistant
phones police.

Pack of Marlboro.

Will that be it for you?

This is a holdup.
This is a hold up.

You see this?

Give me all of your
money in the bank.

Right now. Fast.

Oh! Oh God!

We've been robbed
and I've been shot.

Please hurry.

We've been robbed and shot.

Please hurry.

Murders like this
now happen every day.

Eighteen-year-old Robert Smith

was a high school
honor student in Arizona.

One November morning in 1966,
he loaded two pistols,

walked into this beauty school,

and ordered the five women
and two children

to lie on the floor
with their heads at his feet.

One woman hid her baby
under her body,

while another said,
"You better go.

40 students will be here
in a minute."

He said, politely,

"Sorry. I don't have
that many bullets."

Then Robert Smith shot them each
twice in the back of the head

and waited for police to arrive.

When they asked why, he said,

"To get known.

I just wanted to make
a name for myself."

Brenda Spencer,
an excellent student

in a San Diego high school.

One Monday morning in 1979,

she aimed out her bedroom
window with this rifle,

which she had received
for her 16th birthday,

and shot children walking
to the elementary school

across the street.

She killed the janitor
and principal

as they bravely pulled
11 wounded children to safety.

I got shot,
and then Mr. Barnes said,

um, "Crystal",
I mean, he said, um,

"Duck, you guys! Run!"

Then I got shot, and then
I went in the nurse's office,

and I was bleeding a lot.

I was just laying there.

After five hours,

Brenda Spencer
surrendered calmly to police.

When they asked her
who she wanted to shoot,

she said, "I kinda like
red and blue jackets."

When they asked why, she said,

"Because Mondays
are always so boring."

Many of the young people
have lost a purpose in life,

and by so doing,
the human value is so low

that killing himself,

that aggression toward himself,

could easily be transformed

to aggression
toward someone else.

In 1974, Anthony Barbara said,

"Tell mom I went
target shooting."

Instead, he set fire to
his New York high school,

killed passing strangers
from the roof,

and hanged himself.

January 1973,

three black snipers
set fire to this hotel

in downtown New Orleans

and killed guests
in their rooms,

including a young doctor
on his honeymoon.

Other guests
flee to the balconies,

trapped between
flames and bullets.

A terrified black maid is told,

"Don't worry, we're only
shooting whites today."

Then the snipers barricade
themselves on the roof

and shoot arriving firemen.

The chief of police is
killed during the first assault.

Two snipers are killed by
nighttime helicopter assault.

There he is. I think he got him.

Yeah. He's dead.

But the leader
continues shooting

from the rooftop bunker.

He is Robert Essex, 23,

recently discharged
from the navy,

living in this apartment

covered with anti-white slogans.

The attack force carefully
moves onto the roof

and prepares to
charge the bunker.

Finally all the snipers
are dead,

but they have shot
policemen, firemen,

hotel employees and guests.

Like most snipers,
they make no attempt to escape,

as if committing suicide.

The most bizarre killers
are the mad saviors,

who have an insane belief
in salvation by bloodshed.

Sirhan wanted to
save Palestinians.

Mark Essex tried to save
the world from whites.

Manson said he was
saving the world from blacks.

The Manson Family
was a family of murderers

who first brought
to public attention

the new levels of
grotesque viciousness.

Charles Manson, 36,

chose a house at random,

tied up the family at gunpoint,

then ordered his followers
to go inside

and commit ritual slaughter.

Go ride a horse.

You're what?

Go ride a horse.

Feelings towards everything.

I feel no bad. I know no bad.

Yes. Open them.

I'm not against you.

Are you bitter?

Bitter? No. No.

I have a question.
Are you guilty of any murders?

Are you guilty
of plotting any murders?

I killed a chicken once.

- Any human beings?
- No. No.

You're absolutely
innocent of any conspiracy

to commit murder
or telling anyone

to commit murder or planning it?

I'll plead guilty
to the Indians.

Herbert Mullin, 25,

butchered 13 strangers in 1973

because God told him to save
California from earthquakes.

John Frazier, 24,

killed a family,
execution style,

on a divine mission
to stop pollution.

He chose this expensive house

because it was built
on a mountainside.

It belonged to Dr. Victor Ohta,

famous eye surgeon
and humanitarian.

Frazier's note said,

"World War Ill."

Anyone destroying
the environment

"will suffer the
penalty of death."

When arrested, he had shaved
the left side of his head,

hair, beard, eyebrow.

David Berkowitz, 24,

called himself "The Son of Sam."

He believed the
neighbor's barking dog

was the devil's voice,

ordering him
to purify the world.

During 1977, in New York City,

he killed teenage lovers
in parked cars.

When addressed, he said,

"People say, 'He's smiling,"

so he must be happy
he killed them.'

I wasn't happy-

"I just had a job to do
and was doing it."

The Reverend Jim Jones.

I really don't feel comfortable

with our worship
being photographed.

I really don't.

I must go against
the entire council.

I don't feel good about it.

L... They can photograph me
all they choose

because I do not care.

I'm fearless.

I come unafraid of anything.

But I don't want the
cameras focusing on others.

Ask me your questions,

and I'll tell you right
straight from the shoulder

where I stand.

Now get out there...

In 1977, the Mad Savior

decided to save his
San Francisco church

by moving to Guyana

and building this jungle
settlement cal/ed Jonestown.

There's the thumb that
Father told you about

that was cut off.

I called on Father's name.

I put it back,
and it's all right now.

About 3:00 or 3:30
in the morning,

I woke up, and I
had a constriction,

I guess, in my chest,
or in my stomach.

And I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't breathe at all.

I didn't even call on Father.

I thought of him
and then it all went away.

Thanks, Father.

Thank you, Father.

Thank you, Father.

Although Jim Jones
had often been bizarre,

in November, 1978,

the reports from former
Jonestown members

went far beyond the bizarre.

That they considered
a mass suicide,

which my younger brother,

my younger brother
and sister are minors,

they don't have the maturity
to make such a decision as that.

Soto me that would
be mass murder.

Flour, rice, black-eyed peas.

More peas.

We have different containers
around the place.

We couldn't go through
all of it.

Tremendous inventory
they've built up.

Kool-Aid.

The United States government.

And we're hereto inquire into
the health and the welfare

of the American citizens
who are here.

At first, the congressman
finds no evidence

of the incredible rumors.

Many people in your group...

People play games, man.

They lie. They lie.

What can I do about liars?

Are you people gonna leave us?

I just beg you, please leave us.

Bill, we will bother nobody.

Anybody wants to get out
of here can get out of here.

We have no problem
about getting out of here.

They come and go all the time.

I don't know what kind of game...

People like publicity.
Some people do.

I don't.

As the congressman and reporters

return to the remote airstrip,

Jim Jones sends his
assassins to stop them,

hiding behind
a tractor and trailer.

The slaughter continues

as the Mad Savior gives his
people the final salvation

by ordering at gunpoint
their mass suicide,

the babies first.

The congressman's dead.

Please get us the medication.

It's simple. It's simple.

There's no convulsions with it.
It's simple.

Just please get it
before it's too late.

The BDF will be here.

I beg you get moving,
get moving, get moving.

Die with respect-
Die with a degree of dignity.

Lay down your life with dignity.

Don't lay down
with tears and agony.

Accepting death is like stepping
over into another plane.

Don't be this way.

Stop this hysterics.

No way for us to die.

We must die with some dignity.

And finally, Jim Jones himself,

after killing more
than 900 Americans.

There's been
so much violence and uh,

I don't know, just, uh,

it's gotten to
the point that, uh,

the police keep - they have
these magnum weapons now.

They can't hit with them.

They keep blowing people away.

We need people, like...
Come on in.

Come on in.

- It fell through.
- It's okay.

Nobody's getting hurt.
Just come on in.

- Hey, hey, come on in.
- You better come on in.

Come on in. It's too late now.

Grab you a seat over there.

- Sit down.
- Park it.

Park it over here so we
can keep everybody together.

In October 1980,

James Hoskins took over this
Cincinnati television station

after making a newscaster
his hostage in the parking lot.

Are you putting
some responsibility on...?

On all the media.
This was convenient.

It just seems if you could
do something for these people.

It's so frustrating.
My studio's down here.

And I watch people
down in the street,

they're fighting over
nickels and dimes.

There just seems...

You watch the politicians
they got the same old bull.

Reagan's got the same bull.
Carter's got the same bull.

We do not have
democracy at this time.

Jim, we probably have
another minute or so

on this tape.

Is there any other point
you wanted to make?

I can't think of any
point I want to make

except give me a place

where the police
can come and get me

and we're going to shoot it out.

And you people can leave.

Here?

Well, I don't see any other
place for me to shoot it out.

They've got their magnums.

They want to hurt the
poor people of the street?

I've got my magnums.

I'm ready. I'm loaded.

How will that help, though?

All these idealistic things
you just said, how...

You seem like such
a nice gentleman.

I blew my girlfriend
away tonight.

It's over for me.

- Can we...
- We planned to do big things.

We plan to take your station.

And through madness.

I'm trying to hold it together.
I killed her.

We won't...
We planned to do things together

and I went berserk.

She's dead.

I can say, you don't seem
like the kind of person...

If you don't want to hurt us...

I don't want to hurt you.
I would like you to leave.

I just want the police...

They're always hurting
poor people...

Let them come and [beep].

Let them come and hurt me now.

That won't solve anything.

That wouldn't solve anything
but I killed my girlfriend.

What am I going to do?

But it wouldn't solve
anything, though.

What am I going to do?

Can we get some help for you?

- We have friends.
- You cannot get help for me.

They're going to take me...

They're going to
put me in prison.

They're going to
put me in there...

They're going to put people
in where they rape you...

Turn this thing off

so you don't get these
four letter words.

Waiting for police to attack,

he sat in the newscaster's
chair and shot himself.

In April, 1979,

Richard Townsend,
a San Diego psychotherapist,

is forced at gunpoint
to remove his money

from this bank by Newman Osebar,

a Nigerian student living
with Townsend's family

for two years.

Police surround
the white Porsche

while Townsend sits
at the steering wheel

with Osebar pressing
the gun to his head.

Traffic on the freeway
is stopped.

After two hours of negotiations,
Osebar agrees to surrender.

As instructed,
he throws out his coat,

belt, shoes.

Here her comes.

Got both feet out.

Well, there's that.

Oh, there goes a shoe.

He's got the shoes off,
two shoes.

Well, he's out, Mom.

Oh!

Damn!

Christ!

But he comes out aiming a .45.

The hostage is rescued.

The gunman dies
in the ambulance.

The traffic moves again.

Richard Hall is taken hostage

in his own mortgage company

and marched down
the streets of Indianapolis

in 1977.

As Hall slips, an excited
rookie draws his gun.

A seasoned veteran
motions him to holster it.

What are you doing
with that thing?

Yeah, right in his neck.

Start acting like
you know something.

Shut up, you dumb bastard.

Go.

The gunman takes
a pair of police handcuffs

and a patrol car.

What are you going to do?

Stop.

Hey, get the cars
out of the way now.

Anthony Kiritsis,

a bartender, is enraged at Hall

for turning down
his loan application.

The handcuffed hostage,

with a sawed off shotgun
wired to his bleeding neck,

is paraded before
reporters for three days.

Hold it. Hold it.

I want this goddamn
thing understood.

I'll read it.

Number one...

Another wire runs
from the trigger

to the gunman's neck.

Give me a drink, pal.

Give me a drink.

I'm sober, man.

I had six drinks in 1976,

and I haven't had any this year.

And I don't miss
them a fucking bit.

Number 4...

"We found it impossible
to agree on terms

satisfactory to our
best interest."

Their best interest.

I went up there to borrow money

to build a 10,000
square foot restaurant,

that would have
grown to a million,

2 million bucks a year

and these motherfuckers
gave it to somebody else.

What happened?
What's the matter?

Jim?

I told this man,

I told this man
before this thing was over

that he would think
I was a goddamn witch.

I read him all these things,
all these charges

that were on that paper,
plus some.

That I typed up a few months
ago and tried to recall

and recall back four years.

I called every goddamn
one of them, didn't I, Dick?

- Didn't I?
- That's right.

- Every goddamn one.
- That's right.

I hope this doesn't go off.

I'm having too much fun.

I said, ladies and gentlemen,

that these people were lucky
they were dealing with me.

I haven't got a goddamn
nerve in my body,

and you're goddamn lucky.

A nervous guy would have
blown his goddamn brains out

a long time ago.

And I can tell you, by god.
I was in trouble.

I was in a hell
of a lot of trouble.

You saw one of these
goddamn things off

and kidnap somebody,

I'm going to tell you
something, fellows,

there ain't gonna be much left
in that old road.

I'd like to please...

A lot of nice people called me
in two or three days

and told me
that they were behind me,

and I want to thank them.

I want to thank my brothers
Henry and George.

Mark and John.

Johnny, I can't think
of his last name.

Johnny Ferguson.

Unit code 2.

Kiritsis finally releases Hall

and surrenders to police.

The courts acquit him
of any crime

but confine him
to a mental hospital.

Let me say something.

We all live in the
greatest country on earth,

but this is the
type of thing that

undermines the liberties
that my father and my mother

came here from Greece for,

and probably
all of your ancestors.

And I'm not trying to be corny.

I may be a flag waver,

but I wave it a hell of
a lot better than John Wayne.

I'll tell you that.

- I did not.
- Okay.

But for three days

they seem to embody
the plight of their country.

The man of progress

with the fool of violence
on his back.

Drop the gun.

Drop it.

Drop it.

San Diego, 1979.

Sam Brown was a sidewalk sniper,

shooting at the drivers
of passing cars.

Drop it.

Neighbors say he claimed
to come from outer space,

from the Starship Enterprise,

with a secret message
for earth people.

He died on the way
to the hospital.

For three long minutes,

he ignored police shouts
to drop his weapon

and calmly looked the other way,

then casually shifted his legs,

concealing the fact
that he was raising his gun.

All this puts enormous
pressures on police.

The American judicial
and penal systems

are so overloaded

that killers facing life in prison

are allowed to plead
guilty to a lesser charge

and get out in a few months.

Though hard to believe,

even Sirhan Sirhan
will be released in 1984.

Everyone pays the
penalty for these failures,

but every two days

one police officer
pays with his life.

In two years,

3 officers were
killed in England

and 13 in Japan,

while America lost 372.

~ I believe in homicide

~ I rest my case

~ Don't cast a sign

~ You'd better believe it

~ That's the truth of it

They got dudes out here
that will pay up to

$2,000 for a girl
11 years old, you know.

For six hours.

So they pay up to $2,000
for that, you know?

I don't know.

I gotta make some money
tonight, too.

Listen, me and you.

All the kinky guys
are out tonight.

Most of them like
to see guys dance,

and I don't dance.

What do you mean "dance"?

You take off your clothes
and dance in front of them?

Mm-hmm.

- How much they give you?
- Twenty.

Take off your clothes and dance.

That's embarrassing.

I know. Too embarrassing.

Do they put on music even?

Yeah, they put on music.

It's not good music,
but it's music.

~ You better believe it

It'll be destructive.

Yeah, he'd try to beat you up.

And every time he'd go,

"You can leave
any time you want."

And you say,
"Well, maybe I'll leave now."

And he goes,
"No, you can't do that."

And he pushes you back
on the bed.

He wants to kill people.
He wants to kill some of them.

I Homicide.

I Homicide.

I Homicide.

I Homicide

~ You try to tell me
it's his fault

I just freaked.

I said, "What?"

I mean, I'm sitting there,
thinking she's crying.

What she's doing was
she's was gagging on her blood

out of her nose and mouth.

- It was so lodged with blood...
- What did she do?

She shot herself.

And I saw the bullet hole
and the gun on the floor

and her eyes closed.

And she's going [snorting].

You know,
all the blood and shit,

and I freaked me out.

I just picked up the gun.

I was debating on
whether to shoot myself.

Put it down, you know.

I opened up the door,
I started screaming, man.

"Murder," you know, "Suicide."

"Somebody get an ambulance."

"Help me," you know,
"Make her live."

I started trying
to hold her hand.

Manager grabbed me.

Told me to take
my hands off her.

I said, "Bitch, she's my mother."

You don't tell me the take
my hands off my own mother."

You know, I was telling her
live, you know, survive,

you know, live through it.

She died nine hours later.
She died the next day.

The public generally
never sees what you find

when you arrive there.

And you...

A million things
go through your mind.

You sit there and say, "My god.
What's happened here?"

How could this happen?

"How could anybody
do something like this?"

All the general things
that the layman would think,

you experience
these things also.

Did you at any time
ever use an ice pick?

No, sir.

You struck Ms. Lamp
with a sledge hammer.

Do you recall the sledge
hammer, which was introduced?

Yes, sir, I recall it.

- Was that true?
- No, sir.

Lawrence Bittaker,

with an IQ of 138,

dragged high school girls
into his van,

then murdered them
by twisting a coat hanger

around their throat
with a pair of pliers.

When his tape recording
of one murder

was played in court,

people rushed outside
and vomited.

I touched Ms. Ledford
in the breast

with cold metal pliers.

And if you listen to the tape,

you'll hear those
pliers being replaced

in the tool box
a few seconds later.

What did you touch her
on the breast for

with a pair of pliers?

To shock her
with the cold metal.

The 20th century is called.

The Age of Mass Murder

because sex killers
appeared every five years.

But in the 70s,

they began appearing
every five weeks.

In 1971,

farm labor contractor
Juan Corona

made headlines for killing
25 men who worked for him.

By 1977,

sex killers were so commonplace

that aerospace engineer
Patrick Kearney

made no headlines

when he pleaded guilty
to killing 21 boys.

John Gacy, 36,

a building contractor,

was known for his
extreme generosity

and civic sen/ice,

such as entertaining
at children's hospitals

as a clown.

In 1978,

the bodies of 32 teenage
boys were found

under his suburban Chicago home.

Gacy grabbed the first victims
from streets near gay bars

but then concentrated
for five years

on the high school boys
in his neighborhood.

A 15-year-old
went to play baseball

and never came home.

A 16-year-old
went to ask for a job

with Gacy's
construction company.

A 17-year-old went to tell
Gacy his paycheck was late.

Their mutilated bodies were
found under the house of death.

John Gacy was finally arrested

because he ran out of space

and dumped the
33rd body in a river.

Are you guilty of killing
anyone at all'?

Am I guilty of killing
anyone at all?

No, I'm not.

Unless you could say
Dean Corll was killing?

I defended myself.

Wayne Henley.

He first gets involved in
the Houston Mass Murders

in 1971,

when he is only 15,

by bringing his teenage
buddies to the house

of a fatherly friend
who is twice his age.

What did he want you to do?

He wanted to pay me
to find people

and bring them to him,

and help him do his thing,

and kill them,
and help him bury them.

- And pay me.
- He was going to pay you?

How much would he
pay you per person?

I don't know.

He said $1,500 once.

$1,500 a person?

That's what he said.

Dean Corll, 33,

electrician and ex-Marine.

Although he never
pays any money,

Wayne keeps bringing him boys
for two and a half years.

Most of the 27 victims live
on the same street as Wayne,

attend the same
junior high school,

and know Wayne Henley
all their lives

until he invites them to
Dean's house for beer and poker.

Although Wayne wants no
part in the homosexual rapes,

he joins more and more

in the slow torture

and sadistic killing
of his friends.

Inside Dean's house,

the naked victims are handcuffed

to this plywood board
at gunpoint.

The floor is covered with vinyl
sheets to catch their blood.

The stereo is turned up
to drown out their screams.

The horrified boys
see Dean get undressed

and hope it's only rape.

Then they see Wayne
take out the hunting knife.

One summer night in 1973,

Dean Corll suddenly tries
to rape and murder Wayne

on their torture board.

Hello?

Mama?

Who's this?

It's Wayne.

Yes, this is Mama, baby.

- Mama?
- Yes.

I killed Dean.

What?

Oh honey, you didn't.

Yes.

Oh, God.

Where are you?

I'm... It's all right.
It's all right.

It's all right.

Where are you?

I'm by his warehouse.

Where?

At that warehouse he keeps.

Can I come out there?

Yeah. Yes.

Is that in Lawrence Park?

She can't... No. You can't come.

I'm with the police, Mama.

Wayne showed police

the mass graves on the beach.

It took a bulldozer
to find all 27 bodies.

The early ones were decomposed.

The later ones mutilated,

chewed and castrated.

One victim disappeared
three months after his brother.

Two more brothers
disappeared on the same day.

The youngest victim was nine,
son of the comer grocer.

Wayne's best friend
was a popular 7th grader

who liked to make everyone laugh.

David Hilligiest, 13.

Wayne's mother
and David's mother,

both strict religious women,

had been friends for 15 years.

The two boys had
always been playmates,

running in and out
of each other's houses

since they could walk.

Until the day David's parents
sent him to pick up

his little brother from
the public swimming pool...

the day David disappeared.

What did he tell you
about this location out here?

He told me that he had
David Hilligiest out here.

What'd he say about David?

He just told me
that he killed him

and buried him out here.

What did he want you to do?

He wanted to pay me
to find people

and bring them to him.

Help him do his thing
and kill them.

Well, I was just heartbroken.
That's all.

I don't know how
to express myself.

I just felt just dead.
That's all.

What is your reaction
toward the Henleys

that live just a block
or so up the street?

Um, I have no bitterness.

I've known them all these years,

and I have a lot of
compassion for them.

I realize that even with
our grief with our son

possibly being dead

and possibly him
knowing about it...

I can feel compassion for them

because I feel that they're
in a much tougher place

right now than we are.

Wayne's in great spirits.

He said everybody
had been really nice.

Most sadistic mass murderers
like Wayne

have an IQ above 125,

yet they continue the kill
like clockwork.

More than 100 victims
in four cases.

Almost as if they are
dedicated to the killing

of America itself.

One even said he mass
murdered college students

"because" I wanted to hurt
society where it hurt the most

by taking its most
valuable future members."

Kenneth Bianchi was called
the Hillside Strangler

because he dumped the victims
on Hollywood hillsides.

He dragged women from streets
and apartments to his van.

Bianchi said his accomplice
was his cousin,

Angelo Buono.

To even begin to try
and live with myself

I have to take responsibility
for what I've done.

You...

you're a motherfucker for
trying to get me to leave him.

I killed her,
and Angelo killed her.

You mean the Wechler
one Angelo killed?

This broad I never seen before.

Martinic.

This broad I never seen before.

- You never saw them at all?
- No.

This broad I never seen before.

Robinson?

This broad I killed.

These two Angelo killed.

- Johnson and...
- This one I never seen before.

This one I never seen before.

This broad I killed.

Markum you've never seen before

and Ms. Kastin is the broad
you killed, you say?

Am I going too fast for you?

Yeah, you're going so damn fast.

I'm not that smart.

Ted Bundy.

The FBI suspects him of being
America's worst sex killer,

murdering possibly
40 coeds in six states

over a five year period.

In Seattle,
he was a law student,

suicide therapist,
and assistant to the governor.

When he wrote the official
review of state crime laws,

his friends and teachers
were sure one day

he would be governor himself.

The police were sure he had
murdered sleeping women

with such fury

that he ripped apart
their bed frames,

then bludgeoned and raped
them with the metal bars.

But police never had
enough proof to go to court.

Bundy never left finger prints,

and eyewitnesses
never recognized

his constantly changing face.

When he grabbed
a 12-year-old girl

running to her gym class
and dragged her to his car,

a passerby thought
he was an angry father

beating his sobbing child.

Bundy stuffed her mangled corpse

in an abandoned pig sty.

He said he was going to get it.

Okay. You've got the indictment.

It's all you're going to get.

In Tallahassee,

he was finally indicted
for mass murder.

I'll plead not guilty right now.

And your grand jurors,
being present,

given the court to be
informed and understand...

Alright. I'll be heard.

He tore up the
indictment in the elevator

but was brought to trial.

How you doing?

Aren't you getting
tired of Florida?

During the night
of January 15th, 1978,

Ted Bundy crept into the
Chi Omega sorority house

with a club.

He exploded from bedroom
to bedroom in a frenzy,

savagely assaulting
coed after coed.

The testimony showed that
the frontal area of the brain

of the skull was
fractured jagged

and exposed a portion
of the brain.

She was left in her own bed
in a pool of blood.

As to Count ll
of the indictment,

the Court finds while
the victim was in her bed

was stripped of her
night clothing.

One nipple was
incised and bit off.

There was evidence
of vaginal and anal trauma,

and she was left in a pool
of blood in her own bed.

It was determined, of course,

that there was a bite mark.

A clear bite bark had
been made in the buttocks

of one victim.

It matched Bundy's teeth
as precisely as a fingerprint.

I can't.

- I'm leaving the courtroom.
- No, you're not.

Sit down.

Sit down, Mr. Bundy.

Sit down, Mr. Bundy.

I'm not going to be in this
room when the jury walks out.

I'm not going through this
and you knew that, Your Honor.

- Sit down.
- You know how far you can push me.

You want a circus,
you got a circus.

I'll rain on your parade, Jack.

You'll see a thunderstorm.

Mr. Bundy, sit down.

I know it's not a party but
please have water in the room.

You understand? Get off!

And if there's any more delay
in this courts proceedings

occasioned by your
voluntary acts,

we're proceeding without you.

Since I have been
in Dade County...

Don't shake your finger
at me, young man.

Don't shake your
finger at me, young man!

But Bundy couldn't
stop the testimony

of three coeds who miraculously
survived his brutal fury.

Some of my teeth
were knocked out.

Um, I had broken facial bones.

I had a broken arm
and a crushed finger.

Her jaw bone was
held together by a metal pin.

Damage to the inner ear
forced another survivor

to abandon her career in ballet.

I had five skull fractures

and multiple contusions
in my head.

And because of the
skull fractures,

the 8th nerve was damaged,

and I lost the hearing
in my left ear

and the equilibrium.

And I had a broken jaw,

and my left shoulder
was pulled out of joint.

Mr. Bundy.

Yes.

Would you point him out
then for the Court?

Objection.

I will allow this
for the purpose of the motion.

It is further ordered that,
on such scheduled date,

that you be put to death
by a current of electricity.

His mother listened to the end.

And such current of
electricity shall continue

to pass through your body
until you are dead.

It's a tragedy for this Court
to see such a total waste

of humanity that I've
experienced in this court.

You're a bright young man.

You'd have made a good lawyer.

I'd have loved to have you
practice in front of me.

But you went
another way, partner.

Take care of yourself.

I'm an American

and I went off the deep end.

Ed Kemper has been
sewing a life sentence

in this California prison
since 1973,

when, at the age of 24,
he murdered his mother,

then called police and confessed

to having dismembered
college coeds for two years,

as well as cannibalizing

and raping
their headless bodies.

When someone abandons
himself to being a victim,

he's going to have to be one.

With an IQ of 136,

Kemper is now
the prison's best reader

of books for the blind.

I'm saying I wanted
to kill my mother

since I was 8 years old
and I'm not proud of that.

It started with surrogates
at a nonhuman level,

physical objects,
my possessions, other people's.

Destruction of things
that are cared about,

and then destruction
of things that are living,

on a lower level, small animals,

insects, animals,

and then finally people.

It started coming
to a head again

so I went back down.

I ran away back down there.

And then a month later, I'm up
living with my grandparents

in the mountains
and ten months later,

I murdered them.

It made it worse to be
on top of a mountain.

I was literally on the top of
a mountain when it happened.

And I could sense...
I sensed everybody in the world

just stopping what
they're doing,

turning around, saw what I did,

and are coming to get me.

And I knew I was paranoid
at that moment,

and I knew anybody
that came up there

and give me a funny look
or fishy eye

or quizzical look,
I'd have blown their brains out

thinking they were
coming to get me.

If it had been in a city,

I'd have been a mass
murderer at age 15.

I would have killed
until they gunned me down.

I wouldn't have been able
to reason my way out of it.

I was scared to death
and I was violent.

I felt my back hit that wall.

I was the rabbit
that always ran,

always backed away,
always burns his bridges.

Suddenly there weren't any more.

My back hit that wall,
and I came out screaming

and kicking and shooting.

He was released
to the one person

that authorities at the
state mental hospital

recommended he never see again.

I got paroled to my mother.

Atascadero decided

that I didn't ever need
to talk to her again at all.

Don't give her
Christmas present.

Leave her alone.

She got her pound
of flesh out of you.

I wasn't sniveling
about my mother to them.

I didn't like to hear
what they had to say about her.

She went through three husbands
like a hot knife through butter.

Four months after I was out,

I was back into the fantasy bag.

My first date was
an absolute disaster.

Wasn't her fault, you know?

And I didn't blame her
even then.

I'm saying.
It was a terrible tragedy.

But boy, she didn't
ever talk to me again.

It was awful.

Wasn't sexual or grabbing
at her or any of that.

I was just such a dork.

Taking her to a John Wayne
movie and Denny's.

It's terrible.

I never been on a date.

At 16 It was cool, you know?

I'd never been on a date,
you know?

I was locked up since I was 15.

But I can't tell her that.

"Oh, gee. Don't mind me."

She kind of got hung up
on my looks or whatever.

She was a gorgeous young lady.
Pure class.

And she saw something there
that I guess wasn't there.

And boy, she found out quick.

Taking elaborate precautions,

he drove around universities
and picked up hitchhiking coeds

while wearing these glasses.

These are the ones.

Now, would you get
in a car with this man?

Huh?

Hmm?

The state has made me much more
credible as a human being.

While his mother worked
at the university,

Kemper buried the mutilated
bodies in the mountains

and took the severed heads home.

Then he slept with
their heads for days,

and finally went
looking for more.

I was losing a grasp
on something

that was too violent
to keep inside forever.

As I'm sitting there with
a severed head in my hand,

talking to it or looking at it,

and I'm about to go crazy,
literally.

I'm about to go
completely flywheel loose,

and just fall apart.

I say, "Wow. This is insane."

Then I told myself,
"No, it isn't."

You're saying that.

"And that makes it not insane."

I said, "I'm sane,
and I'm looking at a..."

I said, "Wait a minute.
Wait a minute."

I've seen paintings
and drawings of Viking heroes

talking to severed heads
and taking them to parties.

Old enemies in leather bags.

"Part of our heritage."

This is me back then
in 1972 and '73.

Unable to live with the fact
that I just stabbed to death

and out the throat of an
innocent young woman.

Innocent in the sense that she
did not plan on that happening.

She didn't do anything
specifically

for that to happen to her,

yet was a very active
participant in her own death.

And in my memory of that.
She was 19 years old,

and her roommate in the trunk

who died right after that
was 18.

I didn't go hog wild
and totally...

What I'm saying is,

I found myself doing things
in an attempt

to make things
fit together inside.

I was doing sexual
probing and things,

in the sense of striking out
or reaching out

and grabbing and pulling to me.

But appalled at the sense
that it wasn't working.

That isn't the way
it's supposed to be.

It isn't the way I want it.

See what I'm saying?

And yet I get, during that time,

I become engaged to someone
who is young and beautiful

and very much
the same advantages

and very much
the same upbringing.

And Disneyland values.

And she's very much
the reason I surrendered.

I picked up two girls who
were so much like the first two,

it was unbelievable.

Almost identical circumstances.
And I let them go.

Everything went
towards killing them,

and I didn't.

But I'm saying,
"Wow. It's uncanny."

It was almost like it
was meant to be that way.

And I said, "Wow. I've got...
This has got to stop"

and I let them out.

They never even knew
what was going on.

I let them out.

I would have gotten away
with those two being murdered.

Said, "No. It's got to stop."

And a week later,
I murdered my mother.

Went back to Santa Cruz
and killed her.

He killed her with a hammer
in her sleep.

Cut off her head and hands,

but then put her vocal cords
in the garbage disposal

and threw darts
at her severed head.

I am an American
and I killed Americans.

I am a human being
and I killed human beings.

And I did it in my society.

Death to the Klan.

Death to the Klan.
Death to the Klan.

A hundred years
after the O.K. Corral,

gunfights continue
in the streets

in the land of a million murders

and a hundred million guns.

How long can we afford
to have unregistered guns,

handcuffed prosecutors
and revolving door prisons?

Whatever it takes,
the solutions will be expensive.

But is living in fear
a cheaper price?

How many senseless murders
are we willing to tolerate?

Does the rate need
to quadruple again

before we've had enough
to make us fight back?

You know, people get together

and just howl, you know, play.

Whatever.

But we're trying it our way.

Maybe one day
we'll all get together.

But we must all do something.

~ All we are saying

~ ls give peace a chance

John Lennon gave his
autograph to the gunman,

six hours before
the senseless shooting,

in the entrance to his New York
apartment building.

~ If I give my heart to you

I I must be sure

~ From the very start

~ That you would love
me more than her

~ If I trust in you

Maybe it won't happen
again if we all join together.

We have about 40 seconds

before we begin our vigil.

We ask everyone 's cooperation

with respect to our great
friend John Lennon,

who I'm sure
is with you all today.

We ask for complete silence.

We begin our vigil now.

At the conclusion,
to terminate our vigil,

we will begin our recorded
John Lennon music.

We start now.

May we all pray.

~ Imagine there's no heaven

~ It's easy if you try

~ No hell below us

~ Above us only sky

~ Imagine all the people

~ Living for today... Aha-ah...

~ No need for greed or hunger

~ A brotherhood of man

~ Imagine all the people

~ Sharing all the world...
You...

~ You may say I'm a dreamer

~ But I'm not the only one

~ I hope some day you'll join us

~ And the world will live as one

Two people were shot
at this Central Park vigil.

While you watched this movie,

five more of us were murdered.

One was the random
killing of a stranger.